[lbo-talk] Thinking Big

Yoshie Furuhashi critical.montages at gmail.com
Thu Sep 13 16:56:58 PDT 2007


On 9/12/07, Mr. WD <mister.wd at gmail.com> wrote:
> My impression is that a lot of regular folks have been really
> traumatized by the Democrats' failure to stop this war. The 10th
> grade civics class narrative about how representative government works
> -- which is all most people have -- has been shattered. This,
> combined perhaps with the problems in the credit markets, presents a
> rare opportunity for the left to remind people that there is an
> alternative to wasting your time with American electoral politics.

I agree. It's not fear alone that has made people passive, which in any case is relatively a minor factor among white citizens of middle strata. Those who have the fewest rights and most reasons to fear -- undocumented workers subject to deportation -- were also the ones who took the most impressive actions -- the largest wave of strikes and rallies -- in post-9/11 America. Rather, those who once marched against the invasion of Iraq, the Republican National Convention, and so on in big numbers have more recently stayed home because they are at a loss as to what to do next. They have peacefully demonstrated in the streets, and they have voted for Democrats, and neither has changed US policy. What is to be done, then? That's the question we need to address.

Chuck0's idea, mass civil disobedience at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, may not be immediately doable this year or even six months or a year from now, but it is true that the plant is a great chokepoint, which I hadn't realized till he mentioned it:

The Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Independence,

Mo., directly supplies the military with more than 80

percent of its small-arms ammunition. Production at the

factory has more than tripled since 2002, rising from

roughly 425 million rounds that year to 1.4 billion rounds

in 2006, according to the Joint Munitions Command at the

Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois.

Most of the rest of the military's small-arms ammunition

comes from Falls Church, Va.-based General Dynamics

Corp., which relies partly on subcontractors -- some of

whom also supply police departments. ("Ammunition

Shortage Squeezes Police," Associated Press, 17 August

2007)

Identification of chokepoints helps us practice thinking strategically, so it helps us in our "mental fight" (to take William Blake's term).

If people are not ready for civil disobedience, why not demonstration at this location? No sizable demonstration has taken place near this plant, so, if nothing else, the media will have a reason to cover it just for its novelty, whereas the media can very well ignore demonstrations at usual locations such as Washington, D.C. unless they are really huge.

Carrol says that we do not have "cadres"* for mass civil disobedience yet, and that is probably true. Then, the question is, how can we turn ourselves into, and encourage others into becoming, such "cadres"?

* And there remains a question that Bitch | Lab asked. What exactly are "cadres" when we don't mean party cadres? Does the term still make sense? -- Yoshie



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