Eric Beck wrote:
>
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 4:20 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> wrote:
>
> > She has a lot of virtues, but the voice reflects the
> moral-exhortatory
> > nature of her politics. It's always more about outrage than
> understanding -
> > even victimization than resistance or triumph.
>
> You are right: the form and the content are in perfect alignment. I
> heard a speech of hers recently in which she talked about how she and
> other journalists were repressed and hassled at some protest she was
> covering, and it was all outrage and victimization. She kept telling
> the police that she had credentials, that they had no right to detain
> and harass her, that she was going to lodge a complaint against them,
> etc. It made me laugh: the denunciation of repressive power ("I've got
> rights!") and the simultaneous appeal to it to protect her ("I'm going
> to report you!"). It was one of the most painful things I've heard in
> awhile and reminded me why I avoid her show.
You are a left-theorist and (properly) self-nominated left leaer (there is no other way the left can get leaders except through self-nomination). So, to use Doug's terminology, what you need to develop is understanding, not rage, etc. But _how_ do people come into the movement? They respond to agitation, theory or propaganda (2d International, not Goebels' sense). That is, the agitation appeals to their outrage, sense of victimization, at the situation they find themslves in. You and Doug are abstractly right, but you are not really allowing for a division of labor on tis. We will always need that sort of agitation, since there will always be people outside the movement that need to be reached by their sense of outrage.
Carrol
Carrol