What say you?"
[WS:] Zizek is right on the money when he talks about the need of an organization to transform a rebellion into a revolution. Western history is full of peasant rebellions that went nowhere - the rage erupted and subsided, the leaders were eventually caught and hanged, the peasant returned back to their toil. These peasant discontent turned into a revolution, as they did in Russia or China, only when some form of organization was able to capture their potential and employ to a revolutionary project.
>From a somewhat different angle - the reason why capitalists are
winning and disgruntled grunts - and their leftist cheerleaders - are
losing is that the former have powerful organization at their disposal
(aka the corporation) whereas the latter eschew any organization in
favor of amorphous spontaneous activities - from looting and smashing
windows to kvetching on the internet.
A different point - Zizek is right when he ascertains that looting rioters and terrorist share the same roots - they are a product of capitalism. He, (or rather Zygmunt Bauman, whom he cites) is right about the consumerist provenance of window smashing and looting , but I think he misses the point about terrorism. Terrorism is not an expression of powerlessness - but rather a very successful application of the product that capitalism perfected - the spectacle. Terrorism is not about achieving any strategic or even tactical objectives, but about creating the biggest and most shocking spectacle that leaves the Western entertainment reality shows in the dust. It is obvious from the selection of its targets - it selects targets that are spectacular (planes, trains) but of little of strategis or tactical value. No target of any strategic value (such as oil installations, power lines, communications) have ever been attacked by terrorists, even though attacking them is easier than attacking spectacular targets. From that pov, attacks of Somali pirates have greater strategic importance - even though they purely commercial ventures - than any action that Al Qaeda and fellow travelers have ever been able to concede.
Wojtek