[lbo-talk] : The New Anarchist

[c b]

Civil disobedience logically must be of an unjust law.  I believe
Thoureau broke laws unjustly collecting taxes for unjust war,
Ghandists unjust colonialist laws, 60's Civil rights activists unjust
segregation laws.  The Occupation's breaking park regulations is very
indirectly breaking the unjust laws being protested which are ultimately
the laws of private property.  An important distinguishing
characteristic of the Occupation is it is a protest of private
property and institutions, which is not identical with the govenrment
and public institutions. The distinction is important because
criticism of the government, and not private property,  is an American
passtime. This tradition
overlaps with the American anarchist, i.e. anti-government tradition
and importantly is a main fascist Tea Party/libertarian focus.  The
central Tea Party criticism of the
Occupation is, of course, that it should not be protesting Wall Street
, but the government. Exactly wrong. What is new and critical about
the Occupation is that it takes a form of activity always directed at
government and directs it at private property institutions. It
polticizes the Market. The government is already sufficiently
politicized in the US.  So, the Occupation should
be careful not to over protest for the right to demonstrate in a
public park when it has had more time to protest in public parks than
most in the past.
In the  past limitations on First Amendment
rights , protesting the government something of a  diversion in a libertarian
direction for the Movement. The police brutality must be protested
(Fourth Amerdment rights) but that too is a diversion, the police
drawing protest on to themeselves and off of Wall Street and private
property Keep the focus on private property laws.

 "In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the
single sentence: Abolition of private property. "

^^^^^^^^^
An important aspect of the occupations is how so many other geographic
locations responded and militantly to the initial #Occupy Wall Street
protest. It seems to me that the substantive issues of protest,
unfairness of the 99%/1% unequal distribution of wealth and the
bailout of the institutions where wealth is already unfairly
concentrated somehow resonated with a large number of people all over
America.   A bigger chunk than I thought of the 99% "get it" already;
get the anti-capitalism as a system message already. And a bigger
chunk of the 99% are militantly angry about what capitalism is doing
to them.

The Facilitated Concensus form of meeting may be popular because
American radical tradition is significantly anarchist. The novelty of
the form is some of its appeal. Actually, contrast with "democratic
centralism" is too narrow. "Democratic centralism" is the same thing
as "majority rule" or sort of "vulgar" democracy. Lenin used the term
, but he was in a country that had a history of autocracy, not
majority rule. So, he was spelling it out and using a fancy term to
explain to people who were not used to being in meetings where Roberts
rules were followed , which means votes with majority rule. That the
minority abides by the decisions of the majority - democratic
centralism- is the same thing, identical to, majority rule, no ?

Roberts Rules of Order is more fully what Facilited Consensus
replaces, because the GA meetings are still on the scale of meetings
customarily run by Roberts'.

Charle