[lbo-talk] move your money campaign

[Carrol Cox]

Actually, I don't think the economic argument is relevant to judging the
Move Your Money action. What is relevant is whether the agitation,
propaganda, & internal discussion, along with the outreach activities are
serving to expand the mobilizations which have been underway since
Wisconsin. Nothing we do _now_ is going to have any effect _now_ on public
policy. Our actions should be controlled by the purpose of expanding our
ranks, multiplying relations between leftists or vaguely leftist groups,
increasing political discussion, and so forth. There is this opening, and we
have to do everything in our power to take advantage of it.

Only the cumulative activity of several years had any effect on u.s. policy
during the Vietnam War. The November 1969 Moratorium might have had great
effect, but not by itself but as the accumulative impact, brought to a point
in it, of the preceding 10 years, the Freedom Rides, the Free Speech
movement, the building occupations by black students, the raised fists of
the athletes at the playing of the national anthem in Mexico City. 

We build a movement. Does a given activity aid that task. Any argument that
shifts our focus away from that is to be avoided; any action which
contributes to it is to be favored.

Say a given demand is silly in the sense that if granted it would not have
the desired effect. That is irrelevant. If it got people together, and if
they go on, discussing and debating politics, they have made the right
choice. The silly demand is forgotten & harmless.

As they said in the Civil Rights Movement, Keep your eye on the prize. And
the prize is not in either helping or hurting the big banks.

Carrol