[lbo-talk] See!

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Fri Feb 11 12:55:03 PST 2011


Adam Proctor: "Let's all agree to start building those radical working class institutions in the US. ======

You have a plan?

What would be the first step? Can you describe two or three of those institutions?

How do you know in advance what institutions will be revolutionary? History is against you. Very few institutions built "in advance" have turned out to be revolutionary when the need for them suddenly appeared. Even non-revolutionary radical institutions don't last very long. The history of Pacifica is pretty typical of what happens to radical institutions during "normal" times.

A year or two ago there was a huge "anti-capitalist" demonstration in England. Someone sitting on the sidelines criticized it on the basis that it hadn't had the "right" goal or something like that because no one had properly done the theory for it. That bleacher-fan had it upside down: theory comes from, originates in, such actions rather than 'governs' them. It's true that, so far as I know, nothing came from it, just as seemingly nothing came from the Seattle demos of a decade ago. But that is the wrong perspective. First one builds actions. If they trigger something, fine, then as they develop, they become theorized from inside. If theye fail to ignite anything, one goes back to building another action. And so on.

No one knows, no one even has a good guess, no one can know, what kind of organizations, what kind of present activity, will prove relevant when (unforeseeable) events suddenly generate a larger response to some initiative. Hence activists just have to keep on being activists. What local group do you belong to now? What is it trying to do now within what kind of a context. How large a mailing-list do you have? And so forth.

Carrol

Carrol



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