> [2] Mike Beggs attempts to isolate tactics from the context in which the
> tactics are used. In this he emulates the Weatherman: both value tactics in
> abstraction: he to condemn, Wetherman to praise. Same wrong principle.
> Tactics (any conceivable tactic) can only be judged within a specific
> context.
This is just not true, Carrol - read my post again. I went out of my way to qualify, particularly in the last paragraph:
>>"I should reiterate, as I did last time, that "I'm all for standing
>>your ground to defend the right to protest, and I know it's usually
>>the police that start these things." I can also see the logic of
>>occupying an abandoned building in the right circumstances. It's the
>>deliberate escalation of conflict with police that seems stupid.
It seems obvious that tactics need to adapt to the situation. It is hardly profound. I take it for granted that when we talk about tactics in the context of a conversation about particular events, we are taking those events as the frame of reference and not writing a manual for all time. Of course we always abstract to some degree - we are abstracting from recent events in Oakland and elsewhere to debate tactics in similar situations in the foreseeable future, even if they don't happen to occur in the first week of November in Oakland.
If the situation came to resemble in some way that of colonial America circa 1768, say, I would be the first to acknowledge the tactical value in putting up the liberty pole even if it aggravated tensions with the local representatives of King George, or whatever the analogical equivalent might be.
In demanding an end to any abstract discussion of tactics you are, as is your wont, taking a reasonable point to an absurd extreme. Of course, the next thread over, you are doing exactly what I was doing, in discussing the logic of the tactic of shifting funds from banks to credit unions etc.: "not even a micro-mini step toward radicalization. It's the opposite: Trying to get to heaven in a rocking chair..._if_ the withdrawals were seen and felt asd a collective act, they _might_ be a small step into politics. Clearly they weren't; they were just a bunch of pointless individual acts, anti-political."
Mike