[lbo-talk] Corey Robin on AJE on Bluestocking panel

[Wojtek S]

Where we read:
" In the past few months, I've had a fair number of arguments with
both libertarians and anarchists about the state. What neither crew
seems to get is what our most acute observers have long understood
about the American scene: however much coercive power the state wields
- and it's considerable - it's not, in the end, where and how many,
perhaps even most, people in the United States have historically
experienced the raw end of politically repressive power. Even force
and violence: just think of black slaves and their descendants,
confronting slaveholders, overseers, slave catchers, Klansmen, chain
gangs, and more; or women confronting the violence of their husbands
and supervisors; or workers confronting the Pinkertons and other
private armies of capital."

[WS:]  I really like what Robin says on the subject.  I've been always
annoyed by the American knee-jerk anti-statism, on the right, on the
left, and in the center.  The state can be oppressive, to be sure, but
at least it has some semblance of democratic control.  The private
sphere, be it the workplace, the family, or the street, does not have
such controls, but they can be far more oppressive.

The knee-jerk anti statism seems to provide a convenient cover up for
what Robin calls private repression.  The logic works like this: I can
enslave another human being, subject my employees to authoritarian
discipline, terrorize my spouse, or beat up the guy who stepped on my
turf - but I am a liberty loving man because I loudly denounce the
power of the state or its agents.  Robin argues that this logic
crosses class boundaries and, I may add, political boundaries as well.

Wojtek

Wojtek

On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 7:55 PM, Chuck Grimes <c123grimes at att.net> wrote:
> Corin Robin on AJE:
>
> ``Several Fridays ago, I attended an excellent panel discussion on Occupy
> Wall Street sponsored by Jacobin Magazine. It featured Doug Henwood and Jodi
> Dean - representing a more state-centered, socialist-style left - and
> Malcolm Harris and Natasha Lennard, representing a more anarchist-inflected
> left.
>
> Natasha Lennard is a freelance writer who's been covering the OWS story for
> the New York Times. After a video of the panel was brought to the Times'
> attention, the paper reviewed it as well as Lennard's reporting and decided
> to take her off the OWS beat. Despite the fact, according to a spokeswoman
> for the Times, that "we have reviewed the past stories to which she
> contributed and have not found any reasons for concern over that reporting".
>
> Even more troubling, Lennard may not be hired by the Times again at all.
> Says the spokeswoman: "This freelancer, Natasha Lennard, has not been
> involved in our coverage of Occupy Wall Street in recent days, and we have
> no plans to use her for future coverage."
>
> http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/2011111013422670424.html
>
> It was a great panel that revealed a wide spread on the US left, so
> naturally it couldn't be covered... Most of it probably went straight over
> her editor's head. The video link is here:
>
> http://jacobinmag.com/blog/2011/10/video-ows-a-debate-on-left-politics-and-strategy-oct-14-in-nyc/
>
> Several are regulars on LBO.
>
> CG
>
>
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