while maybe you can't stay neutral on a moving train, you can hang on to the top of it, while it speeds underneath you at 100 mph hour, holding on for dear life as your hair blows into one gigantic fright wig formation.
Dean, in her article, wants to tell us about three problems that OWS might present.
1. The existence of Ron Paulites. She rightly does not leap to the conclusion that the mere existence of RP leafletters means any more than that Ron Paulites have young people on the ground who know they need to show up at places like this to get recruits. Why they assumption that they aren't just RP wingnuts who show up to all these things, just as our own lefty wingnuts show up to all these things?
But even if it suggests more organization on the RP fanbuoyz part, Dean, and people at LBO, don't see this as a challenge, however.
IOW, instead of realizing that the Ron Paul vultures are there and they need to be counterposed, that their existence is a challenge for lefties who care to get boots on the ground and hand out leaflets.
oh. wait......
we mean, then, that the real problem is the total LACK of organization among US, the critical left. the problem isn't with this political formation, the problem is with the lack of organization on the left.
okeydokey
glad we cleared that up.
2. the emphasis on process. If the end goal is to keep on protesting, to keep focusing on process and to create the change they want to live in, to warp a phrase - in other words, if what theyend up doing is focusing on byuilding alternative organizations and institutions, then Dean thinks this is a problem. She concludes that it isn't her revolution.
oh my god. I laughed so hard my right tit fell off! just a sec. I have to run and go get it.
Funnee! Not your father's Lincoln! Funnee how that expression evoked that commercial: THIS, yuppie kids, is not your father's Lincoln. Hey, THIS OWSkidz, is not your mother's revolution!
Because revolutions are commodities - objectified, reified things -- that people argue over possession of! Instead of being things in which they are caught up, part of -- can't stay fucking neutral on a moving train, but you can, apparently, grab on to a rail and hold on for deal life, fright wing a flyin' in the 100 mph wind!
Third, says Dean, 1 and 2 aren't given. Oh. Thank sweet baybay jaysuz for that! Lefties can intervene and, this is rich!, just say "No to Ron Paul!", "No to the Democratic Party", "No to reducing this to narrowing of focus to issues of corporate personhood."
Not. My. Revolution.
This is so fucking conceited. sitting around in upstate NY or downstate Georgia or West Texas, someone decides that she can say to OWS folks, "Nyeh. Nyeh. We're not going to support you if you don't do things OUR way."
I mean, you can see why I laughed so hard my tit fell off.
For one thing, no one making those demands is likely a member of an organization with enough influence in that organization to make this happen - start negotiating a deal with folks at OWS. Second, even if you were, is it really important enough to warrant such posturing? I mean, honestly, will a single soul at OWS, like, miss y'all if you don't show up at THEIR revolution?
but let me get back to number 2. This one... lookee here now. What if this does turn out to be the whole point: a bunch of people are getting together and kind of seceding, building a whole new society in political and civil society in miniature. What if the goal IS to build an organization? What if the goal isn't to have a revolution at all, nyeh nyeh, but to build some sort of, as Harry Boyte calls, it Free Spaces.
Apparently, lefties are going to take their marbles and go home, pouting.
What is truly interesting about this is, if you look more carefully what you see going on here the pretnse that's it's the left that has power, that is in the position to make demands, that is in a position to take their marbles and go home because OWS might not do what they want.
I can't remember how I put it in the SAQ article, but boy: nice subject of history problem youse all got goin' there!
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)