[lbo-talk] Taking the Pulse of Elite Response to OWS

[shag carpet bomb]

wow. this is so completely not the case here. there are people who are
clearly socialists. there are people who are libertarians. there are
people who are all about voting for democrats - who recognize that
obama is not doing a great job - but believe they have to work for
democrats. i.e., they've actually thought things through. (this is a
guy who recently wrote a letter to the civic league of the wealthiest
neighborhood here) bitching at them for whining about what to do with
the homeless sleeping in their parks rather than asking why there are
homeless people).

there are people who are clearly conservative. there are tea parties.
there are the disffected middle of the roaders. there are people who
come from a long line of union membership.

there are trolls and people off their meds, too.

the thing is, we get harrassed all the time for not having a program.

the line, "it's about occupying, not a program right now" is a
tactical defense.

the inevitable attempts by loudmouths to show up and derail people, to
frighten and intimidate them, by demanding a program, by demnading
their platform, by demanding to say they are right or left... these
are people to whom these very same folks - who articulate a politics
(as described above) - are the people who shoot back with: we are not
about that right now. this is about unity and solidarity right now.

others, bolder (like me) say: thanks for your interest in our program.
when we figure it out, we'll let you know. and even bolder, I simply
call the repeat offenders trolls who are there to destroy solidarity
not build it.

after about 3 days of that kind of hassling from trolls, everyone has
very quickly figured out that the proper response to trolls is to
ignore them.

until they are caught out, the people who demand a program, demand
that people take a side (left or right, which one?) are studiously and
purposefully told to bugger off, that's not what we're into right now.

but of course that is all being worked out in debate and dicussion.
it's just that no one will have those discussion with people who are
clearly trolling.
> On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 12:04 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I thought you'd say that. Of course they're political. But the youth
>> I talked to hadn't really thought things through politically. They
>> had no political analysis to speak of.
>
> Right. Seems close to my experience as well. But those same people are
> doing politics, even if they don't have an articulated analysis.
> Politics doesn't require a fully formed ideology.
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>

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