What "movement"?
a disservice when you
> turn justified admiration of what it's accomplished into legitimation of
> apathy about what to do next.
Are you talking about what _you_ should do next? What organizations you should join? How you, perhaps, with some friends will start anew local organization to work on what YOU think is important. And you can spend a few hours a week brainstorming on how to attract more people to your project? If so, I agree with you. But if you are talking about OWS, you are talking to yourself in a corner. Nothing you have to say; nothing I have to say; is going to affect OWS. Seriously, it is a popular uprising. It's just a fact. Now we have to deal with a world characterized by that fact.
It is entirely possible - though I
> certainly hope not - that six months or six years from now we'll look
> back and say it's too bad that those are the *only* things it
> accomplished before flaming out.
Again, if you are talking about OWS you are talking to yourself. OWS is not going to "accomplish" anything: except what it has already gloriously accomplished (and may intensify): a new political climate to work in. Why do you expect them to do it for you? This seems, as I said in my precedingpost, a confession of impotnce on your part. You don't know what to do yourself and you are nagging OWS (who are not listening) to do it for you. They won't. But they have made it possible for others perhaps to accomplish something. Think for yourself; don't nag the people who are creating the context in which that thinkijng for yourself may accomplish something.
And you can't just assume that won't
> happen because the movement "must know what it's doing"
Yes, they seem to know. You don't seem to know what you want to do. You want THEM to do it for you. And you are oh so right. "They won't do it for you. You have to join the struggle to create a movement. OWS is not, really, a Movement, for some of the reasons you give. It's up to you and me and thousands of others to create a Movement (or Movements). But OWS won't do it for you. They have made it possible as it has not been psssible in the last 40 years as we fought the long defeat. Now ther is hope but you want to throw it away. So forget about OWS (or perhaps on the side try to help it in its own terms). Concentrate on what the rest of us (including quite a few of the people in OWS probably) should do next. Pundits don't make movements; people sitting in rooms and taking to each other make movements -- but only in the kind of atmosphere which OWS is creating.
Carrol
- after all,
> look how much it's already accomplished. The skills and ideas necessary
> to organize demonstrations and occupations are totally different from
> those necessary for turning the resulting change of consciousness into a
> lasting movement. And finally, no matter how much Carrol huffs and
> puffs, there is nothing wrong with me saying this. It is perfectly
> legitimate to sit behind a computer screen and say what the movement
> should and should not do - just as legitimate as it is to sit in a
> meeting room of Bloomington Peace and Justice and say what it should do.
>
> SA
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