On Oct 20, 2011, at 9:17 AM, Eric Beck wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 8:06 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
>> I just don't buy it. I don't think that we can get anywhere without changing the state. But purity demands that we not do that because it would step on the prefiguration.
>
> See, I'm always interested in these first two sentences, but they are
> always followed by the ad hominem third sentence. I've always wanted
> to hear more about the first two but never get it, which makes me
> doubt your seriousness and intent. Now I'll just assume that's because
> it's not analysis but opinion, which is fine to express, but doing so
> five times a day doesn't transform it into analysis.
That's not an ad hominem. It's part of the analysis. E.g.: anarchists object to demands for a public works jobs program financed by taxing the rich because to do so would be to legitimize the state and reinforce the commodity-money setup. (I'm not making this up - it's happening in the demands working group of OWS right now. See next message.) Instead, the political strategy should be about occupation, more occupation - occupy everything, as they say. My guess is that the potential constituency for a jobs program is huge; for occupy everything, rather tiny.
Doug