[lbo-talk] occupation and situationists was Re: enemy's turf

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Fri Oct 28 11:31:06 PDT 2011


On 10/28/2011 1:05 PM, Michael Smith wrote:
>
> It's always a pleasure to watch the mighty intellects
> of lbo-talk sort out the bad ideas from the good ones
> on the most impeccable a priori principles. A well-oiled
> machine, a thing of beauty, its concatenated subjunctives
> laying future contingencies relentlessly bare to the eye
> of reason.

Nicely put. To come back to your suggestion: First off, of course, I emphasized that it was a SUGGESTION, not a computer program detailing when the participants in a meeting should blow their nose, which person should speak first, how many minutes should be allowed for considering what the weather will be like next month (or is the month after that we are planning to move). I repeat now that it is a brilliant suggestion. After weeks, pehaps months of discussion, reaching out to other groups to form a joint committee, exploring how many people would be need to launch it, and much more, it might well turn into a wonderful action or campaign that would transform relations of power inthe locality or region in which it was carried out. Of course it might also flop -- but on that possiblity I think one should look up Rosa Luxemburg's references in her 1898 speeches to the Paris *Commune.

And to anyone who wants to ignore all that complexity and contingency and come back to asking one stupid abstract question, a question which as *Eric says is not, on the face of it, an honest question, What in the hell else does one say but,

Fuck You.

One of the contingencies of course is that quite often there is someone involved in the discussion of such a complex matter who keeps coming up with similar obstructive questions and all too often it is even a person who has, otherwise, a lot to offer so you can't just kick him or her off the committee but have to keep patiently working around him/her. In that context one can't say, Fuck You. But on an e-mail list it is easier to lose patience.

Carrol



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