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

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Fri Oct 28 13:53:57 PDT 2011


On 10/28/2011 2:56 PM, shag carpet bomb wrote:


> what is strategy?


:-)

Actually I've discussed this in those posts in which I referred to the Remagen Bridge episode. That demonstrated two opposing conceptions of "Strategy." One, those staff officers who opoosed using the Bridge, sees strategy as existing in the Manuals, an abstract theory which directly controls practice. Such strategy, as Michael S notes, offer no room for contingency. Following that model, it would be a disaster were the carefully laid plans for crossing the Rhine shoved aide as Patton's army rushed to cross that bridge before it collapsed. (What if Walmar customers are offended. I bet 30 people debating with each other over the tactic would never in this world thik of that unless they had read all the economic analysis of the last 40 years about Walmar customers. Not ever. People planning to do something are always by definition Know-Nothings who can only think of the next 24 hours.) Eisenhower, however, had a more general and fluid conception of strategy; it did call for crossing the Rhine for the fina push into Germany. But it allowed for contingency in its implementation. Hence he ordered the use of the Bridge, and countless lies were saved. We can (or could) profitably discuss general strategy for the overthrow of capitalism or the unsettling of the state if not the overthrow on this list. That's what you (shag) have been trying to do in a properly provisional manner, beginning with a discussion of capitalist time and space. That led to your suggestion of focusing an attack on Walmart. Michael picked up on that and came up with a hypothetical set of tactics (still, being hypothetical, somewhat abstract); I picked up on that and began, in a clumsy way, to sketch out a hypothetical framework in which such a suggestion would be debated, twisted and turned around, considered in the context of concrete conditions, looked at from the perspective of ongoing strategic considerations, and so on. I wasn't spinning a theory but merely describing what always happens. The way that theory and thought and empirical knowledge become an inseparable complex in actual practice. And I'm still a bit baffled by how this effort at constructing how political thought moves in practice generated such bizarre responsesd as (for example) Andy's idea that we were against strategic thought.

As a friend said some time ago about such resistance to dealing with concrete conditions: Fucking Hell -- do these people like losing.

Carrol



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