After the death of ML King, there was NO rioting in any area in which either SNCC or the Panthers had been actively organizing. Riots are pre-political, but that is NOT the same as apolitical. Why shouldn't people get angry about a police murder -- and if there is no political outlet for that anger, does that mean they have no right to express it in ways that are available. A political response is obviously better. but those who simply sneer at riots or are content with facile generalizations are in fact "rioters" themselves: they too are pre-political, obtuse as to political reality and merely expressing a personal response, which is what the rioters are doing. Believing in the right things is NOT in itself political; only entering into collective action is scholarship and journalism are essential to politics, but they are not in themselves political.
Carrol
On 9/8/2011 6:46 PM, Lenin's Tomb wrote:
> On 09/09/2011 00:17, James Heartfield wrote:
>> Last month the British Socialist Workers’ Party were lauding the riots
>> as the British equivalent of the Arab Spring. This month, the same
>> riots are ‘systematic looting’, not necessarily radical collective or
>> progressive and a sign of the relative weakness of the left.
>
> 1) No we weren't.
> 2) No, they aren't. You've distorted the meaning of the quoted sentence,
> which refers to "some" of the looting, not even of the rioting (much of
> which did not include looting). The input of gangs, as the Home
> Secretary has acknowledged under Commons interrogation yesterday, is
> nowhere near as great as advertised.
> 3) The article in question uses the all important qualifiers
> "individual" and "consciously", and follows it up with the qualifying
> statement, which you conceal with an ellipsis, "but it cannot simply be
> dismissed as apolitical". (Given that you yourself dismissed the rioters
> as apolitical and merely "having a lark", it's not surprising you left
> this out).
> 4) Not a single one of Brian Richardson's quoted observations militates
> against the thrust of the SWP's analysis, which is reproduced in the
> quoted article. The fact that it fails to coincide with the Aunt Sally
> version of the SWP's position that you have been spittle-lathering about
> doesn't mean there's any revision in this piece. Sorry to disappoint you.
>
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