[lbo-talk] LBO-Talk's Message to the Masses

SA s11131978 at gmail.com
Mon Sep 26 13:56:43 PDT 2011


On 9/26/2011 9:16 AM, Eric Beck wrote:


>> Okay, so educate us. What's it about?
> I said educate yourself. ;-)
>
> A sampling:
>
> http://wewanteverything.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/communique-from-an-absent-future/
>
> http://anticapitalprojects.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/anti-capital-projects/

Okay, I've read enough of this. The logic apparently starts from some reasonable premises, then blossoms into just incredible nonsense. Demands should be avoided because if you win them, the movement gets demobilized. Wrong. The movement gets demobilized when it asks people to repeatedly sacrifice and then fails to deliver any concrete victories or practical improvements to their lives. The only people who feel demoralized when insufficient reformist demands are won are these self-indulgent communists of which there is a miniscule number. They somehow think the French anti-CPE movement proves their point, because the agitation, naturally, fizzled out after it won the withdrawal of the CPE bill. They have no idea how wrong they are -- since 2006, in every subsequent struggle, the French lycee/fac militants have used that victory as Exhibit A in persuading their fellow students that mobilizing again (e.g., against last year's pension reform) will not be waste of time. It's nice that these people have larger horizons than "mere reformism" -- I say that sincerely. If they want to be revolutionaries, good for them -- as the Viet Minh said, some of you should do one thing, others should do the other thing. But they are the disease of which they claim to be the cure: the powerlessness of the left. "Reform isn't happening? Okay, then let's try revolution." If they don't understand why that makes no sense, it's because they read too much Semiotexte and not enough history. As Mike Beggs said, there is going to have be a lot of reform before we ever get back to revolution.

SA



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