[lbo-talk] More on the (untheorizable) Messiness of Real Movement

[Carrol Cox]

>From a post I received from and American now resident in Europe: "The effort
this week by Occupy Oakland to seize a space for public use -a poorly
planned action but an excellent provocation-resulted in about 400 arrests
but also in solidarity marches in at least 5 US cities, including Boston and
New York. The young activists are reminding themselves and everyone who
cares to notice that things are not over just because they are not camped
out in public."

There's no way I can improve on that. I have seldom seen such a precise
characterization of the actual course all mass movements follow.

It was this topic, how mass movements develop and grow, that was the thrust
behind my interventions in the "No Theory" thread. This limited
"anti-theory" (or as I would call it, this focus on the "Scope and Limits of
Theory) that interests me; not mere theorizing of theory for the fun of
doing theory. The needs of mass movements are the actual subject of all my
writings on "Theory."

Carrol