i'm goofing but also serious. i've gone to rad lefty meetings around here in the past and i was totally lost when it came to holding the proper principles, who adhered to what and who didn't and who was to be unloved for daring to, etc. etc. it amuses me, natch. because i can't fathom how you came to understand them and then to have such festering irritation with each other over them or to learn to identify who is who based on this or that email, this or that claim in a meeting, etc.
At 06:43 PM 2/10/2012, Carrol Cox wrote:
>Ravi"
>
>Got it! A tactic of adversity rather than a diversity of tactics. Give me a
>long enough argument and I can change the world! :-) Kidding aside, I get
>your point, but I think you fail to see how your own criticism applies to
>you. "Diversity of tactics" is itself an argument, which you are refusing to
>engage in by dismissing it as a "fetish". -ravi
>
>========
>
>Julio actually does believe that by argument one changes minds. See the
>Dustup thread of a few years ago in which he and Miles argue this out --
>neither persuading the other.
>
>He also assumes that the "we" of a conversation is self-evident. The
>movement (even in its embryonic stages) is 'really' a unified Party, with
>Principles of Unity which all have agreed on as the basis for legitimacy.
>But "The Movement" doesn't exist yet; our principles of unity are not agreed
>on. There is no domain set aside for all legitimate conversation. There is
>the _potential_ unity of participation in various actions, but there is no
>basis whatever for rules saying who may participate and who may not. That
>all remains to be (roughly) settled, and that will take another year or two
>to shake down. Those who treat "The Movement" as a defined entity are in
>effect saying, talk in my terms or I will pick up my marbles and go home.
>
>"Debate" over the black-bloc tactic at the present time is empty of content.
>Lou still assumes the principles of the SWP, and that gives him an illusory
>basis for arguing that X is right and Y is wrong. He cannot see that his
>rejection of Democratic Centralism also cuts the ground from under any set
>of fixed principles. Such principles can only emerge slowly from a diversity
>of practice, which is not an argument but simply an empirical observation :
>that diversity is going to continue, probably increase, for some time
>regardless of any argument that it should or shouldn't. It's a given, not a
>proposition that can be debated.
>
>Carrol
>
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