[lbo-talk] More on BB antics and their defenders

Eric Beck ersatzdog at gmail.com
Sat Feb 11 08:46:04 PST 2012


Random, hurried thoughts:

1. Old habits die hard. Between Julio's hard force of discipline and uniformity of tactics and Bhaskar's and Carrol's soft force of expanding the movement so as to marginalize the anarchists, the urge to purge remains strong. It's almost comical. Just when I think anarchists are engaging in anachronistic taunting for invoking Stalinism, it rears its fetid head.

2. How come opponents of BB and anarchism never take it seriously (or, in shag's terms, respect it)? None of them actually try to figure out why it appeals to people who do shit and why those people prefer it to other forms of radical practice. It's always a false consciousness or petit bourgeois dilettantism or, at best, a good impetus to action but not a sustainable politics.

3. Robert's point about violence having historically been mostly carried out by labor is a good one, and one I hadn't thought of. If, today, violence were carried out primarily by unionists, would that be okay or should that also be subject to central committee approval? In other words, is the opposition here violence as such or is it anarchism?



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