On 2012-02-12, at 10:25 AM, shag carpet bomb wrote:
> i don't read lou enough to know but the argument over violence isn't about violence and tactics. the argument is a complaint about the "lack of organization" or the "lack of leadership" or the "lack of discipline" or the "lack of strategy" or the "lack of theory", etc.
>
> it's kind of anticipatory. as news of OWS recedes and people actually have to be plugged in to see that OWS is doing things and that it's not dead, it nonetheless feels as if it must be moribund.
>
> (one way to avoid this reliance on the media for news, if you want, is to get involved locally with OWS. you can then start dialing in to the conference calls Occupies have with one another all over the country.)
>
> but most people aren't going to do this so it's anticipatory because people want to anticipate its death, prepare themselves for the depression -- stave it off, actually -- by blaming OWS for dying of its own character flaws before it has even died.
>
> Now, there are a lot of things going on. But this isn't politics for a lot of people. That's because a lot of people have a version of the Rosa Parks myth when it comes to politics and social change. As Doug says, he's long held that you need scary people in the streets to make people listen to the more moderate voices. But there may be no empirical support to this claim (see Chenoweth and Schock on the higher failure rate of movements with radical flanks) But also, this notion that you need people in the streets at all, and all the time, derives from the same dynamics that give rise to the Rosa Parks myth.
>
> Now, sophisticated lefties know that Rosa Parks didn't just say "Enough!" one day. They know she was an activist.
> But, nonetheless, people seem to think that politics are going on mostly when you have the national state, national media's attention, when everyone's talking and debating and watching images on television. For some reason, that Rosa was an activist is as far as it goes. What often isn't invoked is all the years of activism, all the small things, all the local work that got done. It was decades of activism that went into the boycott. It wasn't just that she was an activist. The women who stayed up all night to mimeograph flyers and then got up in time to leaflet the bus stops at 6 a.m. were just doing what they'd *always* done. And they were continuing a practice that activists had always done. And many of the things they'd always done - which was build networks of activism and provide services within communities - were long ignored, many of them failed.
>
> it's easy to feel that things are moribund, of course, -- even IF they find out about the plethora of things going on around the country. Partly, this is ideological: it depresses peple because they are ideologically opposed to the local as an option. But, in this case, as we discuss this locally, it's part of the strategy:
>
> The general feeling, at least here, is that we are not ready for insurrection. We need to "go local" in order to build the local networks and to bring more people into political action. For many of the occupies with which I've been in contact, the idea is to go with a model of The Kitchen and The Library: At the local level, figure out what your pressing problems are and which you want to address, and then figure out ways to start providing solutions and services and knowledge. Again, objection to this is ideological opposition. See the debate here over Barbara Ehrenreich's argument that the left needs to step in where the neo-liberal state steps out. Yoshie raised a firestorm of complaint against that position.
>
> but in response, the point is this: it's a form of organizing. The strategy, right now, is that we must have more people in our ranks. We must make more connections between us, more radical, and the "ordinary" liberal and progressive organizations. We must *do* things to help people and start being a daily presence in people's lives. Much as BPP feds kids breakfast. In that mileu people can be exposed to alternative ideas. But more of all, right now, the important thing is to build a network among people, where relationships are bonded based on f2f interaction, trust. That way, when the shit starts hitting the fan, we can use social media and communications networks to put out calls to action so we'll have MORE than a thousand people in the street. those people will get in the street because they will be there with their friends, on the advice of people they trust. and that's only going to happen if you start locally.
>
> now, those ideologically opposed won't buy any of this. but it's tilting at windmills, engaging in an endless plethora of helpful criticism in order to delay what they fear: disappointment, abandonment, loss.[1]
>
> the fact is, this is what is going on right now. in some other places, namely DC, they are tilting toward co-optation into conventional politics, dominated as they are by policy wonks looking for something to put on their resume and a possible job down the road. *shrug* If that's your bag, that would be the place to go. Work on legislative reform options. There's plenty of work being done around that and an infrastructure for getting the work done.
>
> If that's not your bag then, as i said before, it's easy to use the OWS energy to get your own party started.
>
> [1]all of which lead to depression. it's easier to not get involved on the basis of "this local stuff is bullshit; these people just don't have any theory; they are so wrong about local; localism is bullshit;" and sit around and grouse in order to be in charge of when and where you are depressed; to pretend it's their "lack" that causes your depression rather than your own feelings of being abandoned.
>
> At 06:43 PM 2/10/2012, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>> "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.
>
> --
> http://cleandraws.com
> Wear Clean Draws
> ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk