[lbo-talk] Not about discipline, but clarity: was More on BB antics and their defenders

[James Heartfield]

‘Discipline’ is a subordinate question. The pointed challenge is what does the movement want? OWS has made a virtue of its open-endedness. That seems to be a formula that puts off the disputatious splits that characterise left-wing campaigns. Still, the basic problem is unavoidable, what are you for? As long as there is no clarification – meaning debate – about what the movement wants, then it will remain marginal to the greater mass of people.

Radicals used to long periods in the wilderness are reluctant to kick a movement that at least garners some minority. But that can be a weakness, too. It is pointed that the current wave of protest movements have failed to substantially impact upon the extensive austerity measures being imposed in Greece, Spain, and elsewhere in Europe. Observers make the point to me that the people gathered in the square in Spain were cutting themselves off from the debate that was taking place in the elections over the austerity measures, rather than taking part. I am not sure that anyone in Britain is listening to the Occupy LSX people.

If there is no critical self-reflection, then there is no movement.