"______ just told me about going to the Occupy Chicago space on Sunday for a meeting. She was running late, ended up catching a cab, and when she told him she was going to an Occupy meeting he said he really supported Occupy, insisted on giving her a free ride, and passed along his contact information to get put on an email list. Pretty cool!""
In reference to another thread here.
Joseph seems most interested in maintainng a position in the bleachers from which he can make abstract moral (sneering at the alleged 'aristocracy of labor') and/or intellectual judgments of the hurly-burly below. There is and has been an _embryonic_ left in the U.S. since Wisconsin, as I have insisted from the moment when I read Josh's post from the Wisconsin Capitol. And as a left develops, for the first time in 40 or more years, all sorts of marginal groups & individuals become off and on attached to that left -- e.g. Move-On. They give me hives & they enrage a local comrade, but they still pull out people for useful events when their dear DP is no directly threatened. They are also attempting in various localities to manipulate Occupy groups. One has to live with such "inconsistencies" if one actually wants to engage in changing the world and not merely exhibiting one's intellectual and moral superiority.
The necessity is to increase the number of people who are talking to each other in the context of _any_ shared action. We have plenty of time to build "unity," whatever that means; we need to increase the numbers who are participating in that practice.
In most areas the same people are (a) trying to build for solidarity with the Palestinians and (b) building demos demanding justice for Trayvon. Do you want intellectual consistency or a movement for a Free Palestine. I'm afraid you can't have both.
Carrol
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Joseph Catron Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 1:03 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Obama Speaks Out on Trayvon Martin Killing
On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 7:43 PM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
The entire left, so far as it exists, from the NAACP & Move-On to ISO, RCP,
> & Solidarity has been acting on this.
I'm probably wasting my time expecting any intellectual consistency, but ...
Why is there no left until you want for there to be one? And MoveOn? REALLY, Carrol?!
To the extent that there is one, it's at least as capable of acting like a pack of baying ignoramuses as any other mob. Remember the Duke lacrosse team?
> And the discussion on this list seems curiously detached from any
> even remote relationship to political practice.
>
What can I say? I'm fighting other battles at the moment.