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Post by flyby1 on Oct 17, 2005 18:16:05 GMT -5
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Post by CC on Oct 17, 2005 20:45:06 GMT -5
where can one obtain a jumpsuit like that?
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Post by RosaRL on Oct 18, 2005 19:03:19 GMT -5
the ones i have seen were dickies and they were with the construction work type clothes at walmart -- mens department near where they have the underwear and such.
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Post by RosaRL on Oct 21, 2005 19:10:19 GMT -5
The following was posted in response to this:
"By all means, I acknowledge and agree that horrific toture is taking place around the world by the U.S. military. However, I fail to see how this little charade will put an end to it.
Let me say that I think it can be effective to express anger or hostility as part of a political action. But I think it's ineffective to direct that hostility at passersby. If you're hoping to get them to join your movement, treating them like shit won't work.
Next, it feels terribly elitist. There's a separation between the activist and the stranger. The person playing the role of the torture victim accosts anyone who will listen and demands to know what they're going to do. Anything that's said, such as protesting or voting is treated as insignificant. If you're going to tell people what they're doing isn't enough, you need to suggest what else can be done.
In the video of the protest at the college, they do make a suggestion. They tell people to come out on November 2. But I have to wonder how many people will go to the protest as a result of that. The activists were berating the passersby, but also asking them to join the movement? If your goal is recruitment, you need to connect to people and/or present something that's worth joining.
With guerilla theater and other forms of activism where you are causing a public scene to connect to people directly, the goal shouldn't be to make them feel like shit. You should either be presenting information that people are unaware of, or creating an atmosphere that encourages people to participate and motivates them to take action. (Either during that particular action or at a later point.) Making people feel guilty hardly seems like a good way to motivate people.
Also, I feel it's problematic because the problem with this torture is how dehumanizing it is. That's what should be emphasized. I feel like having people cuffed and hooded and on display would be a powerful image. It would feel more real than simply looking at a picture. Once one of these victims starts yelling at the passersby, the message seems a little diluted. It seems a lot more effective if you have one person NOT in a hood saying, "This is what is happening. We're letting it continue. What are WE going to do about it?" And ideally, they would say, here is one or a few things that can be done. It will be less likely to make people feel defensive and it won't seem quite so self-congratulatory. Because if someone approached me with the costume and attitude that's presented in the video, I would think, "Well, what the fuck have you done? Does putting on the jumpsuit make you immune from the assaults you're throwing at everyone else?"
What it comes down to is that when we plan actions, we need to think through it. We need to ask, "What are we trying to do? Who are we trying to reach? What would we like to see happen as a result of this?" Then we need to come up with an action to match those goals. Far too often, I feel like the term "guerilla theater" is used as an excuse to do something crazy. The end result ends up feeling like mostly style and little substance. (Not unlike the sensationalism we see in the corporate media).
I would assume that people walking away from this either agreed with the message, but felt like shit and still didn't do anything or they thought, "Fucking self-righteous liberals!" This tactic feels like the left-wing version of evangelists standing on the street corner saying, "You're all going to hell! You're all sinners! You're going to burn! Come join our church!" I'd love to be proven wrong, so if there's stories of people becoming active after having a hooded person shove a leash in their hand, please let me know. "
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Burningman
Revolutionary
"where it is by proxy it is not"
Posts: 194
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Post by Burningman on Oct 22, 2005 18:28:34 GMT -5
I just saw that this criticism was posted here by Rosa. I posted some similar comments in a separate thread and have heard several students on campus saying roughly the same thing. This is not to put down the students who were arrested -- not at all. But the point about setting up an opposition between the activists and students is correct -- and particularly in the case of Hunter (and CUNY) -- not wise.
Doing a quick agitational intervention is cool, and I'm fully in support of WCW and its objectives. I heard these criticisms, and then watched the video of the event and agree with them.
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Post by TWO CENTS on Oct 23, 2005 12:57:53 GMT -5
the reactionaries are filled with passion, the discontented are passive.
That isn't completely true, but it is far too true.
The issue we face (or one of them at least) is not "getting people to be against the war" -- since, as we all know, most people are against the war in one way or another.
The point of struggle, the frontline of the moment, is are you fighting? Are you thrown into this? Do you have any sense of urgency?
Yeah, we are in New York. Most people oppose the war, hate bush, wish this would all go away.
But these actions were not about "what do you think?" They are about "what are you doing?"
And that ideological issue is distinct and valid.
To say "Oh, i hated hitler, but what could i have done?" -- isn't that a well worn rut, and really no comfort.
So lets be sharp: to say "i'm against the regime and the war, but i have a test, excuse me..." That is not ok. That is not progressive. That is not anything but being on the wrong side of the key issues of our time -- and it is a reflection of NOT understanding the key issue that we all face (and the urgency that flows from even a primitive understanding of that.)
NO. We need to jar people. We need to disturb the complacent (whether they think they are so progressive or not.) We need to help people get to sleepless nights (because sleeplessness is a correct corrolary of our moment).
And so, the fact that people said "don't aim this at me, i'm not on the wrong side" may reflect that they don't "get it" -- and they are exactly the people these actions are aimed at.
Anyone who is not straining, should ask themselves whether they have really rejected the leash.
And all the quoting of Mao on contradictions among the people misses (and really distorts) the point. Yes these are contradictions among the peopel -- but where is it written that we should tail the people, coddle them, only spoon feed them comfortable and pre-digested truths. Sometimes the people need to wake the fuck up before they are wiped the fuck out. And it would be criminal, it would be a rejecftion of everything a vanguard is supposted to be, to act like anything else is an application of MLM.
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Post by more on Oct 23, 2005 12:58:45 GMT -5
amen.
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Post by my point on Oct 23, 2005 13:08:50 GMT -5
we need to identify and uproot all kinds of "movement as usual."
like:
"this is the way we do things" FUCK "AGITATION AS USUAL"
What we do and say should feel different, shocking, new.
not just "the usual leftists doing the usual thing."
everything that smells like that will kill us (and kill the people).
What does it mean to say "the world can't wait" -- i mean, what does it REALLY mean?
Far to often, for far too many people, their "activism" is a rut, a lifestyle, a routine... the outrage, urgency, vision is gone. LIke it is slow motion, and as if nothing can happen. as if it is a moral acting out -- not a response to real events on a real timetable.
No.
Don't preach to each other about "movement norms."
"This isn't the way to do agitation." Well, why the fuck not?
And why would any of the "movement norms" work?
Creativity? Fighters who storm heavens and remake worlds? Or the tired hasbeens of a dying vision?
which one are we? Which one does the world demand of us?
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Post by flyby2 on Oct 23, 2005 13:18:53 GMT -5
"Next, it feels terribly elitist. There's a separation between the activist and the stranger. The person playing the role of the torture victim accosts anyone who will listen and demands to know what they're going to do. Anything that's said, such as protesting or voting is treated as insignificant. If you're going to tell people what they're doing isn't enough, you need to suggest what else can be done."
This is worth dissecting, cuz it is rare that someting so completely wrong is said so clearly.
IN america, if you are not saying things t5hat shock many people, you can't possibly be telling the truth.
Is it elitist to make people confront such truth? Is it elitist to think you have some truth, and others need to hear it? Follow the logic of this charge, and you not only reject vanguard parties and science -- you reject anything but the solopistic notion that polls of the uninformed define reality.
Frankly every person should be accosted and asked what they are doing.
After Nazi germany, the whole world asked the german people what they had done, and why they had allowed this.
Isn't it better to ask this before the worst? And on that basis challenge people to prevent things that they are pretending aren't impending?
As for "protest and voting".... well, most of what people are doing is raw bullshit compared to what is needed. Deal with it. If that offends you, welcome to reality. Well-intentioned doesn't cut it.
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Maz
Revolutionary
rock out
Posts: 106
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Post by Maz on Oct 23, 2005 21:29:50 GMT -5
I disagree with the criticisms. Now is definitely not the time for the "it's all good" or "what you do is great" approach to the masses. I'm sick of that. I'm all for getting in people's faces if it's going to shake them even a little from their complacency. Get people rattled, get them angry, get them talking, get them thinking, and plant that fucking flag so boldly that no one can ignore it!
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Post by BJ on Oct 25, 2005 1:43:37 GMT -5
Watching the video, it did not seem like the protest really connected with the masses. While I agree that we must tell the truth even if it means offending and shocking many people, what is the point of doing it if our efforts do not actually have much effect on those who are the targets of the agitation? There is no point to being a (perceived) lunatic preaching on the corner, this stuff has to actually connect with the masses.
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Burningman
Revolutionary
"where it is by proxy it is not"
Posts: 194
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Post by Burningman on Oct 25, 2005 12:09:28 GMT -5
Yes, fuck "agitation as usual."
But... if you are seriously trying to organize people -- then listen to them. Watch the effect, sum it up.
Did this event lead to an organizing cluster at Hunter College? How are the activists involved summing up its effectiveness? By what means?
Telling a crowd of students who are antiwar, who have been active (some of them) that they are "like Nazis" when they wander into a confrontation they know nothing about is not productive. It's just not.
If the activists showed up, got a meeting space, heavily leafletted the campus, droppd notes in professors boxes about speaking in front of classes, etc -- there would be a MASSIVE and SUPPORTIVE response.
Agitation needs a context to work I spent years organizing at the Hunter campus exactly because it is so filled with international students, first generation to college proletarians, a largely female student body (more inclined to activism), and that special "hot mix" that this kind of genuinely diverse environment creates.
LOTS of people blow through and make a scene. It doesn't mean they make breakthroughs -- and that is what we need, right?
I totally agree with the point about "activism as usual" -- and while I hear and say similar things as well, there is a difference between agitating and insulting the people you are rapping to.
A huge problem with the "scenesterism" of activism as usual is that it sets up a moral dichotemy between the "good activists" and the "apathetic people." If we're breaking that pattern, we should take a cue from Mao Zedong and use the Mass motherfucking Line. Go talk to people, see where they are at, what the divisions are, the hopes and fears -- and bring an analysis and line to people that the advance can embrace, the intermediate can support and that isolates the backward.
Insulting students by equating them with Nazis (again, when they don't even know what is going on) will not attract the advanced, will repel the intermediate and embolden the backward. Agitation isn't something to throw at people -- it's a way of engaging them.
If we're thinking about reaching "millions" -- then the question is to what effect. The advanced need to be brought on board fully and the intermediate need to be won over. What accomplishes that? What doesn't?
So again -- what are the tangible results of this action? I am on the campus. I hear what people say. I hear how those who oppose this movement use this incident. If you blow through, but aren't on the ground in a sustained way -- you may not even know what people are saying -- and I the criticisms I passed on are what I heard from more than a couple folks.
Let's assume we all understand the stakes here.
The Mass Line -- that revolution comes FROM the people in tandem with vanguard forces -- is a rich method for unlocking this door. Dismissing the sentiment of the masses is a recipe for isolation, even if it is frenzied and "correct."
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Post by two cents on Oct 25, 2005 16:24:16 GMT -5
The mass line is not a mirror we hold up to the people. The mass line is not a recipe for tailing the masses -- or limiting ourselves to what they already understand.
In fact, the urgency of this moment is not well understood. And the possibility of acting is not well understood. There is a passivity and resignation among precisely THOSE MASSES whose activity is most needed (and who could potentially start to set the world on its ear).
We do not control the pace of things. The "frenzy" (as you so dismissively put it) is not an invention of the vanguard forces. The enemy is moving, and quickly, and there is a NEED (objective) to act, quickly and with intensity, at many levels. This is true whether it is understood by the masses or not -- and it is true even whether it is grasped by vanguard forces or not. The pace of our work, its intensity, can't be shaped merely by what SEEMS at hand (i.e. it can't be imbued with a resigned perspective of endless slow work) -- when in fact, objectively, events are moving quickly (and will move quickly ahead) -- with all that this means for both danger and opportunity.
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Post by observor on Oct 25, 2005 17:19:25 GMT -5
burningman writes: "Let's assume we all understand the stakes here."
In the most comradely way possible, let me answer: no let's not assume that.
Cuz if that werre true, you would already have organized that Hunter campus around this.
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Post by two cents on Oct 25, 2005 17:33:32 GMT -5
let's not make this personal.
But it is true that we do not all understand the stakes.
Crist, i feel like I barely do! And get a new sense every time i read something new (especially Bob Avakian's essays).
Welcome to denial: there are tons of "hopes" that the system will just "muddle through" -- that there will be a "pendulum swing," or that the mix of failure in Iraq and "incompetence" in New Orleans will put "bush on the ropes."
No. This is mistaken -- and it is riddled with a mix of wishful thinking and defeatist thinking. Lenin sharply criticized those who said "Marxists only fight for what is possible, and what is possible is that which exists."
The stakes are extreme: on one hand there may be a possibility of a major constitutional/legitimacy crisis, and needs to be a real revolutionary movement to take advantage of it. And on the other hand, there is a real possibility that a fascism will be consolidated that will crush revolutionary cores and leadership for a long time to come.
The fate of the planet (quite literally) and of the world revolution (quite literally) hangs by a thread.
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