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Post by repeater on Oct 27, 2005 21:06:01 GMT -5
I think that there are significant problems with the script of this action.
Primarily I think it makes the mistake of confusing the masses with the enemy. In fact it very clearly puts the masses in that role by asking them to hold the leash. You are abstractly viewing these people as the enemy you are saying, "you're holding the leash". And you're telling them to view themselves as the enemy. This is absurd and is fundamentally screwing up on the concept of unity-struggle-unity.
The proper way to do this would be to either have activists play out torture and another agitate on what's going on or to explicitly hand the leash to the enemy, as was done in LA when they handed it to military recruiters. There is no shortage of reactionaries on campuses, cops, CIA, Military, and christian fascists. Give them the leash and confront them. Let the masses see who the enemy is and what's going on in that way. You can still drive home the urgency and the need to take responsibility without putting the masses into the shoes of the oppressors.
This is not to argue, as others seemed to, for no struggle or no confrontation. This clearly needs to be done and excuses about tests and family life should be challenged, but in a uniting way.
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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 27, 2005 22:18:37 GMT -5
Thank you repeater for letting me know that there just MIGHT be a point to bring up.
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Bait and switch.
For both Flyby and Observer: Why don't you take your arguments up with the people you are arguing with. Or point out what is actually "economist" or "identity politics" about what I'm saying. I don't agree with either of those tendencies, so do tell. The tendency to reduce the arguments of others to your own rhetorical needs is a bad habit, one I've encountered here before -- and it poorly represents what you wish to be a "sweeping historical vision."
No doubt there are those who miss the forest for the trees. But the reverse can be just as true. Revolutions are made by real human beings. Real people embedded in real life. And the people who most need to step forward are IN FACT oppressed. They CAN'T just make simple choices... which is a big part of why revolution is necessary in the first place.
The dowry comment makes me wonder who pays Observer's rent. The average room costs around $600 in New York City, in a slum. Trains run $70 a month. Bills another $200. Food costs around $250-$300 a month. And that's assuming no debt, dependents or health problems. It's not about fucking dowries. It's due every month and if you don't pay you are on the street -- unless you are rich, in which case you can "be down" in a way that looks surreal to the rest of the universe -- particularly among the working classes. That you mock this, equating real necessity with backward feudal rituals shows that you know as little about necessity then as you do now.
I spent a stint as a homeless activist -- it greatly impeded my ability to work. I wouldn't recommend it.
Flyby's note of the famous SDS "burning a dog" routine, which likely inspired this action is telling IN THE DIFFERENCE.
Did the SDSers run around saying "If you don't show up to save this dog you are a genocidal murderer?"
I don't think so. They engaged in sophisticated and savvy guerilla theater that brought out the best in people instead of brow-beating them with moralistic insults. Students came to stop them from burning the dog -- it worked. Did THIS action work? Yes or no? Did it bring forward an organizing core?
I appreciate the demands of building a movment on the fly. But what is being BUILT? Tell me. Because I don't see it on the Hunter campus. I thought it would be HELPFUL to share some observations. This too is telling. I noted that I spent considerable time organizing on the campus -- six years to be precise -- and those trumpeting the urgency of the moment aren't even curious if there is anything to share. That's sad. And if you don't deal with it as an attitude then you will fail.
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Observer asks regarding Trots and their "correct linism": "or that the analysis they promote as "truth" is, in fact, not true?"
Well, there's always another Trot sect to make that point... that's why there are so many of them, and what ultimately makes them the same. They have no grasp of the Mass Line -- that change comes from the people.
Let me try this another way: did you imagine students would spontaneously start brawling with the cops? Did you think they would "take the leash" or "put it down?" What would that have looked like? What were people actually supposed to do? You weren't even presenting a clear choice.
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Maz
Revolutionary
rock out
Posts: 106
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Post by Maz on Oct 27, 2005 23:57:32 GMT -5
Burningman,
Your dismissal of observor's line about Trots is confusing. You seem to be implying that the very existence of different lines means that we can't know what correct line is. A sort of agnosticism due to pluralism thing happening there. Am I wrong?
But isn't the point in fact determining what the correct line actually is? Do you believe that there even is a correct line or incorrect lines? Your quick dismissal of any forces claiming to represent the correct line is a thread that runs through all of your posts. Do you think that struggling over line is even important or worthwhile?
I don't mean this as a dis, because I think you make really valuable contributions here, but this is tripping me up. In my view, line is actually THE decisive thing, the ultimate difference between victory and defeat. And what makes the RCP so valuable, and precious, is their line of how to actually make the class struggle (and the revolution) in an imperialist country, which seems to me to be the only line out there capable of winning. I mean, isn't that something that should be explained and brought to the masses? Shouldn't RCYBers be shouting to the rafters that the RCP has the correct line? Wouldn't it be a disservice to the masses if they didn't?
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flyby
Revolutionary
Posts: 243
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Post by flyby on Oct 28, 2005 10:32:36 GMT -5
I can't reply to all the important points raised here, and hope others dig into stuff i leave untouched.
1) On our discussion: let's discuss lines. When I raise economism and identity politics -- I do so becuase these lines have debilitated organized radical forces. And because it is helpful to raise consciously what is wrong with them. It is not a matter of "take it up with those who hold these lines." First, because even those of us who don't HOLD these lines need to be consicous and politicfally armed to identify them (and "compare and contrast" to win others over. And second, because their influence is widespread, and not just in the most extreme expressins.
2) One of the hallmarks of economism is liquidating the question of imperialist bribery and complicity. Look: the masses can be won to make revolution in the U.S. But imperialism itself has a profound impact on the consciousness and activism of everyone -- including not just the upper classes, but also the masses themselves.
There are aspiring middle class forces who think "going to school IS the struggle. If I get over, my people are getting over." There is a conflating of personal success with eliminating discrimination -- so that focusing on self ("survival pending revolution"?) becomes the struggle.
It is linked to social worker mentalities, reformism, and (frankly) is also rooted in the spoils of imperialism. So that "I want in" triumphs over "I want out."
It is not wrong to say, sharply and at crucial moments, "silence gives consent."
And has been pointed out earlier in this thread: there are "blue states" where everyone thinks "fuck bush" and are doing nothing, while the pieces of a theocracy are laid in place.
3) Let's not be naive: the people who think this is "too extreme" also think "things are not that bad." The opposition to these tactics is linked to an analysis which denies the chair's view: that christian fascists are in the heights of power, that they are moving to consilidate a fascist theocracy, and that this would have profoundly negative longterm impact on the revolution and the world.
4) There is a view that sees struggle with the masses of people (especially sharp struggle) as hostile, antagonistic, offencive and intolerable. Such views are profoundly distant from communism -- and are (again lets not be naive) closely linked with a rejection of vanguard party, and the understanding of how much has to be "brought from without."
To people automatically know what is needed, and what they can do? do they automatically have a sense of the stakes, and the direction of events? do they sometimes need the jarring news that things are not on some linear track -- but have been galloping in very bad directions.....?
All the assumptions of economism and identity politics are deeply paralizing in a time of acute struggle and urgency. Re-read lenin's "collapse of the second international" -- where the approach and outbreak of world war sent all the reformist schema spinning into capitulation.
5) As for "quit your job" etc.: There is material reality -- i.e. people need to eat and have shelter. but there is also the material reality that these are the times we live for, and the people of the world NEED something from us -- not just "our best efforts" but very specific victories and accomplisments. We actually NEED to bring a resistance into being -- and there are profound consequences (positive and negative) depending on the outcome (and I mean in the short term!)
There is a certain settling in -- to careers, jobs, lifestyle, family, that sets aside a little room for dabbling in politics... while the assumption (really and basically) is that none of this will ever amount to much, not for a long long time. And that too is a line (obviously).
not everyone can, obviously, leave their jobs. But many of the most advanced can -- for a while at least. Not everyone will drop out of school -- but many can and will throw themselves into something that REALLY matters.
Let's not be part of some conservative "reality brigade" -- that turns the phrase "i'm in it for the long haul" into a ways of saying "revolution is a distant dream and I gotta get my life together." That's isn't actually reality!
That's why the phrase is "The World Can't Wait!" Think of the internationalism ofthat, and the reality of that.
Not only is Abu Ghraib intolerable -- but there are millions (Now! in the U.S.!) who think it is intolerable.
For those of us who aspire to be communists: THESE ARE THE DAYS WE LIVE FOR.
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flyby
Revolutionary
Posts: 243
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Post by flyby on Oct 28, 2005 12:34:28 GMT -5
burningman wrote: "Observer asks regarding Trots and their "correct linism": "or that the analysis they promote as "truth" is, in fact, not true?" Well, there's always another Trot sect to make that point... that's why there are so many of them, and what ultimately makes them the same. They have no grasp of the Mass Line -- that change comes from the people. "
First of all, it is not trotskyism to seek to develop and apply a correct line.
I think Maz is right to point out that this reply above implies that the very idea of this is wrong.
But in fact, revolution is a complex and difficult process (or it would alrady have been done.) You can't do it on a yearning, or on a mood, or just on a mass impulse. You have to know the world to change the world -- and there is tremendous creative work that has to be done -- to grasp reality, develop a correct and dynamic analysis, develop policies and plans based on a correct analysis.
If you dismiss all that as "correct linism" -- what is left?
two things: pragmatic tailing of whatever seems most promising, and assumption that you (and the masses) really don't need to grasp the world to change it (i.e. that their impulses, democratically summed up, are sufficient, or else revolutions "happen" without being made.) In other words, you get radical democracy, and intimately tied to that (what lenin calls) "the tailing and overestimation of sponteneity."
And even where you preserve some revolutionary dreams and rhetoric for a while, you don't (and can't) get actual revolutionary movements.
The downplaying of theory and ideology is very much part of the American pragmatic landscape. And it is entwined with all kinds of illusions about bourgeois democracy, and the (very american) idea that "what we need is action not talk." People just need to act, and there is not much nessity for (and nothing special about!) a leadership that can actually sum up reality and forge a revolutionary road.
To the pragmatic view: all this seem redundant, elitist, self-isolating, and (well) just arrogance. (And for them, there really is no difference between revolutionary communists analyzing reality and religious forces proclaiming divine insights -- the difference between materialist science and idealist metaphysics dissolves, and they both seem arrogant and religious.)
So, let me speak in favor of Mao's view: "Correct ideological and political line is decisive."
(meaning: you don't have a hope without it. Other things are needed. But without a correct analysis of reality, without an approach rooted in the communist goal and a materialist understanding of how communism emerges from capitalism, you don't have a prayer of getting anywhere good. And with a correct ideological and politial line -- especially a line on the level of the one developed by the RCP's main man -- something very promising and reality-changing has made an appearance, a very positive factor for making revolution, not just dreaming about it. )
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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 28, 2005 17:48:08 GMT -5
Maz -- I think we can "shout to the rafters" all day long. But people need truths demonstrated. And a vanguard force, to really be what it hopes to be, needs a deep connection to oppressed people in their lived life. It is a tremendous challenge, and one that I have the (untypical) humility to realize I haven't found the answer to. Recognizing that isn't an excuse for passivity, or a call to temper revolutionary enthusiasm. It's just saying that enthusiasm and some truths don't stand in for new relationships and facts on the ground.
I have often thought about what was so powerful about Huey Newton, despite all his real weaknesses. He demonstrated a new way of doing things, and didn't just add a new and correct "line" as a verbal assault. He took action that could be replicated, and that created a new range of possibilities on the ground. In that sense, even with many mistaken ideas, the Black Panthers functioned as a very real vanguard that even made BETTER politics possible than what Huey himself could offer.
Kazembe Balagun, a close friend and comrade of mine, often invokes Marcuse by talking about the role of the vanguard in creating "new needs." In other words, we very much need to try different means of bringing socialism OUT of people instead of putting it ON them. Socialism needs to break out, not be defined down. Solving the contradiction between revolutionary agitation and propaganda, and building real power among oppressed people is the cutting of the Gordian knot. Acting like we can solve the problem by pretending it doesn't exist is a recipe for sectarianism on the left and selling out (as a "trade union hack" etc.) on the right.
I agree very much with your assessment on both the decisiveness of line, and the unfortunately unique position of the RCP at this point in time. That's why I keep returning to this discussion. I have been very heartened by the discussions that Avakian has been promoting in the communist movement -- and I want to tease out some of the faultlines in these arguments in a way I haven't really seen enough of -- to the point!
This one incident under discussion, which is hardly a fatal mistake -- and one which activists of ALL types make on the regular -- is a good place to dig in. The action was important and necessary, as I noted initially and hope should be enough. That some people actually defend accusing students of being crypto-Nazis as an agitational method -- well, that should also speak for itself. It doesn't mean they are the enemy either. They are just mistaken, and will be MUCH more effective in this urgent moment by not "tailing spontaneous sentiment," but figuring out how to push the moment forward. I am arguing that the "confront the intermediate" line won't do that. It's the wrong cut. And it also doesn't even bring the advanced out -- or it didn't in this case, which is, again, why I'm putting so much time into the discussion.
Trotskyism has a long half-life on college campuses exactly because it is a packet of "truths" divorced from social practice, something particularly enticing to college students. Make up an analysis regarding socialism and there will one Trot group or another who embraces it. Economism? Try Solidarity. Third Worldism? WWP/Beckers. Ideologism? Sparts. And so on.
Hunter gets more of them than anyone. The ISO has an endemic presence. The Sparts tend to have at least one agitator attached to the campus at all times. Jan Norden, the former editor of the Workers Vanguard, purged by the Sparts, has set up his Internationalist regroupment at Hunter. Solidarity is around. And so on... I've had a tremendous amount of experience dealing wth Trots who show up at meetings to push an "analysis" totally divorced from real practice -- because pushing an analysis divorced from real (socialist) practice IS their practice. That's why it's not Leninism, and is an Idealist (sometimes pragmatic/opportunist, sometimes dogmatic/utopian) method. None of these groups, whatever the relative truth or falsehood of their particular ideas, has been able to "break through" to the student body at CUNY -- or the working classes anywhere on earth.
Flyby: What is so frustrating, and at times aggrevating in your method is that I agree with 90% of your statements. It is your self-limiting method that sees every way of engaging politics that isn't just "correct line" propaganda as THE problem. Correct Linism -- as a method -- is about "replacing, not embracing." That's why I can't stand it, to say nothing of how obviously it just doesn't work. Being ineffective and unpractical isn't combatting pragmatism, it's just being narrow.
You have a way of arguing that actually diminshes your own position instead of expanding and growing it. If "swimming among the masses" is economist, and organizing people around their FELT needs is "identity poltiidcs," then what are YOU left with? Agitational teams disconnected from and igorant of the masses of people.
There is truth in Observer's point about how "moventist" groups were thrown for a loop by the changed political climate after 911. And there is, in this forum, a great amount of agreement on how deeply pragmatism has limited and distorted what should be a dynamic people's movement. Why don't you try to build from the REAL agreements, instead of cutting the toes to fit the shoe?
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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 28, 2005 17:52:44 GMT -5
I also thought I'd post a private post I made to the largest CUNY radical listserve. It is the SLAM board that keeps that large and diffuse network in touch, and where (part of) the discussion I relayed is taken from. This was specifically written because an operative of the CP was slagging the event, and this is my defense of it. There are a ton of links to background material that won't cut-and-paste to the list. If anyone wants me to forward the full copy with links, just send me an message via this forum and I'll send it over:
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Here's some thoughts and background on what happened at Hunter and the World Can't Wait campaign:
World Can't Wait was initiated primarily by the Revolutionary Communist Party, the same folks who kicked of Not In Our Name, Refuse and Resist, the October 22nd Coalition Against Police Brutality, Revolution Books, and other initiatives. (If you go to the link for the RCP, their cartoon logo is actually drawn from a photo of participants in the March 23 CUNY Coalition protest at City Hall back in '95 that launched SLAM...)
Other significant signatories and organizers include: Code Pink, Tom Duane (NY State Senator representing the Village), Michael Eric Dyson, Yuri Kochiyama, CUNY Grad's Francis Fox Piven, Ron Kovic, Kevin Powell, Progressive Democrats of America, Cindy Sheehan, Studs Terkel, Cornel West, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Howard Zinn and few thousand other folks, including myself.
There has been much debate among activists (tons on Indymedia) about how to relate to the World Can't Wait -- and my two cents is that this is a very important project that will take us off the defensive. The sharp politics of WCW call is right on time. Bush's team is on the defensive now, but not on the right terms. Tom Delay was indicted in Texas and rumors are swirling about Karl Rove and Scooter Libby (BIG SHOTS) being charged in the coming weeks.
We have a unique chance to change the political dynamics in the country as a whole. To do that we need to be engaging people broadly in all kinds of different ways, which unfortunately is not entirely happening in the "activist community." It's like we're waiting for something to show up that we ourselves have to bring.
Hunter, as usual, ends up right in the mix.
Joey Steel was one of the folks arrested at Hunter and he wrote a comment about it here, directly in response to folks who don't like that they did the action. Here's a link to video of what they were doing in the hall of Hunter West and the subsequent arrests. They were certainly challenging students. This is a link to WCW's training video on agitating using the Abu Ghraib torture costumes.
There could be an interesting discussion on "what works" when it comes to building a movement. Speaking personally, I wish something like that happened every single day. We need a lot more disruption of "business as usual."
I don't agree with some of the rhetoric I heard on the video -- such as saying students are "complicit" because they didn't stop the police from arresting the protesters. That's asking too much and can alienate students, such as the folks from the Colombian Club. It is possible to do the right thing in the wrong way...
SLAM certainly irritated many students over the years just for standing up. That will always be the case. We should remember that, and remember that right-wing students -- and the plain old ignorant -- will always hate on activists. They won't say "Bush is great." They will say we are stupid because this system is indefensible.
Saying things like "are you just going to stand around like a bunch of spectators?," when students had just walked up and were trying to figure out what was going on is sure to make folks defensive -- when almost every student who was watching should be on our side. It's an easy mistake to make, one I've made myself -- especially in the heat of a campaign. Sometimes it's easy to forget that everyone else is going about their business and hasn't been immersed in fighting and the larger political scene.
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SLAM fam Suheir Hammad did an audio Public Service Announcement for the Nov. 2nd walkouts, as did Boots Riley from grasshoppa's fav band The Coup. ;-) These have been airing nationally on Air America and Pacifica stations. Koba, a rapper with Kontrast did one for NYC.
The basic idea is to launch a social insurgency against Bush -- and to build up a radical movement able to exert its own influence instead of just stressing about how bad things are getting. It isn't just one "group," but is a "movement" plan where local groups can engage it on their own terms . The RCP historically doesn't swim in the "activist soup." They aren't "coalition builders" in the usual sense, but try to launch more radical anti-system groups.
It's very important to know who is doing what... and why.
We're all activists, and have different levels of understanding about the "hidden infrastructure of the left." John recommends Revolution in the Air by Max Elbaum, which is a decent introduction to many of these questions -- but it's important to know that Elbaum was a longtime promoter of the Soviet Union (until the fall of the Berlin Wall) and working closely with the Democratic Party. Elbaum has worked for literally decades to temper the radicalism of the movement. He wrote a book about the New Communist Movement of the 1970s, but doesn't mention that he was always hostile to it, preferring the Old Left models and politics of the Communist Party (with some New Left style and Third Worldist rhetoric thrown in to obscure his objectives.)
Elbaum's history is deeply flawed and ultimately unreliable. Anyone who is interested in a longer discussion about it can give me an email bounce any time. Short story: "professional leftists" hate to rock the boat. They won't get the big foundation money, and they won't be able to work in the unions and NGOs where radical politics are generally not allowed. If Elbaum wasn't against building a revolutionary movement, he couldn't even have gotten his book published! So people like him dismiss literally anyone who tries to turn up the heat -- often by taking anecdotes out of context to delegitimize radicalism by equating it with foolishness. Folks like Elbaum also tend to hide their politics and affiliations. The Communist Party, for instance, attempted to infiltrate SLAM on several occasions. This was a long-running problem that never really ended. They do it dishonestly and covertly, because if they were straight-up -- no one would buy what they are selling.
Before I was involved with SLAM, I was a member of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade. I had disagreements with how they worked in the early 1990s (god I'm getting old) and found a better home with SLAM. But their unapologetic politics, strong internationalism and refusal to "make peace" with the system have always had my respect. Now more than ever.
Those of us continuing to work in the movement should support everyone making moves -- across the left political spectrum. And when comrades make mistakes, treat them as honest.
I wish I had time to organize for November 2nd. A lot needs to be done, but unfortunately I've been so broke it ain't a joke and have been working several jobs (plus school) to get out of the hole. November 2 is the launch of the movement to drive the Bush agenda out. I plan to get involved after that, but anyone who wants to help pull walkouts for the protest can easily get involved, get flyers and help spread the word around CUNY campuses.
Here's the link to the Student & Youth organizing for World Can't Wait.
Email: info@worldcantwait.org
Phone: 866-973-4463
Even a couple of days of quick flyering could make a real difference.
(That's all I can write from work -- but there's a lot going on in these discussions, and in the left as a whole right now. People are making moves and we all need to be debating and discussing who, what, where, when, why and how. I have no doubt there is more than one right answer to just about every question -- and some wrong answers, too.)
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Post by celticfire on Oct 29, 2005 1:34:30 GMT -5
flyby said:
I just want to add my meager two cents on the matter of "most advanced" quitting their jobs...
This issue came up for several of us, some of us DO have families who are scared and frightened by what is going on but don't want to see us get killed or jailed for getting in it's [the fascistic Bush regime's] way.
We have wives, husbands, daughters and sons they need our help to survive, and they also need us to contribute what small paychecks we make towards rent, utilities and food.
So I don't think it's as simple as "The most advanced WILL quit their jobs" (I know this isn't what you meant flyby, but I want to address this.)
I told my fellow travelers this: We all need to take personal account of what we can contribute, what we can afford to lose - because some of us can afford to go to prison or be jailed indifintely...
some of us can't, not out of fear but responsibility.
We are facing a historic moment and we need the masses of people, but some of the masses can't simply give up everything for the cause, some did and contributed vasts amounts more then others - and thanks be to them! But please...please don't down play the roles of those who can not give up their jobs or lives.
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Post by two cents on Oct 29, 2005 11:29:18 GMT -5
What we do, individually and collectively, matters. And what we choose is fundamentally a matter of what ideoloy and politics we embrace. This determines what priorities we set, how we evaluate different choices, and whether we even understand that we have clear choices in front of us.
It is a matter of struggling to grasp what this moment is, and what the people of the world need. And what we can and should do.
And there is struggle over this and there should be struggle over this -- because no one sees these things without work and study.
That, after all, is the whole point of challenging people on campuses!
And it is not true that these actions on campuses did not give people any idea of what they should do! This was a call for November 2, to become part of the organized core for fighting to make this happen.
When you say "some people have responsibilities," that is true, undeniably.
But we all need to view "responsibility" from the worldview of the revolutionary proletariat. Responsibility to who? Responsibility for what?
How does your "responsibility to your career" or "responsibility to your parents sacrifice and expectations" compare to the "responsibility to the people of the world"?
If they are in conflict, who wins?
How do we set priorities? What responsibilities do we place first? What responsibilities do we lay down or set second?
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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 29, 2005 17:23:40 GMT -5
In other news, WCW activists at Berkeley barged into torture advocate Prof. Yoo's class. www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=20191Maybe some people didn't like that -- but this kind of "challenge" is right on target -- bring the people together against the enemy!
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Post by Clinch on Nov 14, 2005 22:59:14 GMT -5
It is my understanding that the action at Hunter College was based on the experience of organizing there for November 2nd and was based on the response of the students.
This was not the first arrest. In fact, they had been organizing there for weeks, and while there were some positive results, in the main students were going about their normal routines. When the organizers were in the cafeteria doing work they were arrested while wearing the orange jumpsuits symbolizing torture. Some students played a backward role, while the majority just watched and let it happen. This was a terrible situation, eerily reminiscent of how silence becomes the norm in the ascension of fascism.
That is why students needed to be confronted... 'until you are fighting this shit, you are holding that leash!' And I don't care if you are a white male middle-class student or an immigrant proletarian first-generation. Unless you are fighting this, you are complicit!
The college campuses need to be shaken, challenged, stirred and turned into hotbeds and bastions of resistance and revolution. Just look at what happened on November 2nd itself in NYC. Thousands of high-school students courageously walked out and came down to Union Square. And where the hell were the college students? Some were there, yes, but they needed to be there in their thousands. And yet, at Hunter College, a few dozen students did a counter-recruiting event INSTEAD of joining the action at Union Square. LAME and counter-productive.
Listen and learn, yes, but challenge those students and be in their face! They don't need us to tail them, they need people to lead them. Then they can lead many others too.
I do agree, however, that the action needs to be done with the tortured silent, and an outside agitator speaking to the people... instead of those in the orange jumpsuits organizing the students.
Also, next time people should hang a big portrait of George W. Bush behind this, to draw the clear connection that this is but one reason to Drive Out The Bush Regime!
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Post by chris on Dec 20, 2005 23:20:10 GMT -5
The question I have is how has this worked when you've actually done it? Did you win anybody over to what you wanted them to do?
I'm all for finding new forms of agitation and I understand the need to convey the urgency of the present moment. But if that becomes an excuse for not summing up how this actually played when directed at people then its just sectarian. Or if it is viewed as a substitute for the week in and week out work of building a mass movement on a particular campus its self-deluding.
During the Viet Nam war students on some campuses announced that they were going to burn a dog in protest against the war. When folks showed up to oppose the dog burning they were lectured on why they cared more about the dog than about the Vietnamese. Maybe these events awoke the consciences of a few people, but my impression is that for the most part they just set up a dynamic of self-righteousness that separated people from the masses they wanted to organize and move.
Alienating the people is only half of the problem. The other danger is in getting so caught up in the (very real) urgency of the situation that you confuse your desire to convey that sense of urgency with practical success in doing so. There is nothing wrong with trying a tactic out that doesn't work, but only if you are actually self-critically summing things up and therefore able to use that experience to move things forward.
Finally, parachuting onto a campus and carrying off a piece of theater like this isn't going to win many people over even if the theater is particularly well-conceived. Urgent as things are it is critical to take the time to really get to know the terrain where you are working, to know the other forces who may be competing with you for peoples allegiances OR that you might be able to work with. It is not sufficient to assume that you know what everybody is about. People need to go to class often because if they don't they won't pass their classes and they'll lose their financial aid and they'll be compelled to take a dead-end crap job (or join the military). Hectoring them without actually knowing their situation is likely to do positive damage to the work you are trying to accomplish. As the man said, no investigation, no right to speak.
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Maz
Revolutionary
rock out
Posts: 106
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Post by Maz on Dec 21, 2005 19:55:28 GMT -5
"C"s get degrees. It's ain't that hard to keep up a 2.0 gpa.
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Post by chris on Dec 26, 2005 2:57:25 GMT -5
Wow.
There it is.
Look, whats not hard for you can be an ass-kicking struggle for someone else. I don't know you or your life situation. I do, however, know Hunter students and their life situations quite well. And your (Maz's) comment neatly distills exactly what is wrong in this whole approach.
Political line IS decisive. But political line isn't just a series of words that you shout at someone. It is the totality of your practice. I think it was St. Francis of Asisi who said something to the effect of "spread the gospel at all times, use words when neccesary." The point being not that the words you use don't matter (they do) but that using the right ones doesn't exhaust the question of whether you are pursuing the right line.
The present moment is indeed urgent. Its so urgent in fact that we can't afford self-righteousness, that we can't afford NOT finding out what peoples lives are about. You spend several weeks doing agitation at a campus and you run up into a lot of the indifference and apathy of this society. Its frustrating. I understand that. I did more than a little agitational work in those cafeterias and a lot of it didn't work. The stuff that DID work, in my experience, started from a knowledge of and respect for the people I was talking to. There are students at Hunter who are in the Reserves and scared to death. There are others with family members in Iraq. And many, many people who are sick to their stomachs at what is happening. But if your attitude towards all of them, without even taking the time to find out their situations, is that it is easy for them all to get Cs and that they can and should settle for getting Cs so that they can fight the cops right now instead of going to class and if they don't they are just "good Germans," well then I'm not surprised that your work at Hunter wasn't more effective.
If Hunter is a place worth agitating (and it is) its also a place worth learning. Spend a week or two listening to people. Find out what they think and feel about the war, about the threat of Christian fascism, and whatever else is scaring them (global warming anybody?). Find out what they think of various efforts to challenge this, what they think of voting, of protests, of more disruptive kinds of action. Find out why they are in school, what their other responsibilities are, who is counting on them to climb out of whatever hole they are in. Find out who is who, which clubs concentrate the more advanced students, which ones have the biggest parties, who are the organic leaders whose opinions are respected. Hectoring crowds may win over a future newspaper hawker or two, but if you want people who can LEAD masses into battle against this system you need to respect the people you are working with, respect their lives and struggles and take the time to really learn the terrain. There is no short cut around this. And calling it economism is just empty phrasemongering. Taking the time to learn about peoples lives doesn't mean reducing your politics to appeals to their narrow personal self-interest. On the contrary it means learning precisely where they are most open to appeals on a genuinely revolutionary basis. Because they are. Those appeals can't be generated by formula, they must be rooted in continuous concrete investigation that recognizes that revolutionaries have as much, if not much more, to learn from the masses than the other way around. Or as somebody else (I don't think it was St. Francis this time) said "The masses are the real heroes, while we ourselves are often childish and ignorant, and without this understanding it is impossible to acquire even the most rudimentary knowledge."
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Maz
Revolutionary
rock out
Posts: 106
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Post by Maz on Dec 26, 2005 13:48:39 GMT -5
First, I'm not in the RCYB, had nothing to do with that action, and don't live in the US, so it's not "my work". At any rate, I don't disagree with you that it's important to know the political terrain when doing work. And from what I've been reading about the political terrain at Hunter, this action was right on the money. I understand that people may have families depending on them, that there's all kinds of pulls on people etc. I just don't think it changes what the rev forces need to be asking of people. Joining the revolution means that sometimes you break with family, you leave them, maybe never talk to them again. It means sacrificing friends, career, girlfriends, bands, hobbies, wives, all that. A lot of those people you derisively call "newspaper hawkers" have made those kinds of sacrifices.
And I don't know about students at Hunter, but a whole lotta people in the Western world are being "good Germans" right now. Why shouldn't they be confronted with that?
Someone once told me what I feel is the most valuable political lesson I've ever learned, and that's that "even incorrect ideas have a material basis". So yes, we must understand where the masses are coming from, how they've summed up various complex experience, and I do respect that. But that is not, by any stretch, the same thing as agreeing with them.
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