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These remarks by Louis betray an astounding lack of understanding or
appreciation for the radical anti-systemic movements of the whole last
forty years -- anti-nuke, Central America solidarity, Act-Up, global
justice, etc. -- which have been full of "symbolic acts," above all
people putting their own bodies on the line, while trying to engage
broader populations. We should not try to pose these movements and
their actions against building working class conscious and self-motion
but bring these things into relationship -- with workers taking the lead
against all oppressions.
jay
On 3/29/11 7:13 PM, Kenneth Morgan wrote
1. Is your disagreement with only those who engaged in trashing
property, or
also with those who engaged in the non-violent civil disobedience?
Apparently there is not exact clarity between the people Laurie Penny
was defending and the black block intervention. It has been a long
time since I paid attention to anarchist foolishness but you had the
same kind of porous borders between the white bloc (essentially the
UNCUT activists) and the more hardened, open to police spies, black
bloc activists.
2. Do you disagree with the violent civil disobedience in general,
or that
this tactic was out of place for this particular event?
I am generally opposed to "symbolic" protests that are aimed at the
masses as if they were an audience at a Broadway play. The whole idea
is to get the working people to take the stage themselves.
I raise these questions because the non-violent, that is non violent
until
the cops became violent, civil disobedience was a key event in the
Seattle
actions of 1999.
After Seattle, there were attempts to keep repeating chaotic and
violent street confrontations in the vain hope that they would destroy
capitalism, whereas in fact the only thing that got destroyed was
anarchism.
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