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On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 3:57 AM, Louis Proyect <l...@panix.com> wrote: No, he is not correct. The massive antiwar demonstrations of the past since > 2002 have all proceeded peacefully, once a permit was obtained. > Har! At this late hour, I don't have the mental acuity to figure out the relevant dates tonight, but I can state from personal experience: That's simply wrong. Numerous permitted antiwar demonstrations, with nary a mask in sight, were targeted by police charges, mass arrests, and other official violence. I'm sure anyone from PSL or WWP on the list will attest to this. And that's not even counting the many more I didn't attend ... > The black bloc looks for ways to engage the cops in street-fighting > because they hope it will lead to heads getting busted. > Lou, Lou, Lou. I realize I'm spinning my wheels here, so I'll give it one more go and then give up (until the next time, anyway). It's a TACTIC. NOT an organization. NOT an ideology. I know you're aware of this, since you yourself said it earlier in the day. Trying to pin the writings of a couple of people who have used a tactic on anyone who has ever used or currently uses it is simply farcical and hardly deserves a rebuttal. There are all kinds of intelligent ways to critique tactics - say, the vending of newspapers at protests (now there's one of my irrational grudges!). Approaching the tactic as if it were the same thing as the ISO, or in any way comparable to it, is a recipe for confusion and sloppy thinking, which is what you engage in every time you trot out some boneheaded statement as an example of what "they" think. Coming from an anarchist background, I can't help but be amused at how politically and strategically cohesive many of you from the party scene, as well as social democrats like Hedges, obviously imagine "them" to be. Part of me (but only part) says: "If only!" The real wonder is that most (but not all) of "them" even agree on a common label, even if they mean different and contradictory things by it ... -- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað." ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
