Who in the hell has ever bothered one way or the other with that "Manifesto"? To debate it (and especially to compare it with any of the classics in the genre) is not just apolitical; it is aggressively and offensively apolitical. The criterion for judging the Occupations lies still in the future; if one does treat the present as a tentatively adequate future perspective, one then has to equate the New York Manifesto with the Montgomery Bus Strike, the first factory sit-down strike of the '30s, and other major turning points in left history. The Occupation, following on Wisconsin, created an embryo left. Whether that beginning will maintain itself (in other forms than Occupations) or not is determined by forces and agencies quite independent of anything that might have appeared in the Manifesto. It's totally irrelevant, and focusing on it betrays a serious indifference to politics.
Carrol As for the manifesto, it's too long and wordy. It has no elegance, like `When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary....' We know poetry inspires people, so let's have more poetry and less institutionalized language. We already know what to do and who we oppose, i.e. the rich assholes who rule the earth for their benefit and not ours. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
