Jim Devine wrote: > >> me: >> this is the either/or thinking that we see on the left too > much: there's no choice but between self-indulgent ATM-burning and > the excessive politeness of the League of Women Voters. There's no > combinations or subtle variations in between, so anyone who criticizes > one must be advocating the other.<< > > CB, now: > I was waiting for you to tell us what the combinations or > subtle variations in between are.< > > not having the time, I'll let you think them up. One example, however, > would be a sit-down strike in a restaurant that refuses to serve > African-American customers. (ancient history!)
I read somewhere that the IWW had strict rules on sabotage -- and members were not to do it on their own hook, because the random practice of it was demoralizing to the practitioners. I think Mao has an essay condemning the "roaming-guerilla" mindset -- and that in the midst of armed conflict. Deliberate planned violence _has_ to occur within some kind of accountbility to a mass base or it becomes divisive self-indulgence. Fred Hampton spent the final months of his life delivering a speech to black high-school students the core of which was a condemnation of the Weatherman tendency in SDS. Such violence (as practiced by Weatherman or by most anarchist tendencies) is counter-revolutionary: it divides and weakens the revolutionary forces. It is every bit as bad as pure electoralism. I haven't read the posts that dealt with the Athens events, so I have no way of knowing whether or not that rampage would have been in response (or not) to the felt needs of a large element of the population of Athens. If it was merely a small-group gesture, than that small group might as well have been deliberate provocateurs and traitors. Carrol Carrol
