> What is the alternative? Howie Hawkiins and his guest - Kieran Knudson - > proposed armed community self defense.
I'm curious how many people on this list think that's a good idea. History teaches it's a particularly bad idea that's most likely to fail. Rather than armed force, our power is in numbers. And we are a long way from talking about armed self defense: The mass movement is without effective national leadership. There's no SCLC or SNCC, NPAC or PCPJ. We don't yet have national organizations to coordinate a national response, implement a strategy, and select effective tactics. Indivisible and the Democratic Party are the default leadership. They failed us in the first Trump administration and will do that again. Labor is not yet leading because US labor defers to the Democratic Party. In Portland a couple of weeks ago, Indivisible called for demonstrations that competed with other groups on the left. There is going to be a "Labor against ICE" action this Saturday. That's progress. But rather than treating labor as a "sector" in an intersectional struggle, labor should be a key part of the leadership of a single, national movement that is independent of the Democratic Party. There is today some movement among local and regional labor groups. Should we build on that or should a vanguard arm itself to fight ICE with weapons rather than a mass political movement? It sounds militant to call for armed response but real militancy aims to win struggles by any means necessary. In the present conjuncture, non-violent civil disobedience might be the best tactic like in the US Civil Rights Movement; that is, if there existed a national leadership organization rather than many ad-hoc, easily provoked local actions called by various uncoordinated groups, or by no group at all. Mark -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#40407): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/40407 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/117460647/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
