Eugene Coyle: In Oakland, perhaps in contrast with NY or elsewhere, there isn't much analysis, economic or otherwise, being put forward.
It can be argued that this refusal to provide and "analysis" or specific "goals' was and is at the heart of OWS and OO. In the early days of OWS, one participant, asked for an analysis, replied "There's lots of bad shit out there." Precisely! The 'situation' is profoundly different today than it was in 1956 when Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus, or in 1960 when the Freedom Riders defied the law in a number of southern states or in 1963 when Berkeley students demanded the right to maintain literature tables -- or, for that matter, than in 1936 when GM workers demanded that GM recognize the Union. Those were _all_ situations which demanded a specific focus, a refusal of specific evils. There is (or especially was in 2011) a very specific evil today to: the lack of a militant and coherent left. A 'demand' has to be made to someone who can satisfy the demand. Who can satisfy the demand that there be A Left that can properly be called A Left? And the answer is quite obvious: The Working People of the World. Hence the only possible "demand," were one to be made explicit, would be that printed on the blank page at the beginning of Marxist books: Workers of the World Unite! The same critics of OWS who mocked (and mock) its lack of analysis, of precise goals, would have been (correctly) rolling on the floor in hopeless laughter had OWS made _that_ 'demand.' Probably the Occupiers themselves would have been unable to keep a straight face. Nevertheless, OWS did, quite loudly, make that demand, and in en embryonic way that demand is being realized: Check out the Chicago Teachers. Have to run. More later. Carrol _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
