Hi folks, After today I will be offline for a month or two again as part of my political sabbatical.
I thought, before I sign off, I would make a comment on the reply to me from Eric (SAIC and CVO supporter) from the recent Seattle Indymedia thread at: http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2008/09/268695.shtml *** I advocated that SAIC make a commitment to building an open community of supporters. Eric replies that "SAIC does everything in its power to create a community of supporters." Eric then goes on to explain that this community is mainly restricted to Seattle and does not make use of the internet. Eric also fails to deal with the concept of the community being "open". I don't believe that Eric (or SAIC) understand the concept of an open community. It should be possible (for example) for anyone who reads a SAIC leaflet to go to the SAIC website and, from there, be able to learn about (and make contact with) any supporters of SAIC who want information about their views (or political work) to be public. An example of how this can be done is the wiki page listing some of the members of the media weapon community-in-embryo at: http://mediaweapon.wetpaint.com/ The central idea behind any genuine community is that the members of that community have abundant opportunity to interact with one another without permission or control by a guiding center. I don't think SAIC understands this. For example, SAIC maintains a MySpace page--but their website does not link to it. You can only find this page if you are "in the know" or search google. The concept of an open community is alien to cargo cultists because they would not be able to _control_ it. However a genuinely mass anti-imperialist organization would understand that an open community of supporters would be essential to reaching activists and developing the influence of the organization. *** I advocated that SAIC take a long-term view of its tasks, including those theoretical tasks which are decisive for the revolutionary movement. Central to these tasks is encouraging discussion and debate concerning how society can exist and function without the political and economic system of imperialism. This question is important because the dominant view in our society is that the only alternative to our current political system is a repressive police state and the rule of single party. Eric replies that, since SAIC's points of unity do not require agreement with any particular view of the nature of the post-revolutionary society, any and all discussion, debate or mention of this topic must be avoided entirely. A genuinely mass anti-imperialist organization would not, of course, require its members to have agreement on this topic. But it would recognize that this is an important question and it would take practical steps to encourage discussion aimed at developing our confidence that a better world, without imperialism, is possible. *** I won't deal with everything Eric says, but will add that the guiding spirit of Eric's remarks is captured in his introduction: > In Ben's reply to Frank, he has shown that his > program would not take 24 hours a day to > implement. But that is not really the question, > is it? The question is, how much of what we are > already doing would we have to give up to > implement his program? Well, looking at Ben as > a consummate example of carrying out the Ben-ist > program with "a disciplined approach", it > appears that we would have to essentially resign > from the concrete immigrant rights, health care, > anti-war, and anti-police state struggles -- > given that Ben takes almost no part in these > struggles. We would have to produce only one or > two leaflets a year, rather than the 8 to 10 we > do produce -- given that Ben produces very > little agitation for distribution. We would > have to drop the analysis of current events that > we do to write these leaflets -- given that what > Ben does write on the current struggles consists > of spouting a few "catchy phrases" and > generalities, and contains almost no analysis of > current events. We would have to drastically cut > back on distributing the tens of thousands of > leaflets we distribute in demonstrations and in > working class neighborhoods each year -- given > that Ben engages in little or none of this work. Eric's argument is a good example of the phenomenon often called "groupthink", common in political cults of all kinds. I call this kind of argument the "Ozymandias argument" (see the poem below for why). To see what is wrong with it, consider how this argument might be applied by an RCP supporter to defend the RCP from a critic who says that the RCP does a lot of good and useful work--but that the cult of Avakian stuff is a real problem. The RCP supporter can point to all the articles (some of which are quite good) in the RCP's newspaper and the hundreds of thousands of copies that are distributed. The RCP supporter can then ask: "And what are you doing except for sitting on your rear end?". With a triumphal smile the RCP supporter can then declare that if the RCP did what the critic was doing--it would not be writing articles and distributing its newspaper. The problem with the Ozymandias argument is that it is mainly a way for supporters of a cult to feel good about what they are doing while failing to seriously confront criticism. Ben Seattle http://struggle.net/ben/ -- my web page Exchanges on how to build revolutionary organization: http://struggle.net/mass-democracy/ >From "Ozymandias" (Shelley, 1817): And on the pedestal, these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away. ------------------------------------ (This is not a discussion list--the discussion list is pof-200) THEORIST LIST -------------- To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theorist/messages Info: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theorist/ POF-200 ------- home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pof-200/ to subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theorist/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theorist/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
