Date: Thu, 09 Dec 1999 09:57:20 -0500
From: Chuck0 <chuck-AT-tao.ca>
Subject: Re: More Marxist Baloney


Uh, Jamal, I think the news covered the street sit-ins pretty well. But
they would have been relegated to page A44 if the Starbucking hadn't
taken place.

Chuck0

Jamal Hannah wrote:
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 03:34:46 EST
> From: Borba100-AT-aol.com
> To: marxism-AT-lists.panix.com
> Cc: leninist-international-AT-buo319b.econ.utah.edu
> Subject: CONCERNING BOREDOM AND MASS MOVEMENTS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
> 
> I wrote that anarchists in Seattle were not helpful.  Jamal Hannah replied
> that :
> 
> "Well, youre just proving what I suspected.. that Marxists are just
> reformists and not revolutionaries.  It was the attacks on corporate
> property that made the Anti-WTO protests get on the news.
> Why have just another boring protest where people just yell slogans?"
> 
> Actually, the WTO protests were hardly boring prior to the police-staged rock
> throwing media events.  The protesters blocked the entry of delegates - which
> by the  way DID get in the news - and there was much organized energy which
> effectively prevented the rock throwers from throwing rocks.  The police
> attack on the demonstrators was needed to disrupt not only their sit-in but
> their capacity to exercise collective discipline.
> 
> 1) Does news = revolution?  Does BAD news = revolution?  Obviously the NEWS
> agenda of the elite was to discredit the protesters by smearing them as
> mindless rioters WHO DESERVED PUNISHMENT.  Hence the media showed 1) rock
> throwers followed by  rock throwers (actually NOT the rock throwers) being
> gassed.
> 
> 2) Now WHY was this the program of the elite?  It was aimed at making sure
> the WORKING PEOPLE were hostile to the demonstrators - because the natural
> tendency of working people is to side with those challenging corporate power.
>   But working people do not and never will sympathize with terrorism.  That's
> why the powers that be instigate it always - anyway, throughout our century.
> 
> 3)  That does not mean people have no right to self defense, and so on.
> 
> 4) Did the media tactic of using the anarchists and agent provocateurs and
> physical assault on demonstrators to get them to retaliate violently - did
> the media tactic of providing violent photo ops work for the elite?  Yes and
> no.  Provocation can of course  backfire.  In this case, the MAIN backfiring
> comes from people (thousands of them) KNOWING first hand (and from reports in
> Internet sources (including I am proud to say Emperors Clothes) that the NEWS
> impression that the demonstrators were EXCITING ROCK THROWERS was A LIE.  In
> other words, the political lesson that the elite controls the media and uses
> it to lie to the people to discredit emerging mass movements - this POLITICAL
> LESSON is how we can defeat the attempt to discredit popular movements.  And
> in the end, this POLITICAL EDUCATION of many thousands of people - which they
> will communicate to millions over time - may prove quite costly.  In that
> case, this tactic of the establishment - that is, the use of rock throwers,
> whether paid agents, excited children, whacked out street people, or kids
> furious at being gassed, shot at, punched, kicked and having tear gas
> canisters shot in their faces
>  this tactic of PROVOCATION FOR USE BY THE MEDIA - may prove a disastrous
> failure.
> 
> Provocation can backfire indeed.  The 1905 Russian revolution was mistakenly
> started by a Czarist secret policeman that way.  But there's never been a
> revolution (or decent reform movement for that matter) carried out by people
> engaging in random attacks on property.  Period.
> 
> Jared Israel

-- 
Chuck0

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