tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post8808490477164677026..comments2023-08-12T03:31:24.561-07:00Comments on postpostochlophobist: protest aesthetics: whine vs. fistUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-16669096687736829732011-10-18T15:24:54.373-07:002011-10-18T15:24:54.373-07:00AV,
I think you may be right that the Obama worsh...AV,<br /><br />I think you may be right that the Obama worship is derivative of such a spirit. In the end the race card is pulled, and while I understand and appreciate the history within CPUSA of being committed to fighting racism, here I wonder if there is not a reverse racism of sorts at hand. It seems that Obama has all of his political sins forgiven because he is black. There is a trump card often used in discussions in the party - criticism of Obama rears up from the rank-and-file membership and then someone pulls the "yes, but the racists hate him, and he is the focus of the most intense upsurge in overt racism in a generation, and therefore to combat racism we must support him." I don't know what to do with all that. There has been a lot of push back from rank-and-file in response to the national leadership's lustfest with Obama, and in recent months the leadership has toned it down a bit, though with the recent jobs bill been dishing out the Kool-Aide again.<br /><br />In Memphis, thus far, CPUSA and the DSA are the only radical/"radical" groups of any size and doing much of anything. There was an SPUSA chapter, and some of those folks are still around I think, and I think there are some SWPs around (I know of at least one). There are a couple (influential among student groups) Freedom Roaders, who have created a little cadre of student Maoist essentialists who don't know that they are now Maoist essentialists. The ISO has evangelized in cities all around Memphis but not concentrated much on Memphis yet. I suppose the closest Marxist-humanist meeting to me is in Chicago. <br /><br />If you mean the national leadership of CPUSA, then I wouldn't dispute the Kerensky observation. I don't know. Among the rank-and-file however I wonder if that is perhaps not generally the case.Ochlophobist https://www.blogger.com/profile/13751003558600087713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-33039173597113489682011-10-18T06:14:12.099-07:002011-10-18T06:14:12.099-07:00I mean, if the CPUSA was miraculously transported ...I mean, if the CPUSA was miraculously transported to 1917, they would have expelled Lenin and rode Kerensky's dick all the way to the bloody counter-revolution. Judging from the history of Stalinist and post-Stalinist parties from 1920 onward, I don't think one could argue honestly that anything else would have occured.AVhttp://elblogdelpelon.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-91007076161378658692011-10-18T05:09:24.343-07:002011-10-18T05:09:24.343-07:00Just to clarify, I don't think that the CPUSA ...Just to clarify, I don't think that the CPUSA and other groups have an internal leader worship complex, or that Sam Webb has pretensions of being the next Stalin, because that would just be sad and pitiful. It is that they have that attitude towards the "leaders of the people" outside of the Party, whether that be Roosevelt, Sukarno, Jesse Jackson. Maybe they have pretenses that they are going to "play them" in some sort of Leninist game of political chess, but so far, they have only shown that they are spectacularly good at failing.AVhttp://elblogdelpelon.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-13051288030926429362011-10-17T11:33:49.399-07:002011-10-17T11:33:49.399-07:00- cont'd -
My take on it is this - Marx, Le...- cont'd - <br /><br /><br />My take on it is this - Marx, Lenin, Luxemburg, etc. espoused working with social dem liberal-bourgeoisie while the proletariat prepared itself, through the experience of class struggle, for taking control. Obama and the Dems today are not anywhere near social dem, nor are they even really liberal bourgeois. By the standards of Marx, Lenin, Luxemburg, etc., they are pretty hardcore reactionary and overtly anti-worker in their policies. I have an increasingly hard time with the argument that one should support Dems because they are better than the alternative. This seems to me akin to saying I should organize and vote for the Nazi who only wants to eliminate 50% of the Jewish population and 25% of the gays because that Nazi's views are so much better than the Nazi who wants to get rid of all of them (an analogy that has no basis in history, but I was desperate for a grossly exaggerated analogy). Then again, I wonder if the very far left of the Dems is not akin to a labor tendency within the dems, and I wonder if it might not be fruitful to work with them. Is Elizabeth Warren substantially different than some of the people Marx and Lenin advocated communists to work with?<br /><br />I have a problem with the idea of dropping out of electoral politics altogether if there is anything at all to work with, especially on the local level. Radicals have been able to get city council positions into the hands of some pretty radical people over the years, and this can have benefits, especially if we ever get to the point of city wide strikes. There is also, on a local level, that important phenomenon of electoral politics allowing all sorts of people to meet radicals when radicals get involved. This is one of the things I noted at (albeit non-political thus far) Occupy Memphis when I went yesterday. There were a lot of radical folks there taking part in discussions with people who are not radical at all. The discussions were cordial, and if nothing else these non-radical folks were able to meet and greet with radicals and radical ideas and see that the people who hold these views are not all crazy wack jobs. They have jobs. They have kids. They like science fiction cable TV programs and baseball, etc. I think it helps people to entertain the notion that there is a necessary enmity between the employing classes and the employed classes when they meet actual human beings who hold these views. It's sad that we are in such a desperate state of affairs, but we are. This notion that the working class is far more radical than the vanguard thinks is true, I think, at an intuitive level. But at some point that intuition needs to come to a spoken level, and I am inclined to think that it helps (or can be helpful) then for people to meet radicals who speak that way. One of the benefits of the "fall of the left" and the many different radical groups at hand today is that a fervent Vanguardism just isn't taken seriously when made manifest. So even radicals that belong to vanguard-centric organizations, when going out and doing work in the community, usually end up saying pretty similar things - and those similar things (regarding control of production, wealth redistribution, access to health care and education, etc.) evoke that radical workers’ intuition. At this point the radical left in this country is so small it can hardly be called influential. But as conditions worsen, and people look more and more for a language which suits their own radical dispositions, that existence of radicals speaking radically who live and work in communities may end of being more important - not as a controlling vanguard, per se, but as people providing a language of revolution, and people who encourage others to <i>say</i> that it is OK, even human, to make these sorts of demands. Does that make sense?Ochlophobist https://www.blogger.com/profile/13751003558600087713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-9386288015875227612011-10-17T11:33:29.169-07:002011-10-17T11:33:29.169-07:00- cont'd -
I realize that saying that CPUSA...- cont'd - <br /><br /><br />I realize that saying that CPUSA rejects Stalinism is not going to be accepted, given the history of that rejection coming by U.S.S.R. mandate, but I think that it might be easy to miss the fact that Trot style critiques of Stalinism have entered into the operative paradigm of much of the party vis-a-vis questions of actually existing socialism. You have a number of people in national leadership or who write for the party now who very much disagree with the Gus Hall legacy. The Party currently gets it from every end on this question. As you may know among Marxist-Leninists throughout the world there has been a resurgence of outright Stalinism. The now surging CP of Greece (KKE) has rehabilitated Stalin and encouraged other CPs to do so, and CPUSA gets it from this hyper-orthodox turn from some of those parties. On the other hand, it still gets called Stalinist from Trots and the like. I think most of the CPUSA leadership would wholeheartedly now agree with the notion that there is "a new philosophy of revolution so that the same shit doesn’t keep happening over and over again." I just happen to think that their impulses in seeking that new philosophy might be off - especially when I hear them say things like "we need to push Obama's Jobs bill at Occupy protests" etc. I can understand why someone would look at the obvious warts in CPUSA history and call it ridiculous, I'm just not sure that it is any less ridiculous than Trot purity seeking sectarianism or other options out there. I tend to think the New Left abysmally ridiculous.<br /><br />In my mind, the Stalin question is not relevant to today's CPUSA, unless we ascribe guilt to past decisions, which is fair enough I suppose. The Party Chair and Co. may be trying to press through a rightward shift in the party, but I don't see them pushing a cult of personality like unto Hall or Browder. What concerns me most of all is the question of whether or not they are communist at all anymore, or if they have essentially embraced social dem (on the surface of things that seems very apparent, but some people insist this is only as a means to an end).Ochlophobist https://www.blogger.com/profile/13751003558600087713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-58795811318991399262011-10-17T11:32:55.795-07:002011-10-17T11:32:55.795-07:00AV,
I don't mean to suggest that my character...AV,<br /><br />I don't mean to suggest that my characterization of the Trots is accurate - it is simply my own experience. You have to play the cards you are dealt. There does seem to be a number of different Trot or semi(former?)-Trot groups today who are not as hyper-vanguardist as the caricature of Trots. <br /><br />I guess I bring up the classist line in part because I notice language coming out of upper middle classist circles, including circles claiming to be old left influenced, that, frankly, disgust me. Just yesterday I was reading a thread on FB wherein there was much praise for the site where 1%ers avow their support for the 99%er movement, and then more praise was uttered for some group of very wealthy leftist philanthropists (The North Star Fund) which stated a famous-among-rich-leftists Marx reading group, which was apparently Trotish in orientation. It reminds me of Zizek's emphasis that "the nice slaveowners were the worst slaveowners" - I'm not so keen on the idea of "radical slaveowners" or people who think that they can rightly keep their great wealth or live their lives in extremely affluent and elitist circles and at the same time think that their pure Marxist theory is where it is at and it's all good because they are charitable radicals. Marx and Lenin at least had the integrity to insist that they should not lead a vanguard that dictates terms to the working class, and no matter what they say I guess I don't trust rich American leftists to not believe themselves to be the rightful masters of the working class.<br /><br />CPUSA has elements of that leader worship you suggest, no doubt, but its a more convoluted situation now. Houston certainly doesn't worship national leadership at the moment - even using the "liquidation" language to describe the Party chairman's actions in the Party. And the national leadership has suggested dropping dem centralism and stated that the party hasn't even tried to operate under dem centralism for years, but at the same time has tried to silence dissent in the party at national meetings, though not with complete success. Most of the Clubs are where they are and do what they do without that much regard to whether or not they are being obedient to a pure Party line. I think most people in the Party know that this is a transition time in CPUSA. The YCL seems to be far more to the left than national party leadership, both nationally and I think in most local settings.Ochlophobist https://www.blogger.com/profile/13751003558600087713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-38629351800628127902011-10-17T10:08:42.379-07:002011-10-17T10:08:42.379-07:00I don’t think playing the class card is helpful he...I don’t think playing the class card is helpful here. Lenin was thoroughly petit-bourgeois, as was every other Marxist theorist save for Gramsci (Dunayevskaya grew up working class, as you can see by her prose, and C.L.R. James was a black man: case closed.) I don’t necessarily have a bone to pick with your characterization of the Trotskyists, since most of my former comrades were not working class or poor (the head of the group had an M.A. from Harvard.) That said, I wouldn’t fetishize any of this “classism” either. I will just say that my experience of the CPUSA and other leftish groups is that they slavishly tail the leaders of the “group” and see any criticisms of those leaders as attacking the entire “tribe”. Well, the “tribe” itself, whether it be workers, blacks, “Chicanos” (a term I hate), LGBT etc. has its own divisions, and often the people at the top who are leading the “struggle” are as much a hindrance on mass movements as the police and/or the FBI. I think here of course of the economism of the labor movement in this country that destroyed it, the sexism of the various “ethnic nationalist” groups, the reluctance to express any critique of class in the feminist and the same “ethnic nationalist” groups, and the list could go on. You don’t have to be an trendy, petit-bourgeois Trot to see that the NAACP, MEChA, the labor unions, NOW, etc. often become fiefdoms of aspiring middle class activists who milk people’s aspirations to make it out of their ghetto of choice. For that reason, I think the behavior of various groups like the CPUSA is criminal since they seek to make the masses play the capitalist political game that they can’t possibly win. They might think they are all clever because they read some Lenin and wave a red flag now and again, but history has showed how badly they have been played for these Stalinist tactics. Just ask the half million members of the Communist Party who were massacred in Indonesia because of these bad political games, among others. <br /><br />I am not an anarchist in that I don’t think a movement should be leaderless. But I will echo with Lenin that any good leader who doesn’t realize that the masses outside are far more radical than the “vanguard” is no leader at all: he or she is a bureaucrat in the making. I am content to merely think with the masses a new philosophy of revolution so that the same shit doesn’t keep happening over and over again. It seems a far more modest task, but still an important one.AVhttp://elblogdelpelon.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-35201842433478110632011-10-17T09:12:51.086-07:002011-10-17T09:12:51.086-07:00- cont'd -
Proyect mentions Gus Hall in the ...- cont'd - <br /><br /><i>Proyect mentions Gus Hall in the same post in evoking this sort of politics, and I have to fully agree with that assessment.</i><br /><br />Yeah, Gus Hall made mistakes and bet on some wrong horses. If I wanted to be coy I might say that perhaps in his childhood in which he grew up near starvation, he wasn't able to muster the political and intellectual finesse of Proyect, who had the benefit of an uber-liberal bourgeois Bard College education. AV, I don't have much in the way of interactions with Trot and former-but-still-sympathetic Trots, but my limited encounters are such that you are the only person I know with a Trot background who grew up in poverty or the more financially unstable end of working class life. Part of the complexity, for me, trying to figure all this stuff out, is the complicated mix of theory and culture. I really like some Trot theory - I enjoyed Paul D'Amato's <i>The Meaning of Marxism</i>, I enjoy what I have read thus far from Mandel (about 1/3 of <i>Late Capitalism</i> and his intro to Capital Volume 1 and his book <i>An Introduction to Marxism</i>), and I've enjoyed what I have read by Trotsky, and I think that any serious Marxism/socialism has to incorporate Trot theory to some degree now (which even some Stalinists now do without admitting it). But I don't know what that degree is. I agree very much with the notion of state capitalism generally, and agree that it applies to the U.S.S.R., I agree that international socialism is the only way socialism can work, otherwise driving socialist nations into capitalist schemes, but some of the blanket theoretical notions regarding state socialism I don't follow. I'm not sure if China today and the U.S.S.R. in 1970 should so easily be lumped together as the same social/economic/political phenomenon. I also, particularly in my reading of Stalin's Wars ( http://www.amazon.com/Stalins-Wars-World-Cold-1939-1953/dp/0300112041 ), am not sure that Stalin's options were as clear and simple and easy as the usual Trot lines put it. At the same time, the Stalinist defenses of Stalin's reversal on the Brigades in Spain and his thwarting of socialist movements throughout the world I find reprehensible. I don't know. Mix all that with the fact that my own limited personal experiences with Trots have been such that they seem to be (other than you) people from solidly upper middle class backgrounds who have found the secret political and economic gnosis resulting in a sectarian milieu which reminds me of much of American Eastern Orthodoxy, except even more "we have the really True Truth" sectarian. Trots are the leftist version of Straussians on the right ( http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/e/easton-gang.html ) My personal experiences with CPers and Wobs and other radical groups have been very different. So, long and short of it - I'm still trying to make sense of it all. I like that Proyect came to reject the hyper-Vanguardist aspects of the Trot movement, and he seems much more big tent Marxist in his writing than what I have encountered in my limited experiences with Trots. I've also been enjoying some of the Marxist-Humanist stuff. Some of their younger adherents seem to have a Trot-like political gnosticism, but Dunayevskaya and C. L. R. James, at least what I have read thus far, don't seem to share this spirit at all.Ochlophobist https://www.blogger.com/profile/13751003558600087713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-38671980057979065442011-10-17T09:12:36.407-07:002011-10-17T09:12:36.407-07:00AV,
Sometimes I think that there is so much in th...AV,<br /><br />Sometimes I think that there is so much in the Lenin corpus that you can argue just about anything from it, especially if one is "proof texting." I've read and heard several arguments as to why we need to support Obama and oppose the tea party Repubs that was based on quotes from <i>Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder</i>. So, sure, Lenin liked democracy and, as any Marxist does, held social dem as a necessary part of the process toward. But Lenin also did what was expedient and did sometimes embody something of that image of the revolutionary willing to get his "hands dirty."<br /><br />I got into an argument with an ISO guy who writes for ISR about democracy. There seems to be a lot of new leftist hyper democratic (of the early SDS variety) leanings blending with Trot critiques of actually existing socialism - resulting in this elevation of political democracy as the end all. We see something akin to this (without talk of the Trot critiques) in CPUSA today, wherein political democracy is now hyper elevated and there have been a number of essays written from national leadership about the absolute need for political democracy in any people's uprising. A lot of that was spurred on by the Arab Spring uprisings, and the focus on political democracy therein.<br /><br />I'm not yet convinced. It seems to me that when political/social democracy gets put in the mix, it always ends up trumping economic democracy and the commitment to radical wealth redistribution. But I remain unsure about that. It does seem to me that this fierce and firm resolute posture toward political democracy reflects a petit-bourgeois impulse and has not yet escaped a petit-bourgeois ethos - perhaps akin to the first 100 years of feminism - a decidedly petit-bourgeois movement, but one which has now morphed and broadened and progressed to the point wherein there are now, arguably and hopefully, actual working class feminist movements and impulses and a real working class overtly feminist consciousness. Perhaps the same thing is going on with this elevation of political democracy as an end. Perhaps the working classes do now connect political democracy with economic democracy. But I can't imagine that in the consciousness of radicalized poor and working class people political democracy will ever be as important as economic democracy. When you can't get health care for your kids and are barely able to put food on the table, you are going to be more concerned about economic democracy, and not quite as concerned about what political expediency brings it about, or so it seems to me. Maybe my take is too simplistic there.Ochlophobist https://www.blogger.com/profile/13751003558600087713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-81784500461833033202011-10-17T05:26:12.142-07:002011-10-17T05:26:12.142-07:00Louis Proyect has a post now where he summarizes Z...Louis Proyect has a post now where he summarizes Zizek’s Lenin as a “cartoon-like figure who comes out of a 1950s Red Scare B-movie.” He is noting this particular quote from Zizek: <br /><br />“I am a Leninist. Lenin wasn’t afraid to dirty his hands. If you can get power, grab it. Do whatever is possible. This is why I support Obama. I think the battle he is fighting now over healthcare is extremely important, because it concerns the very core of the ruling ideology. The core of the campaign against Obama is freedom of choice. And the lesson, if he wins, is that freedom of choice is certainly something beautiful, but that it only works against a background of regulations, ethical presuppositions, economic conditions and so on. My position isn’t that we should sit down and wait for some big revolution to come. We have to engage wherever we can. If Obama wins his battle over healthcare, if some kind of blow can be struck against the ideology of freedom of choice, it will have been a victory worth fighting for.”<br /><br />http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/thoughts-on-zizeks-the-idea-of-communism-conference/<br /><br />Notice that there is no mention of the masses, of the working class, and so on. That of course is a problem with most “Marxists” of the past century and this one: they mistake abstract (dare I say, “metaphysical” forces) for the actions of the masses themselves in motion. In other words, they substitute a vulgar scientism, or a façade of a more scientific realism, for the actual agents of revolution. No, Obama will save the day, even if in spite of himself, or he will inspire the rabble to do something without its knowing, and the vanguard (or pop-intellectuals like himself) will somehow pull the strings behind it. The working class is force, but not Reason. One wonders why they are even Marxists at all: fascism is far more consistent about herding the “dumb masses”. Proyect mentions Gus Hall in the same post in evoking this sort of politics, and I have to fully agree with that assessment.<br /><br />Proyect is right: this is épater la bourgeoisie all the way. Even his flirtations with vulgar Stalinism should be taken as a sign that he simply is not serious, nor perhaps has he ever intended to be.AVhttp://elblogdelpelon.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-13961494949180114442011-10-16T15:46:32.768-07:002011-10-16T15:46:32.768-07:00MR linked to this blog post on Zizek at OWS:
http...MR linked to this blog post on Zizek at OWS:<br /><br />http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/i_cite/2011/10/slavoj-%C5%BEi%C5%BEek-speaks-at-occupy-wall-street-transcript-the-parallax-impose-magazine.html<br /><br />I find myself sympathetic to much of what she has to say there.Ochlophobist https://www.blogger.com/profile/13751003558600087713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-79275110084907879922011-10-16T08:15:57.627-07:002011-10-16T08:15:57.627-07:00Anon,
The videos, with Zizek having his words dro...Anon,<br /><br />The videos, with Zizek having his words drone repeated in the OWS manner, is absurdist in the theatric, entertaining sense. I enjoyed them.<br /><br />As for Zizek's communism, I'm not sure what to make of it, nor does he, apparently. It seems to be some form of macabre opportunism. Zizek's first mentor was a proponent of the Frankfurt School. Rather than take a Trot or communist corrective paradigm (I have no idea to what degree these were viable intellectual options in Slovenia at that time), Zizek was a committed dissident who helped advance liberalism in Slovenia and eventually ran for office in a center-center-left party in 90-91. Now, after the astounding advances of neo-liberalism and conservative politics in North America and Europe, he has returned to communism, but a very vague, very fashion poised, ethereal yet violent-in-theory communism. This gets him sex with Argentine underwear models and gigs writing for Abercrombie & Fitch catalogs. I agree with plenty of Zizek's basic criticisms of capitalism, but I came to the point where I realized that what I like about Zizek is not originality of content - what I like most in him is pretty standard stuff conceptually - it's the manner and force of delivery in Zizek that I like the most. I am mildly interested in Lacan (in small doses), think that psychoanalytic communism is a communism for the petit-bourgeois, and I think that Zizek on Hegel is of interest, but reading some other works of late 20th century communist thinkers on Hegel of late I'm not sure how much Zizek is original there either. I very much enjoy reading Zizek. The man is immensely entertaining. And he occasionally hits what seems to be profundity - little tidbits here and there, like the court jester who occasionally evokes a bit of sly wisdom in the midst of all the farce and show, perhaps. But I don't know how one could reasonably turn to Zizek to be informed about a coherent communist structure of thought.Ochlophobist https://www.blogger.com/profile/13751003558600087713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-71579757042519513582011-10-15T21:42:19.269-07:002011-10-15T21:42:19.269-07:00Would anyone care to comment on Zizek's Commun...Would anyone care to comment on Zizek's Communism? Here are a couple recent videos of him addressing an OWS audience:<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu9BWlcRwPQ<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UpmUly9It4Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-83590400334372590362011-10-15T11:32:00.169-07:002011-10-15T11:32:00.169-07:00Doesn't surprise me. I've only known two, ...Doesn't surprise me. I've only known two, and they were both hypersexualized.Lotarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01796218033485037424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-70528270271406949952011-10-15T06:40:21.838-07:002011-10-15T06:40:21.838-07:00I'm glad this is happening too. It's a st...I'm glad this is happening too. It's a start.COSMIC FAMILYhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04739365573851113124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-42546860153768397302011-10-15T05:00:12.072-07:002011-10-15T05:00:12.072-07:00Well, these videos should give you some satisfacti...Well, these videos should give you some satisfaction:<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcBM3Dub9Zo<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8bAejOPyaY<br /><br />Of course, the Japanese student movements in the 1960's were the most impressive, with their snake-like movements and white helmets. All the same, Americans have their own tradition of radical protests. They're called "riots". While the organized left (maybe except for the Maoists) see these as unfortunate and backwards, I see them as nothing of the sort.<br /><br />All the same, I am glad that someone is starting to do something. I feel, however, that what we are working for is not a 1917, but a 1905. Some really atrocious thing has to happen to shake people out of their complacency regarding the current political and economic order. This will probably not lead to a seizure of power on the first try, but things may move a lot more quickly than we can imagine now. That, or imperialist war will destroy the planet. I don't see a whole lot of "in-between" wiggle room for that one.AVhttp://elblogdelpelon.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-70545388134969501512011-10-14T19:07:09.446-07:002011-10-14T19:07:09.446-07:00Here's another police hit out of the blue vid ...Here's another police hit out of the blue vid - this time a whiteshirt hits a lady:<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vxZ8_JdKm0Q#!Ochlophobist https://www.blogger.com/profile/13751003558600087713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-66316316303741192342011-10-14T18:36:56.060-07:002011-10-14T18:36:56.060-07:00Then again Lotar, there is always this:
http://ww...Then again Lotar, there is always this:<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uE2M7g_IWSE<br /><br />I think that may have been done by the No Men.Ochlophobist https://www.blogger.com/profile/13751003558600087713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-23132844830708504912011-10-14T15:47:32.377-07:002011-10-14T15:47:32.377-07:00Andrew,
My commies in LA, where the pro-violence ...Andrew,<br /><br />My commies in LA, where the pro-violence video that went viral was shot, say that they have a great thing going with the police and city council there right now, and that the Occupy movement, after some initial tension with the city, has a good relationship going at the moment. I think that is probably more of the norm with these things. At the moment anyway.<br /><br />You can't deny the OWS folks have theatrics down well - http://willamettereds.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-gets-creative-around.htmlOchlophobist https://www.blogger.com/profile/13751003558600087713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-35984595261353553982011-10-14T15:38:02.939-07:002011-10-14T15:38:02.939-07:00On the Occupy Dallas note:
http://blogs.dallasobse...On the Occupy Dallas note:<br />http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2011/10/occupy_dallas_the_friendliest.php<br /><br />Everyone's so nice!COSMIC FAMILYhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04739365573851113124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-81101144385395578262011-10-14T15:32:28.482-07:002011-10-14T15:32:28.482-07:00Maybe they should switch from Occupy Wall Street t...Maybe they should switch from Occupy Wall Street to Overthrow Wall Street? <br /><br />A few acts of mischief and they could disrupt things in a "nonviolent" manner... DIY electromagnets, fireworks, tin foil in light sockets, Yes Men style pranks, that sort of thing.COSMIC FAMILYhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04739365573851113124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-45679953717730118322011-10-14T15:15:52.945-07:002011-10-14T15:15:52.945-07:00This is likely just reactionary sensationalizing, ...This is likely just reactionary sensationalizing, but may it spread...<br />http://theweek.com/article/index/220263/occupy-wall-street-turning-violentLotarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01796218033485037424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-47385254174770533392011-10-14T15:08:46.745-07:002011-10-14T15:08:46.745-07:00Lotar,
Well said.
Funny thing about the shit on...Lotar,<br /><br />Well said.<br /><br /><br />Funny thing about the shit on the cop car - <br /><br />Because police are union and have safety measure protocols out the wazoo, if you shit or piss or leak any bodily fluid on or in a police car they get to take it to get it cleaned. The police just sit there at the 24/7 car cleaning location while others do the work. My brother loves it when someone pisses in his back seat or wipes his bloody head on the side of the car. Means less work for my brother that night.Ochlophobist https://www.blogger.com/profile/13751003558600087713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-49522700777369478382011-10-14T15:03:20.478-07:002011-10-14T15:03:20.478-07:00Someone posted on the Occupy Riverside today, plea...Someone posted on the Occupy Riverside today, pleading people to not call for the violent overthrow of the government, like protesters are apparently doing in Los Angeles, and to not take shits on police cars, like someone did in NY... The fact that someone has to ask people not to do this gives me hope for the direction these protests may take.Lotarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01796218033485037424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-24991460385456615932011-10-14T14:16:54.293-07:002011-10-14T14:16:54.293-07:00http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/10/14/occupy-wal...http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/10/14/occupy-wall-street-protesters-stay-in-park-but-cops-get-violent-video/<br /><br />In watching these videos I don't know about the first guy - he may have gotten himself run over on purpose, but then seeing the cop billy club him was the sort of thing that rallies the troops - so if he did do it on purpose it worked - good for him. Later in the day they were saying that dude's leg was broken, I don't know how bad. The second video of the cop running up and wailing on the guy is more of a textbook example of police getting nasty, but then consider the response - instead of the crowd returning violence with violence, they all get their cameras out, and the hit dude gets his comeuppance with a "now you might have AIDS, sucker" which, uh, seems to evoke the pussified Left of which Lotar speaks.Ochlophobist https://www.blogger.com/profile/13751003558600087713noreply@blogger.com