www.real-left.tripod.com \

and at:
mer130.tripod.com

http://newswire.indymedia.org/en/newswire/2005/02/820271.shtml

If you are interested in reading my article that Andy cites — Reflections on the Meaning of the RNC Protests — you can find it at www.freesocietycollective.org

Unfortunately, for the discussion, he has distorted my arguments, left out significant examples and points I raised, in order to build a strawman for his article.

The two most obvious distortions are:

1) His distortion of the actual examples I cite in my article about practices of direct democracy and mutual aid; and

2) His neglect of my view that such practices are not enough, but represent ways for us to understand something much more meaningful than the way the mainstream media reported the protests. And that such practices represent values which we can buil on and develop into political projects beyond their limited and temporary nature.

In his attempt to downplay the practices of mutual aid at the RNC, he ignores the examples I gave, and cites only the two that would make his argument work. If he actually took into account all of my examples, his argument falls apart.

The RNC was not just a mass march. It was an experience in which hundreds of thousands of people took part in a wide variety of experiences other than marching. Many of them took part in the sharing of free housing, free food, free legal services, free health services, free transportation, and so forth. These examples are not meaningless as Andy, the mainstream press, and the orthodox old Left claim. They are significant practices that express values absolutely contrary to those in our everyday lives in a capitalist society.

In no way did I argue or assume that such practices in themselves would effect massive change in the institutions that organize our lives. I pointed out these practices, and argued that “It [the movement] has to make its internal qualities of radical democracy and mutual aid external.”

That means drawing on these experiences and values and figuring out ways to expand them, by building counter-institutions, and/or to transform current institutions into ones that reflect such values.

In contrast, Andy wants us to think of protest as an advertising campaign in which we appeal to leaders to change their policies. He wants organizations to recruit new people for the “base” of our organizations. Tell me, what does a base do beside hold up its leaders? This old model is not what has initiated these new movements. This old model will destroy the democratic sensibility that thrives in them, which is the most noteworthy aspect of them today.

To be concerned about “ends” does not mean that we should ignore the significance of our “means.” Our “means” today express our values, and must be part of our “ends” if our current lives mean anything at all.

-Robert Augman

The only activity of any value to anything good in the USA (and probably the WHOLE OECD) is to start a fundraISING GROUP FOR REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN THE ANDES…

SEE:

MER130.TRIPOD.COM OR

REAL-LEFT.TRIPOD.COM FOR MANY ARTICLES EXPLAINING AND “proving” THESE ISSUES
- i SAY PROVING BECAUSE AS USUAL NO ONE WILL DEBATE OR THINK…

__ A FEW SERIOUS PROBLEMS CONFRONT THE OPPOSITION TO GW BUSH:

1. Bush is not the problem – in fact he is a godsend galvanizing opposition. The problem is everything: the USA, WTO, EU, Capitalism, Materialism and Leadership.

2. Nothing can be done about global warming and so the catastrophes of Denial, Ignorance, Mass specie die-offs and imperialism will control all of us.

3. Debate is endangered; Thinking is extinct; and timeframes are ignored.

The Series: Lessons Learned, explores these problems and offers three ways out. Supporting Hugo Chavez and revolutions in the Andes is presented as the only likely course.

if they aren’t, why aren’t they?

also, you guys should support the beehive collecive prints and books they’ve got an excellent concept and their images deserve more exposure…in my humble opinion.

clamor knows about them, i’m sure…maybe you guys could start carrying some of their stuff in your store…

btw, i’m not white and it’s true that “anarcharist” groups don’t seem to appeal as much to people of color many are consumed by enough anomie that anarchy does not feel like a solution, but people deprived of jobs, affordable healthcare, and housing usually raise their own silent protests by erecting parralel economies and exploiting the current systems weaknesses through sometimes illegal means. until “global justice ” groups stop focusing on being “anti-authoritarian”, and stop offerring their services mainly to their fellows, and instead become pro-human, focusing their energy on creating organisations that tranfer their excess to the world not just rejecting their excess and leaving it in the hands of oppressors or redistributing it among themselves.