Fwd: Jesse Lemisch on closing gas stations
From: Chuck chuck@mutualaid.org Date: July 22, 2006 7:39:03 PM EDT To: Doug Henwood dhenwood@panix.com Cc: lbo-talk lbo-talk@lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: Jesse Lemisch on closing gas stations
Doug: Please forward this message to your list.
The exchange that Jesse Lemisch started on the SDS discussion list
has gone from merely insulting to me and my friends to a downright
ignorant crossposting to the LBO list. I’ve always had a low
opinion of people who crosspost arguments from one list to another
list. This kind of thing is almost always a waste of time, as the
forwarded messages are decontextualized and a selective take on the
exchange.Does Jesse Lemisch understand yet that he is assuming that the SDS
organized this demo in Kansas City, when in fact it was organized
by Code Pink?Obviously not, as he paints the decontextualized exchange as being
generated out of an action taken by SDS members:“There were a few who made more sense than this, and of course we
never know how typical of an organization are those who post on
its list. I continue to wish this organization well as it
approaches its first national convention, at the University of
Chicago.”Here Jesse mentions the upcoming SDS convention. In his first
message to the SDS list, he dissed the protest and SDS activists
with a reference to a discussion about SDS t-shirts.I haven’t read one word in Lemisch’s emails that recognizes that
the protest in Kansas City was organzied by Code Pink.Code Pink, not SDS.
My reaction to Lemisch on the SDS list was directed at his
reactionary language that assumed that the goal of the Code Pink
activists was to “piss off” people. Activist organizers sometimes
hear arguments like this from people who whine about protests
causing problems for working people, such as traffic tie-ups or
messes that need to be cleaned up. This kind of argument not only
doesn’t recognize that protest and dissent cause inconvenience to
working people, it’s completely divorced from reality.Lemisch’s post to the SDS list contained assumptions about the
organizers of the Code Pink protest in Kansas City. Lemisch has a
right to sound off about any protest, but Lemisch went with an
assumption about the protest organizers. Lemisch di not ask a
question first about the motivations for the protest.I was not involved with the Code Pink protest, although I was
kicking it with the activists in the parking lots before they took
off for the gas station. I had just attended a meeting of the KC
SDS, but again, the gas station demo was organized by Code Pink
activists.Before the group set off for the gas station, one of the organizers
made it clear that the goal was not to shut down the gas station.
The goal of the protest was do be visible at the gas station,
engage in some talking with drivers, and then move onto another gas
station. The group was not the type that set off to piss people off.The story about the protest and the incident is clear about how a
motorist assaulted an activist with a megaphone and then another
person taking video. From what I understand, the activists then
retired to a bar around the corner. The irate motorist had
contacted the police and they arrested the activist at the bar for
“assaulting” the motorist.There may be plenty of issues worth discussing around this protest
and the incident, but I took exception to the assumption that these
activist sought to piss off people. And it was a Code Pink protest,
not an SDS one.I’m not trying to soft peddle militant tactics here, because I’m
all for fucking shit up and pissing off people, but let’s at least
be accurate about what these activists did.Chuck Munson