Jesse Lemisch on the KC gas station action
[forwarded by request]
From: “Jesse Lemisch” utopia1@attglobal.net
Chuck says: “the goal was not to shut down the gas station.”
Literature from Code Pink (who my original posting made clear was the
primary organizer, endorsed and enthusiastically reported on by KC
SDS)* announced in advance: “Stop Fueling the War Machine: Gas
Station Takeovers!… disrupt business as usual… attempt to occupy
the pumps… If we… block a pump, Cars can’t make us move,,,
Walking in circles back and forth on a sidewalk that happens to block
the entry way to a gas station is PERFECTLY LEGAL!”
So, of course Chuck is totally wrong about the stated goal of the
demo. Was the demo intended, in addition, to piss people off? Chuck
says, “The goal of the group was not to piss people off.” He may well
be right: they had no idea that shutting down gas stations at 5pm on
a Friday would piss people off. What shape will our hoped for new new
left be in if it can’t see these connections and doesn’t want to?
Whatever the intent, the demo did indeed piss people off. If you were
hurrying home to your little family, dog, etc, in your PT Cruiser,
saying, “thank god I made it through to another Friday in these last
days of capitalism,” you’d be pissed off too. But as I indicated on
my satirical posting on the SDS list, who cares about gas station
owners, attendants, and — least of all, drivers, who I described as
“a tiny privileged minority in this country. mainly white and
brimming over with false consciousness”? Such disregard and contempt
is reminiscent of the collapse of the first SDS, amidst cries like
the old Weather slogan, “Fight the People.” (For sympathetic
responses to the Weather Underground in the new SDS, see various
postings on the SDS list, and my “Weather Underground Rises from the
Ashes: They’re Baack!” New Politics, XI, no. 1 (Summer 2006), pages
7-13. http://www.wpunj.edu/newpol/issue41/Lemisch41.htm )
Do great demoes like those mentioned by SDSers — civil rights, Free
Speech Movement, draft resisisters, etc. — inconvenience people? Of
course they do. Is this such a great demo? There’s no way of reading
this as other than an attack on drivers for in some utterly
unexplained way contributing to the war. Like so many Americans,
these people, who are now conscripted in the role of enemy, are
trapped in a system (gas power, no public transport, etc.). I suggest
an SDS fall offensive along the lines of the KC demo, a kind of “gas
summer,” in which people on bicycles shut down gas stations across
the country. surely this will end the war. Other related actions:
Here in NYC, where the MTA notoriously cooks the books, degrades
services, raises fares and fucks the union, I propose that we shut
down the subway at 5 pm on a hot Friday, all singing “Charley on the
MTA.” This will help us build our movement and help to bring down
capitalism. Afterwards, we should fight monopoly utilities like Con
Ed by pulling the plug at 5 pm on Friday (if it’s hot). This, too,
will help to bring down capitalism and bring us many new supporters.
The responses to my critique on the SDS list consisted of obscene
attacks from many (there were some who understood), and an utter
failure to think about what kind of actions build/don’t build a
movement. As I said in an earlier posting, those who post on a list
are not necessarily typical of the members of an organization, so I
hope for something better. But it bodes ill that SDS leadership has
either vehemently supported obscene attacks on people trying to raise
these points, or just remained silent. In a very short time, the new
SDS has gone through all the stages of the original organization, and
is now at June 1969, with people gagging, jumping off the list,
revoking ther membership. Seeing no connection, Chuck concludes, “I’m
all for fucking shit up and pissing off people.” I await the promised
arrival from SDS of my “Fuck Jesse Lemisch T-shirt,” to be rotated
with the SDS “Fuck Shit up T-shirt.”
Jesse Lemisch
- my posting on the SDS list included a statement of approval of the
action by Kansas City SDS which identified the action as Code Pink
initiated with SDS participation and enthusiastic apprioval.