Doug Henwood Talks

[Chuck0’s response to Jesse Lemisch; I’m not going to spend a lot of
time forwarding a back & forth, should one develop.]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Chuck chuck@mutualaid.org Date: July 27, 2006 3:57:55 PM EDT To: Doug Henwood dhenwood@panix.com Cc: lbo-talk lbo-talk@lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: Jesse Lemisch on the KC gas station action

Jesse Lemisch just doesn’t get it.

From: “Jesse Lemisch” utopia1@attglobal.net

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?

Lemisch is either being dense here or defensive after being
corrected on his confusion about the demo.

I was at the meeting of the Code Pink people in the parking lot
before the demo. The parameters of the demo were discussed and one
person brought up a concern about pissing off motorists. One of the
Code Pink organizers emphasized that the goal of the protest was
NOT to shut down the gas station, but to talk to people.

They had the misfortune to run into a deranged motorist who
attacked one of the activists.

Whatever the intent, the demo did indeed piss people off.

How does Jesse know this? The only thing I know about pissed off
people is the one guy who assaulted one of my friends and then had
the police arrest her.

If people protested according to Lemisch’s view of dissent, nobody
would leave the safety of their barcalounger.

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 )

Does Jesse Lemisch actually exist as a real person? This outrage is
out of touch with reality, especially what happened in Kansas City.

I’ve run into types like Lemisch before. They are a rare species,
activists who don’t want activists to do activism.

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.

So Lemisch is arguing that the U.S. invaded Iraq and is intervening
in the Middle East because there is a date palm shortage?

People who drive cars are complicit in their government’s policies.
What is wrong with an attempt to talk to these people?

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:

Sounds good to me. Bring the war home.

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.

So I take it that Lemsich was against the transti workers strike?
Heaven forbid that those transit workers should fuck up the ability
of working class people to get to their jobs!

But it bodes ill that SDS leadership has either vehemently supported obscene attacks on people trying to raise
these points, or just remained silent.

There is no SDS “leadership.” The SDS is not the RCP. Thank god!

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.

Wow! What’s up with this animosity towards the SDS? The Kansas City
action was organized by CODE PINK. The people who do Code Pink
aren’t hard to miss. Hint. They all dress in PINK!

By the way, Lemisch is confusing a DISCUSSION list with the SDS
organization. SDS has other lists, including an organizing list.

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.”

That’s my take on things and I have a right to state my position.

• 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.

Whatever. The gas station action was done by Code Pink, but who
cares about the facts?

Chuck

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