09-19-2011, 12:30 PM
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Re: Day of Rage Sept 17
Excellent commentary on the Day of Rage showing the conflicting platforms of the protesters...
Quote:
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In New York, a disappointing crowd of only about 1,000 people (a mere 5% of the predicted attendance) gathered around Manhattan’s Wall Street to protest against capitalism. But right off the bat, the protest’s completely mixed message was glaringly apparent. Half the protesters wanted more government (as exemplified by this satirical “capitalist pig” cutting the “social safety net”)…
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...while the other half wanted less government, an attitude succinctly summarized here as “FUK DA GOV.”
So — which is it?
Basically, the distinction is between communist theory and the anarchist approach.
In American politics there are two strong currents of anti-capitalist thought: Marxism/communism/socialism versus Anarchism/far-left-libertarianism. The problem is that these two ideologies are fundamentally at odds; one advocates hyper-centralization of political and economic power, while the other advocates hyper-decentralization.
In earlier times, the communists and the anarchists hated each other; they are natural enemies. But in recent decades they have formed an uneasy and deeply unstable alliance; since they both hate the status quo of American capitalism, they feel they ought to band together and smash the system as a unified front, and worry about how to pick up the pieces later.
But the Day of Rage revealed that this alliance can never succeed, because it can never offer a consensus philosophy; it’s impossible to draw the sympathy of the great masses when you offer two completely divergent philosophies as your “unified message.” In truth, there is no unified message, and there never can be; that’s why the “Day of Rage” organizers couldn’t even decide on what their one single demand would be at the protest.
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