Authored by: Bill Not Bored on Monday, October 15 2007 @ 10:51 AM CDT

well you guys have got a nice little club here, seems pretty exclusive
though, only people who say "You're right" and "I agree" get in, everyone
else (it appears clear) is intentionally misunderstood, condescended to,
maligned, summarily dismissed . . . . But I have complete confidence that
the people who understood my objections straight away and didn't need to
have them explained over and over again will draw the same lessons from
this sad display of closing ranks that I have.

I now I must away: the tomatoes are ripe for picking.

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Authored by: davidgraeber on Monday, October 15 2007 @ 11:22 AM CDT

actually, it strikes me it might be helpful, Chuck, to include with the log-
in page a basic quizz on elementary logic, which would-be posters will
have to pass in order to be able to post. Anyway it would radically
improve the quality of debate. For example, Bill might be interested to
know - since at least in practice he doesn't seem to be aware - that
while a common example of syllogistic logic might proceed as follows

All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Therefore, Socrates is mortal

a common example of a logic fallacy is:

All apes are mortal
Socrates is mortal
Therefore, Socrates is an ape

In his claim that my argument (that periods of democratic mobilization
in the US tend to be followed by the government ratcheting up militarism
overseas) can be proved wrong by the fact that the government is now
ratcheting up threats against Iran despite the lack of mass mobilization,
he is effectively arguing that since Socrates is not an ape, we have
therefore proved that apes are not mortal.
David

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Authored by: Patrokolos on Monday, October 15 2007 @ 02:36 PM CDT

While I do not agree with Bill comments concerning this article I see where he is coming from and I feel he has been mistreated and unfairly ridiculed.

Arguably there have been victories on specific campaigns. However, overall the world is still in pretty dismal shape and I'm not sure how important reaching medium-term goals are. Do I struggle against the IMF/World Bank to achieve short-term goals or do I struggle against it because I see it as a possible avenue to attack the misery of our social constructions? Bill was addressing this question, I think, when talking about whether or not neoliberalism was a distraction. Sorry if the very idea that there may be a tactical error, or a different weakness in the structure that could be exploited, makes some jaws drop.

Graeber was correct concerning Bill's idea of a "huge hole." Just because Graeber argued that wars are used as a distraction does not mean that all wars are a result of that need for distraction. However, Graeber did not address the statement that the government has been planning these wars eight years before the Seattle actions.

I disagree with Bill's statements because he is addressing side issues within the article, not the actual issue it attempts to raise. It is clear to me that anarchists are not winning the fight for a new world. This article was not about winning that fight though; it was about how we always fail to "smash the state and destroy capitalism" because we always achieve the medium-term goals and the nonradicals we are associated with are satisfied. We hit the state or capitalism and it flexes, giving a little, but does not break. We must find ways to go beyond it and push through.

I do not think that the biggest problem facing anarchists is that we "don't know how to handle victory" but this may be the biggest problem with "direct action movements." The biggest problem facing anarchists is that the "direct action movements" are addressing specific issues and are willing to compromise. The problem is that "direct action movements" are not composed of anarchists.

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Authored by: CaseyFord on Monday, October 15 2007 @ 03:44 PM CDT

I think what the author was just saying tho is that Bill is pissed about arguments that the author didn't make. It's kind like if David had written that the black bloc won at some particular action (like this coming weekend in DC) and then Bill got pissed and started talking about how much the black bloc tactic sucks because they lost at these other actions, and then other people got pissed at Bill because they think the black bloc is a good tactic and that it did well at some of those events.

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Authored by: Patrokolos on Monday, October 15 2007 @ 04:47 PM CDT

<i> I think what the author was just saying tho is that Bill is pissed about arguments that the author didn't make. </I></br></br>That is what i meant by Bill addressing "side issues" that arose from his reading of the article, not the actual points of discussion that the article was raising. Perhaps that was not clear.

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Authored by: davidgraeber on Monday, October 15 2007 @ 04:02 PM CDT

>However, Graeber did not address the statement that the government
>has been planning these wars eight years before the Seattle actions.

my reply would be that the government plans all sorts of things. Only a
small proportion of those plans does it actually end up carrying out.

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