"Presence, rather than protest." "Respecting the celebratory mood of the day."
Huh, what's more to say? Go to the Web site, check out all the signers, including Howard Zinn and a boatload of other folks who should know better:
http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/144773/index.php
Excerpts:
An open letter to those seeking to build a world from below...."Ensure our own irrelevance?" That's pretty much taken care of, isn't it?We call on all anarchists, horizontalists, autonomists, anti-capitalists, anti-authoritarians, and others organizing a world from below to bring our best creative spirits to the project of a “Celebrate People’s History and Build Popular Power” bloc on January 20, 2009, in Washington, DC—or in your hometown, if you can’t make it.
As people striving toward a nonhierarchical society, yes, we can—and should—be rigorously critical of Barack Obama. It goes without saying that we want a world without presidents.... But not all heads of state are alike, and if we fail to recognize both the historical meaning and power of this particular moment, we will ensure our own irrelevance.
Comments (9)
I'd of figured they were white supremes, them not carrying that flag means they're not even dangerous! Irrelevant indeed
Posted by Son of Uncle Sam | November 24, 2008 7:09 AM
Posted on November 24, 2008 07:09
It's hip to be irrelevant!
Posted by AlanSmithee | November 24, 2008 8:07 AM
Posted on November 24, 2008 08:07
horizontalists unite .....
Posted by op | November 24, 2008 4:16 PM
Posted on November 24, 2008 16:16
you have only
a bottom to lose
and
an up to win
verticalist dreams ?????
Posted by op | November 24, 2008 4:20 PM
Posted on November 24, 2008 16:20
It's not just limp-dickish, it's something of an ecological crime. "Calling" people to travel across the country to have a party celebrating collusion with a guy who'll be a war criminal the second he takes the oath of office, if he isn't one already for naming an existing war criminal as his Secretary of State choice?
Posted by Michael Dawson | November 24, 2008 5:30 PM
Posted on November 24, 2008 17:30
Actually, to be honest, when I first saw the term "horizontalist" in this alleged "action" call, I thought yeah, I guess in terms of being in such despair over the prospects for real change in this country that I've taken to staying in bed all day watching Cartoon Channel with the sound off, I guess I am a kind of a "horizontalist", except that I knew, of course, that it meant one more term for People Who Sit Around A Big Table At Big Mobilization Meetings And Get All Full Of Themselves Pretending To Be "Non-Heirarchical" And Shit And Signalling "Consensus" By Wiggling Their Fingers In The Air.
Jeezus, man. Howard Zinn. Howard Fucking Zinn has signed on to this inanity.
Fuck it, man; I'm going back to bed. That is, being a horizontalist.
Posted by Mike Flugennock | November 25, 2008 1:08 AM
Posted on November 25, 2008 01:08
In the text of this puerile letter, the folks inveigh against all forms of hierarchy, including the "state." Well, just where in the hell do Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky go to renew their driver's license? Is that what I'm supposed to be for - everybody do whatever the hell they want, always, no form of supervision or standard or anything? What the hell?
Posted by mjosef | November 25, 2008 7:37 PM
Posted on November 25, 2008 19:37
"We can—and should—also be in critical solidarity with people who have been violently marginalized, who see in the Obama campaign the possibility of their own agency."
I can only say, “God bless the White Left!”
I know it would have been too much for my tiny brain to process the fact that someone could be against Obama's proposed policies and cabinet picks without wanting to burn a cross on my lawn. Certainly the Black response to Obama's candidacy has been complete agreement and unrelenting joy! (If you don't believe me, just check out the Black Agenda Report!) Instead, the effect of any public expressions of dissent to Obama's reactionary politics would have had an effect on my childlike mind similar to that of a five year-old being told that Santa doesn't exist.
Fortunately, these members of the White Left has seen fit to spare me this mental crisis by muzzling themselves. Now I know them for good and caring people who only want to express their “solidarity” with those “who have been exploited, oppressed, and relegated to powerlessness”. By not criticizing Obama, they've refused to obscure things and instead placed the vital issue front and center: establishing the purity of white leftists' motivations.
If they're even remotely curious about why their movement is made up almost exclusively of white, bourgeois college kids, then I advise them to spend a little time in my mixed-race, working-class neighborhood going door to door and telling everyone about how they stand in “critical solidarity with people who have been violently marginalized, who see in the Obama campaign the possibility of their own agency.”
On second thought, don't do that. My neighbors are good people, and I wouldn't wish that on them. I wouldn't wish it on anybody.
Posted by Nullifidian | November 26, 2008 4:15 PM
Posted on November 26, 2008 16:15
Mike F:
...Fuck it, man; I'm going back to bed. That is, being a horizontalist.
That would be me as well, except substitute "superhero comics from the library" for "Cartoon Network with the sound turned off." Oh, and "sofa with busted spring" for "bed."
Posted by ms_xeno | November 27, 2008 12:06 PM
Posted on November 27, 2008 12:06