> On Feb 8, 2025, at 9:44 AM, sartesian via groups.io
> <sartesian=earthlink....@groups.io> wrote:
>
> Disruptions are a tactic, where sometimes the negatives outweigh the gain and
> vice-versa. Rejecting disruption categorically can mean missing tremendous
> opportunities to expose issues-- like the sit-ins a lunch counters did; like
> the occupancy of ROTC buildings did etc etc.
I wouldn't rule anything out categorically, only for a particular time and
place. For example, the United States during the 20th and 21st centuries is a
place where working people have won and defended free speech and assembly
rights. US Black workers were among the last to attain these freedoms and
equal-treatment, and they often struggled using civil disobedience tactics like
sit-ins at lunch counters and holding marches in defiance of court orders
(without blocking the roads). But when there is an attempt to roll rights back,
civil disobedience is not the only tactic to use, IMO, but one of two.
We should fight the loss of civil liberties on one front while continuing the
original struggle using civil disobedience on another. On the civil liberties
front, there are people and organizations who don't support the particular
movement that's suffering state repression, but these people often will defend
the right for them to advocate and organize. So you build a defense committee
and hold marches to demand reinstatement of rights. When a movement or cause is
made illegal, moreover, it will have a dampening effect on participation, for
example, from people who have families to feed. The civil-liberties defense
work provides a safer place to continue the protest - so long as agitating for
the right to agitate is not made illegal. That's been rare in the US, but we
know that speech and assembly come under assault when we begin to win. As MM
wrote in his Monthly Review article last year, the guardians of the
constitutional order will exclaim that the "US constitution is not a suicide
pact" and call for the Bill of Rights to be abrogated. That's something being
taken away from all of us, and we should fight that in the broadest united
front.
I think this is rooted in the US revolutionary left tradition via James P.
Cannon.
Mark
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