I’m Told Black Folks Are Lying Low in the Face of Stephen Miller’s Crackdown

@Jan Wiklund re: “The essential is that the ‘best, bravest, and most selfless organizers’ keep the initiative and don’t pass it over to ‘the loudmouths, the leeches, the grifters’. ”

I should have quoted from this Aurelian essay in the piece, which explains the failure of BLM and Occupy brilliantly and also “the Resistance” etc:

Aurelian is referencing the most recent protests in France as well as the yellow vest protests:

“the fundamental problem faced by ordinary people today trying to influence those in power. A minimum degree of consensus and organisation is necessary if anything is to be achieved, but consensus and organisation don’t just appear magically: they have to be developed and practised. In the past, opposition political parties and trades unions often provided the basis of this organisation: as far as anyone can see, Mélenchon and other political figures primarily used last week’s protests to further their own interests. For all that the Internet was supposed to bring people together (and the Gilets jaunes which we’ll get to in moment could not have happened without it) the Internet doesn’t promote consensus or organisation automatically: indeed, there’s some evidence that it’s a divisive force in such cases.

“It’s worth recalling how this kind of thing would once have been organised, say in the 80s or 90s. Protests in those days were articulated around two main pillars: organisations and community. Last week’s protests would have been organised by the trades unions and the Socialist or Communist parties (OK, often in competition with each other) and would have been professionally organised, with synchronised demonstrations, massive rallies addressed by political leaders, banners, flags, hand-outs and articulated demands with lots of media coverage. It might not have achieved an enormous amount in the end, and there would certainly have been a performative element, but it would not have been damp squib like last week’s episode.

One little-noticed characteristic of such marches and rallies was the high degree of organisational control. For example, the political parties and trades unions would have had their own security teams controlling the event. As well as the usual marshalling, they would be on the alert for attempts at infiltration by extremists, or stupid or aggressive behaviour by the marchers. By convention, the police left control and security of the marches to these people, who were generally robust individuals who had done military service and were trained in unarmed combat. With the Gilets jaunes, all this had disappeared. The GJ had no central organisation, no membership, and no way of controlling access to their events. The result was that these events were quite rapidly infiltrated by all sorts of activists of different political persuasions, often looking for a fight, as well as thieves and looters. The effect of this was to give the protests an undeserved reputation for violence and destruction and so reduce public support.”

The problems faced by 21st century resistance efforts are deeply structural. IMO they predate the Internet and were caused by mass media, especially television and suburban car culture.

The world of “Bowling Alone” is far removed from the America chronicled by de Tocqueville.

If somehow the internet had come along in a pre-TV world I expect it would have hyper-charged already robust organizations and organizing abilities, as is it attempted to fill an empty stomach with the sugar rush of online fundraising and flash mobs.

But also the worthless centrists need to be called out or they will remain in power. They’re currently destroying Katie Porter over a stupid spat at an interview, just as they destroyed Howard Dean in 2003 over yelling into a microphone.

These failures and betrayals must be called out or they will never stop.