This below from David Harris' "Dreams Die Hard" seems crucial. Although I was not privy to them at the time, other conversations of Dennis’s after his return from Washington made it apparent that his enthusiasm for The Resistance strategy was waning. The idea, he said, had been to break the peace movement out of its... Continue Reading →
“Dealing with bureaucracy like wrestling with a vat of jello…”
"Frankly, it had also pretty much peaked. Dealing with the university bureaucracy was like wrestling with a vat of jello, and my “radical” proposals were all soon lost in a morass of committees and commissions, being “studied” into oblivion." Harris, D. 1982) Dreams Die Hard, p.157 Yep. Again, a feature not a bug. See also... Continue Reading →
Serious consequences for dissent having a chilling effect? That’s a feature, not a bug…
But we keep being surprised, it seems... The discussion that followed was somber, even frightening. The first thing on everyone’s mind was the penalties involved. The Selective Service Act of 1948 called for up to five years in prison for simply not having a draft card in your possession. Induction refusal carried a five-year maximum... Continue Reading →
Pathologies of organisers… Four examples
A few more clippings from "Dreams Die Hard" by the late David Harris. There are two lovely pen portrait about Bob Moses, and his thoughts on leadership - I will come to those another time. For now, by way of contrast, here's some various stuff about Allard Lowenstein, who clearly needed to be the "key"... Continue Reading →
The one weird thing stopping us taking action on climate change
How’s THAT for a click-bait headline, (albeit circa 2014)? You’re unlikely to read to the end of this, so I’ll spit out the tl;dr - It’s hubris, or pride, or arrogance, whatever you want to call it. Of COURSE it is also the wildly successful disinformation and delay campaigns run by the oil companies and... Continue Reading →
To read or not to read – Ctrl F movements, Ctrl F global justice…
Quick post, because mad busy. Will talk about the prolier-than-thou exchange (thoroughly dispiriting) on Twitter another time. For now, I came up with this algorithm for whether to read articles that are telling us "there's still time/here's what we need to do blah blah LOOK AT ME I AM AN EXPERT/Celebrity" that appear with spiralling... Continue Reading →
The conspiracy of silence about the need for social movements – an “institutional” analysis
Everyone I know (i.e. the people in my Twitter feed) is staring at colourful graphs about sea ice, or global average temperatures, or else sharing footage of Just Stop Oil protests (a real “ACTUP” vibe, btw, for anyone old enough to remember the late 1980s). Or they are sharing “the cat should wear a bell”... Continue Reading →
Of #climate denialists, Toni Morrison and not feeding the trolls…
So, one thing that you learn quickly if you stick your head above the parapet on climate - especially on The Conversation, it seems - is that you’ll attract a few positive comments and at least as many trolls/denialists etc. [Addendum - As a white man I don't get the racism and sexism that the... Continue Reading →
On the Antarctic, morbid symptoms and being court in a trap End of Days #25
It will be hard to remember what it felt like right now. There are two options, as I see it. In the first, we return to “normal” weather patterns etc(how? Why? Is this not human-centric thinking, as if the world were made for us. Of course, lots of people believe it WAS made for us)... Continue Reading →
Hate letter to a dead denialist. And the Telegraph
So, I was in Stafford today, seeing if I have MRSA ahead of a little light toe cutting. I absolutely did NOT go into the Oxfam bookshop, and I absolutely did NOT buy this book, and anyone who tells my wife is a snitch, and snitches get stitches. And in that book, which I absolutely... Continue Reading →
marchudson.net 