[DEBATE] : "A seagull stole my defense, sir..."-Brighton arms supplier to Israel/US military

[Peter Waterman]

The short answer to the rhetorical questions in your last para, Russell, is 
No, No and No.

However, my point of reference is 'the real movement that alters the present 
state of things' (Karl Marx), and in this case as in so many others, mate, 
the real movement is elsewhere than Marx, you or even I might like it to be.

Workers in the defence on cigarette industry are likely to be slow or 
reluctant to act, respectively, on the peace or cancer question.

I am talking, obviously, about flesh-and-blood workers, not about a 
theoretical proletariat endowed by Marxists, vulgar or not, with unique 
emancipatory agency.

Recognising all this makes it possible to approach workers as and where they 
are, in the most effective possible way. It may, for example, require the 
circumvention of their unions and of parties amd theorists claiming to speak 
in their name. It may require them to see action being taken against the 
products they earn their living from. It may take a couple of pints shared 
between peace and labour activists in a nearby pub...


Peter W.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Russell Grinker" <grinker at mweb.co.za>
To: "'debate: SA discussion list '" <debate at lists.kabissa.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 2:21 PM
Subject: RE: [DEBATE] : "A seagull stole my defense,sir..."-Brighton arms 
supplier to Israel/US military


| Peter:
|
| Do you get a lot of headaches as a result of that over-tight halo of 
yours?
|
| Getting yourself arrested is not necessarily always an indication of a
| successful campaign tactic. And what does trying to build some opposition
| among organised labour to military production have to do with vulgar
| Marxism? Maybe you could advise given your long experience as a proponent 
of
| said ideology?
|
| Do you then disagree with approaching the union, should it exist? Do you 
not
| agree that unless approached for support, the workforce is liable to turn
| hostile? Is this of no consequence in your view?
|
| Russell
|
| -----Original Message-----
| From: debate-bounces at lists.kabissa.org
| [mailto:debate-bounces at lists.kabissa.org] On Behalf Of Peter Waterman
| Sent: 08 May 2007 02:10 PM
| To: debate: SA discussion list
| Subject: Re: [DEBATE] : "A seagull stole my defense,sir..."-Brighton arms
| supplier to Israel/US military
|
| Russell:
|
| It would be nice to first of all express appreciation of the initiative 
and
| courage of the protesters than criticise them for their assumed failure to
| involve hypothetical unions representing workers imagined to be open to 
such
|
| an appeal.
|
| However, I do appreciate here the particular example you provide of
| discourse of vulgar marxism down the centuries.
|
| Less-vulgar marxists tend to produce their empirical studies (The 
Condition
| of the Working Class in England) before their rhetorical appeals (The
| Communist Manifesto).
|
| Peter W.
|
|
| ----- Original Message ----- 
| From: "Russell Grinker" <grinker at mweb.co.za>
| To: "'debate: SA discussion list '" <debate at lists.kabissa.org>
| Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 12:43 PM
| Subject: RE: [DEBATE] : "A seagull stole my defense,sir..."-Brighton arms
| supplier to Israel/US military
|
|
|| Anyone know whether any attempt was made to get organised labour at edo
| mbm
|| involved in a boycott of this firm/this particular product? That's
| assuming
|| of course that labour in the armaments sector is still
| unionised/organised.
|| This would surely be more effective than a situation where 'members of 
the
|| public' are pitted against the workforce there.
||
|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: debate-bounces at lists.kabissa.org
|| [mailto:debate-bounces at lists.kabissa.org] On Behalf Of Salim Vally
|| Sent: 08 May 2007 12:11 PM
|| To: debate: SA discussion list
|| Subject: [DEBATE] : "A seagull stole my defense,sir..."-Brighton arms
|| supplier to Israel/US military
||
||
|| The saga of Brighton arms manufacturer edo mbm's battle with members of
|| the public who are concerned by the manufacture of components for bomb
|| racks used by the Israeli military in an innocuous-looking industrial
|| estate near Moulsecoomb continued last week with a new trial of 3 people
|| accused of aggravated trespass with the intention to disrupt lawful
|| activity. <snip>
||
||
||
|
|
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