an inconvenient revolt: the movement no one wants to talk about

[bcbm]

http://nothingiseverlost.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/an-inconvenient-revolt-the-movement-no-one-wants-to-talk-about/

[Blake's Baby]

It is very interesting to see who's silent on this, and who's condemning it because it doesn't address the question of Palestinian sovereignty.

LibCom has had a thread for more than a week discussing this - http://libcom.org/forums/news/israelis-take-street-protesting-rising-prices-26072011 - I honestly haven't seen very many others who've mentioned it.

[Sasha]

al jazeera has been following it: http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insidestory/2011/08/201181101836750831.html

and even the mainstream dutch 8 o clock news had an lengthy item.

[jake williams]

Al Jazeera and RT have been covering it for their own reasons.

It seems like it's getting a lot of press from people claiming it's getting no press. It's true the mainstream American press might not be covering it, but the mainstream American press doesn't cover anything.

[Threetune]

Al Jazeera and RT have been covering it for their own reasons.

It seems like it's getting a lot of press from people claiming it's getting no press. It's true the mainstream American press might not be covering it, but the mainstream American press doesn't cover anything.

Fuck the press, is it happening? Yes or no? answer = yes. Now what?

[pluckedflowers]

There are important issues raised by these protests, but this article is entirely disingenuous. Look what they did with their quote from Lenin's Tomb (http://leninology.blogspot.com/2011/08/few-observations-on-israels-protests.html):

“the Israeli left has very rarely shown any sign of wanting to seriously overcome the colonial/racial injustice at the heart of the Zionist project… there is no chance whatsoever of the Israeli working class becoming a revolutionary class”


What did Seymour actually say?

"If the class antagonism is dominant, then the Left should focus its activism first on organising the Israeli working class as the key to breaking the colonial project. The self-organisation of that working class would be central to the downfall of that colonial system. If the colonial dynamic predominates, then Machover and Orr are right to conclude that "as long as Zionism is politically and ideologically dominant within that society, and forms the accepted framework of politics, there is no chance whatsoever of the Israeli working class becoming a revolutionary class".

That's just straight-up lying.

[Jose Gracchus]

I think not. I agree that even workers who believe in fascism can participate in class struggle.

[Apoi_Viitor]

There are important issues raised by these protests, but this article is entirely disingenuous.

While that specific quote was dishonestly distorted, I think the point brought up in the article - that the left's silence on these protests is very concerning - is definitely valid.

[Pretty Flaco]

I didn't even hear about this until I saw it here. :blushing:

[Madslatter]

These protests could really shake up some worldviews quickly. A couple days ago, a group said to be lead by anarchists and leftists in the movement kicked out a right wing settler group which had been trying co-opt the movement. The hardcore zionists are apparently very worried about this movement, which shows that they are not confident in their ability to whip up reactionary sentiment in Israel's working class. This can only be a good thing imo.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

"On April 28, 1789, violence broke out in Paris. Fifteen thousand demonstrators converged on the house of the manufacturer Jean Baptiste Réveillon, and sacked it. Royal troops opened fire, leaving perhaps three hundred dead in what would remain one of the bloodiest days of the French Revolution."


[One might argue that this marked the real beginning of the French Revolution.]


"On April 28, however, the wider implications of the uprising were not so clear. The motivation of the demonstrators was clear enough: Réveillon, a wealthy manufacturer who had risen through the ranks, an elector to the Estates General, was widely thought to be planning to lower wages for all workers. But the goals of the demonstrators were as vague to themselves as to others. Indiscriminately, they mixed shouts of support for the King, his minister Necker, and the King’s brother, the Duke of Orléans, with the predictable denunciations of priests, aristocrats, and the rich."


[The demonstrators were actually heard shouting "Vive le Roi!" while dumping tiles from the rooftops on the head of the royal troops.]


Indeed, one of the most remarkable aspects of the events of 1789 is the way in which quite traditional forms of social action could suddenly take on different meanings in a redefined political situation. Unless we recognize the nature of the discourse (or discourses) that defined the situation in which the French found themselves in 1789, we cannot grasp the meanings of the “social” events that occurred within that situation - Baker, “Introduction,” in Inventing the French Revolution, 5.
- Those are a few extracts and quotes from Paul Werner, David's Basket: Art and Activism in the French Revolution. You get the point.