Re: patience

[Daniel Davies <dsquared@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

by the way, I have always wondered, what the hell is it that might have
possessed someone to give their kid a name like Medea?  Does she have
brothers or sisters?

"Hullo Missus Benjamin, is Medea coming out to play?"

"No, she's gone down the arcade with Judas, Lucretia and Adolf"

yes yes I know, apologies to all concerned.

dd

-----Original Message-----
From: PEN-L list [mailto:PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Doug
Henwood
Sent: 18 August 2004 15:41
To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: patience


Daniel Davies wrote:

>I seem to remember that around the time of the Seattle riots, Doug said
>something which always struck me as very right, along the lines of what is
a
>"moderate" demand being dependent on what demands are actually being made.
>The idea being that moderate demands only succeed in cases when there is
>also a lunatic fringe making "unreasonable" demands; if the lunatic fringe
>isn't there, then the moderates get redefined as the lunatic fringe.

<http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/SeattleThursday.html>

Yesterday's Seattle Times had an article on the delegation of
anarchists from Eugene, Oregon, who are being blamed for most of the
violence. The Eugenians - playing the always-useful role of outside
agitators - published a manifesto denouncing the unions and NGOs
protesting the WTO as "part of the glue holding a rotting order
together. It's time to create a new world from the ashes after the
ruined one. Fight back and don't get caught." And they didn't; almost
all the arrestees were doing nothing violent, while the
window-smashers seem to have skipped town unhindered. Before leaving,
though, the Eugene anarchists amazingly flattened the tires of eight
police cars and spray-painted them with the circled A that symbolizes
anarchism. Doing that takes amazing nerve; getting away with it is
stunning.

Some of the proud nonviolent protesters spent yesterday cleaning up
the damage done by the smashers and distancing themselves from them
philosophically. Among them was Medea Bejamin of Global Exchange,
who, along with some of her colleagues, actually tried to defend
Niketown's windows against breakage. Sober reformists are incapable
of understanding that they need immoderates to help make their case;
without crazies to which they can appear like moderate alternatives,
no one would ever listen to them.