Civil War on the Left, Part 7

Talk about the left hand not knowing what the far left hand is doing, check out the story about the ruckus at Portland State University last week, where a group of essentially fascist thugs shouted down a panel stacked with leftists at a conference on “Law and Disorder,” which has a deliberate anarchist flavor.  (See the poster below.)

The problem was that one of the panels included a fellow named Kristian Williams.  Nope, I’ve never heard of him either, but he’s apparently very far to the left, affiliated with something called the Committee Against Political Repression, probably thinks Mumia is a political prisoner, and is the author of a book entitled Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America.  For some in Portland, however, Williams is so insufficiently progressive that he had to be shouted down, as you can see in the video below (language warning).  The mob succeeded in preventing the panel from going forward.  Looks like we’re back to the Judean People’s Front quarreling with the People’s Front of Judea again.

It is not at all clear to me exactly what Williams’s deficiency is.  The mob kept saying something about “survivor doubt.”  I wonder if this is anything like climate change doubt?  Anyway, in a subsequent blog post, Williams abjectly declares:

We believe that the damage caused by patriarchy and intimate violence in our movements is a real and terrible force.  These are problems that need to be discussed, addressed and confronted head on.  The way we do that as a community has real implications for how we move forward together – our process around these issues has the potential to make us stronger.  To forge relationships based on solidarity, mutual aid and support that can carry us through as we struggle against the state, patriarchy, capitalism and all forms of oppression requires a level of willingness to treat each other with respect and care — even when we disagree.

After reading drivel like this, it seems obvious that all of these folks deserve each other.  I’m sure they can sort out capitalism at meetings of the Portland Barrista Union Local 451.

Law and Disorder copy

 

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