Who needs them?

I took the Kraken Hatchling to the Shrine Circus the other night. We had a great time seeing the acrobats, the tigers, the elephants, the clown, and his baby elephant/puppy. We ate popcorn, cotton candy, had a snow cone that has left my entrails green, and even got to ride on an elephant. Well the Hatchling did, I took pictures. A friend came along too, and despite being half my age I think he had an alright time. Mrs. Kraken was working so she couldn't make it but was glad we went.

So my friend, let's call him Rakdos, is a young man with a good heart who really wants to make a difference in the world. We were chatting quite extensively about "direct action," considering the chaos going on around us, and the ever present possibility of right-wing vigilantes within earshot I was a little apprehensive about it. The word "sabotage" even came up. Personally, I'm not a fan of that word, and even less for the frames it evokes. Maybe I'm just too old now to believe that any sort of violence will help our situation. In fact, I'm very worried that any destruction of property carrying even a whiff of leftist action will set off the powder keg of right-wing vigilantism and cause the random mass murders of innocents by psychopaths to focus into a directed effort of posses, hunting down any young radicals they feel like. Ergo, direct action of the Weathermen style is to be condemned and discouraged. Utterly futile I know, but until it is absolutely and irredeemably certain that our democratic system is irretrievably broken there is still a chance to make it work for the public good. Eeek! Is that a sliver of optimism showing? Quick! Get the net!

The other topic we discussed, briefly though it was far more interesting from my perspective, was intellectuals. Hence the title of this post. Obviously disdain for thinkers by right-wingers and especially authoritarians runs very high, but our exchange was on different grounds. Rakdos brought up a rap song called "You can't be neutral on a moving train" and was actually surprised when I told him that is something of a classic of dissident literature by the late historian/activist Howard Zinn. I cannot remember the exact exchange from then on and I want to be fair to Rakdos but his argument seemed to sum up as "what have they ever actually done?" Specifically he was referring to Noam Chomsky. Now, putting aside that Professor Chomsky actually did march, demonstrate and work vociferously toward ending the war in Vietnam, yes, his main contribution has been intellectual and theoretical. "What has he done?" In the abstract I suppose this is a good question. I rarely venture beyond the idea of spreading the knowledge of problems. Pick and rank issues, joust with individuals and try to change their minds through persuasion or at least debunk the incredible misinformation out there.

The question I pose is often framed as "what can we do?" Hence where Rakdos and I started talking, he missed going to a camp out in the woods to learn about and practice this elusive concept of "direct action" and fretted about the lost opportunity. The answer to my question is to withhold, boycott, or avoid elements of corporate power as much as possible. Turning off the spigot of money, labor, and attention to these totalitarian institutions seems the safest way to reduce their power and the power of their owners/managers. The economic elite is the wellspring of most of the problems in our world and it takes an incredible amount of money to keep their little game going. Perhaps that is wishful thinking.

How I was first exposed to leftist activism was through the works of Jello Biafra, former lead singer of Dead Kennedys. His spoken word albums held a great deal of content and led me to like-minded individuals, helping to end some of the alienation and apathy I felt as a young crustacean. Biafra also referenced Chomsky, Zinn, and "the guy who runs The Baffler magazine." That of course was Thomas Frank, an historian and great chronicler of both ends of the right-wing "conservative" movement. I put that word in quotation marks because there is really very little this movement is trying to conserve, a better word is the authoritarian movement but no one wants to think of themselves that way in the same way that racists get quite annoyed when you call out their racism. Fifteen years later and I have moved from listening to punk rock to audiobooks of serious issues by real scholars. Perhaps I am an anomaly. Perhaps we really do need more direct action and less intellectualism. If a loud minority of authoritarians can catapult their leaders into positions to really wreck things, maybe what the larger society needs is a few dedicated miscreants to wreck the twisted desires of the corporate elite; democracy be damned.

Then again, maybe not. I just hope my friend Rakdos and others whose youth clouds the larger picture or makes problems old-schoolers like Zinn or Chomsky have been dealing with for decades seem so urgent do not do something they will regret. To be continued, I hope.