I’d be really good if the major points coming from the debate after this address were also put out for a wider network to think about. I’ve summarised what I understand as the main points of this address, with my comments below in brackets.

Point one. The best way to beat the shock tactic is mass confrontational direct action, without centralised leadership, but with an active analytical network.

[I’m not convinced, but also not against the idea. The key issue for me is the amount and type of work required to make organisation happen and be accountable. I cant see such a strategy being sustainable unless there is sufficient trust and sufficient accountability. I guess this relates to the third point of people other than neo-liberals using crises to force through change. With the second point (below) coming in as a linked tactic of creating or magnifying such crises by opening home fronts, maybe based more on solidarity with particular marginalised peoples than on general liberal human rights.]

Point two. Struggles taking place offshore can be extended back to the places which provide key resources, such as here.

[This reverses the situation of elite oppressive military forces only presenting their hardened cutting edge to a largely vulnerable population. Instead, crucial supplies become vulnerable to specialised opposition, through direct action and political methods. In the process, everyday back-home normality is shown to be both an ideology and a power structure which requires repression and self-domestication to keep existing. Existing social fracture lines are thereby encouraged to open wider, potentially destabilising key institutions.

The ‘bringing the struggle home’ tactic seems to conflict in at least some ways with the first point unless concerns about overseas injustices are sufficiently widespread that mass actions can take place. There seems a risk of such activism becoming isolated rather than becoming a catalyst]

Point three. The neo-liberal tactic of using crises, contingent or manufactured, to force through change, is more than just an implementation of domination. In actuality it is a general principle/tactic of political change that can be used by anyone.

A major shock is coming from their side when ecological forces impact on global markets and energy prices. The costs will be shoved onto the most vulnerable and expendable. But this ecological shock can also be used by others to oppose such intensification of exploitation by elites.

[I agree, but there seems a potential conflict with the widespread, but not universal, anarchist principle of requiring the means to fit the ends. This ‘fight fire with fire’ tactic seems likely to become a strategy, but in which case, a future of perpetual struggle seems likely. Is this what people want and would identify with as a collective goal if the local repression maintained a smiley face?

In my studies I’ve noticed that short periods of intense change are frequently separated by longer periods of consolidation and inertia. Its not a rule, of course, but it suggests to me that change is in a sense the motor, but different from and in some ways opposing the coherence (‘relational mass’?) of an alternative society. I would say that both motor and structural integrity (relational mass, coherence) are needed for there to be sustainability. Without a ‘graspable’ sustainability, will people make the personal sacrifices to make change happen, rather than have change forced upon them?]

I guess I’d better read Klein’s book before commenting further. Its clearly very relevant to issues that are very important right now. But such issues have also been around in different shapes and names for several hundred years of ‘progressive’ western activism. Not to mention a whole of human history of opposing injustice.

cheers
Steve L