Misadventures In The Class Struggle"A movement comprised of the dispossessed must husband its scant resources. It can ill afford the wastefulness of lies. A state compensates for errors and delusions with the superabundant resources at its disposal. In a radical movement clarity of mind must compensate for lack of resources. The crucial prerequisite for being grounded in reality is truthfulness."
I made a similar point here* about Syria:
"If the Left claims that thousands will die in carpet bombing, that depleted uranium will be scattered across Syria, that American soldiers will be dying to help al-Qaida, and none of these things turn out to be true, it will discredit the Left, and because the Left does not control the media, that impression will stay for a long time, and when the US does want to intervene, the pendulum will have swung back to it being easy again for the US to do what it wants. And if the situation in Syria takes another step towards Hell, then there is a greater likelihood that American, French or British power will be brought to bear on Syria, rather than the empowerment of those rebels that we just don’t know about from what we’ve read in the press."
I nearly started with the funny story of the ultra-Maoist sect who tried to beat up Norman and his comrades:
" Leaving work one evening I noticed a grim-faced mob all wearing the trademark lumberjack boots, blue jeans and work shirts of the Revolutionary Union approach our building. I quickly rang up Fred at the front desk, who, I was later told, braced for the worst with wrench and crowbar in hand. (At the time he was eighty years old.) The RU’s plot was foiled, however, when they crowded into the elevator and it sank to the basement. It seems that they hadn’t read the bourgeois warning about maximum elevator capacity."
*[http://notris.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/dominoes.html]