I read this when it first came out in the summer of 2006 and it pretty much rocked my socks off and made me excited to get involved in the new SDS, so I figured I’d repost it for folks who never got to read it. [alex]

Ten Questions for Movement Building
by Dan Berger and Andy Cornell

Originally published by Monthly Review Zine.

For five weeks in the late spring of 2006, we toured the eastern half of the United States to promote two books — Letters From Young Activists: Today’s Rebels Speak Out (Nation Books, 2005) and Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity (AK Press, 2006) — and to get at least a cursory impression of sectors of the movement in this country.  We viewed the twenty-eight events not only as book readings but as conscious political conversations about the state of the country, the world, and the movement.

Of course, such quick visits to different parts of the country can only yield so much information.  Because this was May and June, we did not speak on any school campuses and were unable to gather a strong sense of the state of campus-based activism.  Further, much of the tour came together through personal connections we’ve developed in anarchist, queer, punk, and white anti-racist communities, and, as with any organizing, the audience generally reflected who organized the event and how they went about it rather than the full array of organizing projects transpiring in each town.  Yet several crucial questions were raised routinely in big cities and small towns alike (or, alternately, were elided but lay just beneath the surface of the sometimes tense conversations we were party to).  Such commonality of concerns and difficulties demonstrates the need for ongoing discussion of these issues within and between local activist communities.  Thus, while we don’t pretend to have an authoritative analysis of the movement, we offer this report as part of a broader dialogue about building and strengthening modern revolutionary movements — an attempt to index some common debates and to offer challenges in the interests of pushing the struggle forward.

Challenges and Debates:

The audiences we spoke with tended to be predominantly white and comprised of people self-identified as being on the left, many of whom are active in one or more organizations locally or nationally.  We traveled through the Northeast (including a brief visit to Montreal), the rust belt, the Midwest, parts of the South, and the Mid-Atlantic.  Some events tended to draw mostly 60s-generation activists, others primarily people in their 20s, and more than a few were genuinely intergenerational.  Not surprisingly, events at community centers and libraries afforded more room for conversation than those at bookstores.  Crowds ranged anywhere from 10 to 100 people, although the average event had about 25 people.  Even where events were small gatherings of friends, they proved to be useful dialogues about pragmatic work.  Our goals for the tour were: establishing a sense of different organizing projects; pushing white people in an anti-racist and anti-imperialist direction while highlighting the interrelationship of issues; and grappling with the difficult issues of organizing, leadership, and intergenerational movement building.  The following ten questions emerge from our analysis of the political situation based on our travels and meetings with activists of a variety of ages and range of experiences.

1. What Is Organizing?

Every event we did focused on the need for organizing.  This call often fell upon sympathetic ears, but was frequently met with questions about how to actually organize and build lasting radical organizations, particularly in terms of maintaining radical politics while reaching beyond insular communities.  There are too few institutions training young or new activists in the praxis of organizing and anti-authoritarian leadership development. This doesn’t stop people from taking on radical political work, but it does limit the movement’s widespread effectiveness, particularly in smaller towns.  Part of the problem is that many of the nationally visible entities that do provide training in organizing and leadership development — specifically, the mainstream labor unions — are not anti-authoritarians rooted in a radical analysis of society.  The training centers that are based in such an analysis, such as Project South, the Midwest Academy, and Z Media Institute, lack the capacity to work with all the activists interested in gaining such skills.   Developing this capacity is crucial, as younger radicals in particular need models and mentors of how to be rooted in a community, mobilizing around concrete demands, consistently bringing new people into the movement and keeping them there.  At the same time, we need to be more aware of those organizing initiatives that already exist and the ways we can be of most use to them.

When discussing organizing, we often heard the common refrain to “go knock on doors.”  However, it’s not enough to encourage people to just start knocking on doors as individuals or loose groups.  Without a sense of why they are there or a program about which to talk with people, door knocking will yield few productive results.  Thus, it is not just about encouraging people to organize — it’s also about recognizing that people need the skills, confidence, and groups with which to do so.  Furthermore, potential organizers need careful guidance on the different tasks, goals, challenges, and motivations the practice of organizing has to include if we are to take seriously the now decades-old challenge to organize not only in oppressed, but also oppressor communities (and to understand how most people are multiply situated in relation to different forms of privilege and power).

To be sure, there is a lot of organizing going on.  The most successful work that we saw was more locally or regionally based than nationally, yet there are various projects that seem to be bringing in new people, operating from a systemic analysis, and winning concrete demands.  An organizer we met in Pittsburgh offered a useful definition of the twofold task for radical organizers and organizations: Build Dual Power, Confront State Power.  That is, we must develop our own power — by building coalitions, political infrastructure, and visionary, alternative institutions that prefigure the types of social relationships we desire — while simultaneously confronting the state, right-wing social movements, and other forms of institutional oppression.  One without the other is insufficient.  This twofold approach can also address what an organizer in North Carolina identified as the gap between opposition to something and action around it — a chasm that is solved by a feeling of empowerment, the belief that people can actively contribute to making change.

The widespread interest in organizing that we found, as well as the “Build Dual Power, Confront State Power” conceptualization, seems to be a promising departure from the tendency among many young anti-authoritarian activists to reject the concept of leadership outright.  Since organizing implies leadership and leadership implies hierarchy, the process of moving others to take action or even agree with one’s political analysis has been seen as suspect and sometimes rejected outright in certain circles.  This, we fear, has prevented activists from building the types of respectful personal and institutional relationships across social divides that can provide the groundwork for active solidarity.  It has led many younger activists to focus on creating elective alternative communities and model projects (infoshops, puppet troupes, publications, service projects) that are intended to exist outside of the sphere of oppressive values and institutions.  The call to build “dual power” respects the importance of these initiatives, but the paired determination to effectively confront the power of the state and other reactionary social forces demands, in addition, a type of strategic, coalitional work requiring semi-permanent organizations, mass involvement, and openness to a range of tactics.  We believe that this work requires skillful, democratic, grassroots leadership with an unabashed commitment to organize others in a manner that helps them, in turn, to develop their own leadership skills.

2. How Do We Build Intergenerational Movements? (A Challenge to Young and Old!)

Most people we met do not work in productively intergenerational groups or live intergenerational lives outside tightly prescribed roles (e.g., teacher-student).  This presents a challenge for activists and organizers of all ages, who constantly need to be looking to work with those older and younger.  Recognizing that the struggle is for the long haul means that no generation can or should exist in a political vacuum.  While both younger and older folks bear the responsibility for this, the onus may indeed rest on older people to make themselves available; most young people we met were excited by the prospect of intergenerational discussions and groups but didn’t know where to find the older radicals in their area.  (As people in our mid- and late-20s, we have a responsibility to find and work with the teenage radicals who are just now becoming political conscious and active.)

Intergenerational movements are not simply about people of various ages being in the same room.  Instead, it is about building respectful relationships of mutual learning and teaching based on a long-haul approach to movement building.  In raising this issue, we saw three typical responses that are generally unhelpful to building intergenerational groups and movements: The Nike Approach (Just Do It!) — the older activists who tell young people to just go out there and change the world already and to stop looking for validation from older people.  But young folks aren’t looking for a go-ahead; we are out there, doing our best.  Validation and encouragement from people we respect can bolster our resolve, but what we’re really looking for is mentorship, multigenerational commitment, and solidarity.  We’re willing to put ourselves out there, even to make mistakes.  But it would be helpful if we didn’t have to make the same mistakes older people have already made.  And young folks need to see that older activists maintain their political commitments in both word and deed.  The Retired Approach (We Had Our Turn, Now You Try) — several older activists echoed the sentiment that they did their best and now it was up to us.  Some with this position argue that they and their generation need to get entirely out of the way of the young folks, which functionally removes older people from the equation.  This abandonment masquerading as support is equally unhelpful in actually learning from the past and moving forward together because it serves to enforce a generational separation.  The Obstructionist Approach (Only If You Accept My Politics and Unquestioned Leadership) — people with this position demand adherence to the politics and vision of the older generation as the prerequisite for any working relationship.  They make The Retired Approach more appealing and are a reminder that, frankly, some people do need to get out of the way.  This is where older allies committed to collaboration could be potentially helpful, proving that political divides are not inherently generational gaps.

A lack of intergenerational relationships and groups is apparent nationally and locally.  In one town we visited, for instance, the “peace community” seemed to lack any relationship to anyone under 50 or to impoverished communities of color that are most directly affected by the war machine.  Another town saw a largely generational split over confrontational anti-war activism, where older people generally refused to support any confrontational tactics and anyone using them.  Yet when the younger folks went out by themselves to picket the recruiting station, they were able to successfully shut it down on two separate occasions.  Intergenerational movement building could be useful not only in expanding the base of people willing to engage in such confrontational tactics (and thereby hopefully contributing to hastening the war’s end) but also in trying to push other older people to work with and support youth leadership.

Young people, for our part, make it difficult for movement veterans to find us and assess our work when we organize only as temporary affinity groups that usually lack office space and sometimes even contact information.  Expressing interest in building such ties is also important.  When one of us off-handedly commented to an SDS veteran and radical historian that many younger activists would appreciate being asked by organizers of his generation to have coffee or lunch and talk shop, he seemed genuinely surprised.  “Really?  You think folks would want to get together with people like me?”  We assured him that we at least appreciated it — especially when the older folks picked up the tab.

What young people don’t want to deal with is patronization or abandonment, people who focus on their glory days or on lecturing “the youngens.”  What young folks do want are older activists who remain steadfast in their resolve and organizing, who seek to draw out the lessons from their years in the struggle (and are clear about where they differ with others of their age cohort without being sectarian), who look to younger activists for inspiration and guidance while providing the same, and who are focused on movement building.  Building on the more multigenerational roots of Southern organizing, two older organizers in Greensboro beautifully summed this up at an event in saying, “We aren’t done, we’re not leaving, and we’re in this together.”

3. What Role Do Militancy and Confrontation Play?

In our experience, almost no one was talking about engaging in acts of violence — even at events focused on the Weather Underground, an organization remembered most for its tactical embrace of large-scale property destruction.  Despite the occasional utterance of a desire to see the White House reduced to rubble, there is a clear understanding that the movement is not at the level of militant confrontation with the state that radicals were in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  (This was, to be sure, a distinction we focused on in talks about that political moment relative to this one.)  While some people may romanticize the past or have facile notions of militancy or underground resistance, most of the people we met were interested in developing strategies and tactics that could effectively end the war and contribute to other fundamental changes in society.  Particularly in relation to the war, we noticed widespread disappointment with the national coalitions: for being sectarian, for mobilizing but not movement building, for not developing or supporting youth leadership, for not using the pervasive frustration with the war to deepen anti-war and, ultimately, anti-imperialist consciousness.  People want to not just register their dissatisfaction with the war through petitions and periodic protests but actually end it, and many young people in particular don’t see either of the dominant anti-war coalitions as vehicles for doing that.

Many people are looking for other ways — including more confrontational ones — to directly target the war machine.  In fact, various groups and individuals have been directly confronting the war machine on a local scale since the U.S. invaded Iraq.  To date, this seems largely to have taken the form of counter-recruitment work.  What such confrontation has meant varies based on the specifics of a particular community; in some places, a picket was enough to shut down a recruiting center, whereas in other places it meant attempts to enter and disrupt the center or block its doors.  The groups we were most impressed by were able to develop a strategy that incorporated a sense of direct action in line with the state of local movement.  That is, they upped the ante in directly confronting the state, pushed the notion of what was acceptable somewhat beyond what the movement had been doing in that town to date (e.g., from vigils to protests, from protests to civil disobedience), and maintained relationships with other activists and groups who may not have engaged in the same tactics but who remained committed and sympathetic.  Such an approach recognizes that increasing pressure on war-makers requires us to continually expand the movement numerically, while simultaneously increasing the militancy of those prepared to take risks.  It also recognizes the careful maneuvering and relationship building work required to navigate the tension these two goals inevitably produce.  We need to build mass movements where militant tactics can be present without dividing the movement — and it was a former Catholic Worker who underscored this point for us in expressing critical support for militant wings of the movement historically.

Counter-recruitment work and the growth of organizations led by Iraq war veterans and their families remain the most exciting and promising aspects of the U.S. anti-war movement.  Since anti-war organizing has not been the primary focus of either of our political work for the past couple of years, we were very excited to hear firsthand accounts of successful, repeated, day-long shutdowns of recruiting offices and similar actions.  However, several challenges remain, including making this work more coordinated, extensive, and visible on a national level.  Furthermore, direct-action anti-war efforts need to expand beyond recruiting centers to other targets, such as the offices of war profiteers, that can be materially impacted by relatively small groups.  The small victories reported by organizers in numerous mid-sized cities seem to imply that local actions might be more successful than those against obvious, heavily-policed targets such as the Pentagon that require significant lead-time and national coordination.  Activists whose circumstances don’t allow them to participate bodily in such actions have important roles to play in securing legal and financial resources, as well as working to prevent less militantly inclined sectors of the movement from denouncing or attempting to marginalize those seeking to obstruct empire from functioning.

If, as we argued throughout the tour, militancy is not to be conflated with violence or property destruction, but is instead understood as a stance of political integrity and commitment in spite of serious consequences, activists young and old might also more seriously consider the challenge directed at the two of us by a long-time radical pacifist anarchist who housed us for a night: the challenge of becoming “war tax” resistors.  While the unpublicized, moralistic actions of scattered, aging individuals that seem to have characterized the war tax resistance movement for many decades haven’t proven particularly appealing to many younger radicals, it seems that a coordinated, media-savvy campaign of joint declarations of tax resistance by a significant group of the younger-generation activists, expressing an explicit anti-imperialist politics, has enough potential to ignite debate as to at least be given a thoughtful appraisal.  “After all,” expressed our new friend, “the only thing the government wants is your money.  They sure don’t care if you vote, or if you approve of what they’re doing.”

Whether withholding taxes or sabotaging Bechtel is on the table, concretely understanding the prospects, pitfalls, and practice of increasing confrontation is a vital need in this period — both in terms of our local/regional work as well as for the movement on a national level.

4. What about Anti-racism and Multiracial Movement Building?

Throughout the tour, the only discussions that were genuinely multi-racial — where people of color comprised at least half of those in attendance, rather than only a smattering — were either organized by people of color groups or ones where the local event organizers had consciously worked to ensure the event was co-sponsored and planned by a variety of local organizations, including ones comprised of and led by people of color, who worked to bring their members and contacts out.  Because the left, like U.S. society in general, remains significantly divided by race, proactive measures are needed to create multi-racial spaces where work to bridge that divide can take place.  When that work was done, and when participants started from a place of respect, recognizing our differences as well as our similarities, we found that we shared similar analysis of the current situation and many common principles of the world we would like to move towards.  As participants in these conversations often arrived at their radical politics from different experiences, we found that discussing our motivations and the thought processes that led us to do the work we do helped participants build trust and understanding.  Recognizing and appreciating the sacrifices and contributions to the broader struggle for justice made by people from the different organizations, nationalities, and tendencies of those in the room was also important to this process.

At one event, an older white/Jewish activist queried the extent to which young people’s lives and groups today are multiracial and wondered what specific factors divided white activists from people of color.  In response to the latter, we argued that radical young people’s social lives are often in large part built around oppositional youth cultures such as hip-hop and punk that tend to be racially distinct.  Furthermore, few organizations or forums exist where younger activists from different class and race backgrounds can interact while taking part in discussions and joint work.  This leaves young people to meet and attempt to forge connections on a personal basis — an often difficult and intimidating task in today’s fraught racial landscape.  Encouraging multiracial interactions and organization building is a task where guidance and direct involvement from older-generation activists could prove especially useful.

Building these multiracial relationships requires steady organizing, a demonstrated commitment among white people to racial justice politics, and incorporating anti-racism into our daily lives — recognizing that “multiracial” and “antiracist” are related but not interchangeable phenomenon.  It emerges from and through the organizing work, not from proscribing all-white versus only-multiracial organizational forms; both models exist, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages.  The call for Black Power, raised 40 years ago, challenged whites to organize with other whites against racism while practicing concrete solidarity with people-of-color liberation movements.  How do we build a radical power base among white people that is profoundly anti-racist to contribute to toppling white supremacy?  Few people are framing the struggle in those terms.  And how do class differences among white people shape the ways in which people can be won over to anti-racist politics?  White folks of our generation seem to be better at talking to other white people about racism, though not necessarily organizing them or making material aid and concrete solidarity central responsibilities of our political work.  One problem lies in being too comfortable with all-white spaces, as well as in thinking that the presence of some people of color makes the event or group not a white space.  Debate over organizational forms continues, but the need to shift the politics, culture, and practice of the movement in thoroughly anti-racist ways remains a priority.

At some events where we challenged people to discuss the differences in how white supremacy operated in the 1960s and how it does currently, many demurred.  This may indicate that race and racism are topics still so loaded that many white people feel unsure how to navigate even a discussion of them, let alone political practice. In many ways, we’re still fighting to understand the significance of the national liberation struggles of the last generation (including Black Power), and we haven’t even begun to grasp all the nuances of modern white supremacy.  One of the advances by the Black liberation struggle and other theorists of “internal colonialism” in analyzing the situation of people of color in the U.S. was the recognition that white supremacy was about class relations as well as racial oppression.  That is, being oppressed nationally as a colonized people means bearing the brunt of military or police violence, disproportionately occupying the most precarious positions economically, denied access to land, and under constant cultural pathologization or attack.  Even if generally not expressed as a position of (neo-) colonialism, many of these realities are still true for the Black and Brown populations of this country, immigrant and citizen alike, and yet the relationship of race to gender to class is still a challenging one for many U.S. radicals to grasp and organize around.  While left scholars have written extensively about the “new imperialism” in recent years, few of these accounts attempt to theorize imperialist-race relations within the United States.  In addition to what it offers in understanding the situation of African Americans, such an analysis certainly provides insights into the super-exploitation and racist discrimination directed at Latin Americans and Asians who have migrated to industrialized nations after being pushed out of their home countries by free trade agreements, structural adjustment programs, and brutal counter-insurgency operations.

If we are to undertake useful anti-racist work as leftists differently positioned in U.S. and global racial hierarchies, we need a thorough and frequently updated understanding of the many and quickly changing racial projects presently at play.  Clearly, though, the current crisis situations we are living through don’t provide us the option of sitting idle while great thinkers perfect a comprehensive new framework for understanding race; theoretical breakthroughs are made in the course of struggle.  This means we must do our best to internalize lessons of the past and to practice anti-racist principles daily in our personal relationships and movement building initiatives as we target white supremacy with a program of racial justice.

5. What Does Solidarity Mean, Especially with the Immigrant Justice Movement?

In our events, we talked about solidarity as a centerpiece of radical activism, particularly among white people.  Building off the example of the Weather Underground and other white anti-imperialists of the 1970s, we defined solidarity not just as financial or administrative support of other people’s struggles but fundamentally recognizing the ways in which we all would benefit by the successes of movements of oppressed people and the ways, therefore, that we all have active roles to play in the movement.  The challenge, then, is to give life to an active notion of solidarity where people with privilege don’t sideline themselves but instead endeavor the difficult task of both providing and respecting other’s leadership in the movement, based on our complicated positioning and responsibility.

The need to understand, untangle, and unleash solidarity was particularly apparent for us in relation to the immigrant rights movement and to the situation in the Gulf Coast.  Hurricane Katrina captured people’s attention and empathy, but few people seemed to know how to express concrete solidarity with people from the region.  In terms of immigrant justice, we saw widespread inspiration from and interest in the movement from the people we met but a general confusion about how to be involved.  While individuals turned out to rallies and marches, they frequently didn’t know next steps or ongoing work they could participate in.  Non-immigrant activists rooted in small towns sometimes had stronger pre-existing connections to leaders within local immigrant communities than those in larger cities and were therefore able to plug into demonstration prep-work and help mobilize supportive communities.  Even in these situations, however, radicals committed to anti-racist movement building sometimes felt conflicted between their political analysis and their understanding of what successful movement building strategies (and common respect) require.  In North Carolina, for instance, organizers we met agreed with the critique of the relation between capitalist globalization and the influx of undocumented workers expressed by a dogmatic Marxist organization that had positioned itself to take a leading role in springtime immigrant rights mobilizations.  However, they also found it important to let local immigrant communities set the terms of their movement, even though representatives of those communities took a more liberal approach emphasizing that hard-working immigrants deserved respect.

Two positive examples in terms of solidarity with the movement, one we saw and the other we heard about: In Chicago, a day laborer worker’s center tied to a group called the Latino Union relied on numerous volunteers from outside the various Latino communities to teach English language classes, provide tech support, and other tasks.  And the mobilizations in the southwest to confront and disrupt the Minutemen vigilante groups are an exciting recent example of active anti-racist solidarity.  They work to intercede and prevent the racist violence and intimidation carried out by the Minutemen, while presenting an anti-racist perspective on immigration to whites, in person and through the press.

6. What Is the State of the Struggle Today, Particularly Internationally?

In talking about movement history, we always focused on the national liberation struggles as the dominant revolutionary force of the post-WWII period (circa 1945-1975) and how that is not the primary mode of struggle today.  This shift is due both to those movements’ successes, in gaining formal independence, and their shortcomings, including those pointed to by feminist and queer critiques of nationalism and the state as constructs for liberation.  To this can be added broader political economic changes: capitalist globalization weakening the state as a means of achieving self-determination and attempting to isolate revolutionary governments, the (environmental) link between self-determination and interdependence, and the presence of right-wing opposition to imperialism.  Based on this reality, some organizers are describing the climate as being a “three-way fight.” “Three-way fight” politics argue that the struggle today consists of the global capitalist/imperialist ruling class (of liberal, moderate, and conservative persuasions), the revolutionary left, and the revolutionary right (al-Qaeda, neo-Nazis, etc.).  The question of what it means to be on the left today, of deciding friends and enemies, is a complex one that needs to be treated seriously.  (For more, see the blog: www.threewayfight.blogspot.com).

What are the criteria for being on the left, both within this country and internationally?  And how do or should we think about those forces that are not leftist but are tying down, and therefore limiting, U.S. imperial reach?  This question is particularly urgent for the anti-war movement, as there is a wide array of forces opposed to U.S. imperialism — in Iraq, Afghanistan, the U.S., and elsewhere — which are not revolutionary leftists or our allies but  whose existence stalls the ability of the U.S. to pursue military conquest elsewhere (from Venezuela to Iran and beyond).  This has created confusion in the U.S. of who and what to support on the international level and has particularly affected the anti-war movement in terms of there not being a clear, progressive-revolutionary, mass-based movement to champion as the victor in Iraq the way the National Liberation Front was for Vietnam.  At the same time, there are other situations of imperial aggression and revolutionary Left activity that people rarely brought up in discussions of international politics.  Debate about the occupations of Iraq and Palestine prevailed, whereas few people mentioned Haiti, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Nepal, or elsewhere.  We need to sharpen our international awareness and connections beyond the hotspot areas.

When discussing the Weather Underground, we talked about a time when national liberation struggles abroad had a lot of influence on the domestic left.  People on tour didn’t speak in much depth about their assessment of the international left as a whole or its effect on organizing in this country.  However, there is a definite impact.  Many groups, especially in Latin America, are pushing forward ideas about more direct and participatory forms of democracy on an international scale.  This doesn’t seem to be derived from a deep study and adoption of classic (European) anarchist texts but more from building on local and indigenous traditions of self-governance and self-management.  (Here, of course, the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico, stands out as a particular example.)

As in the 1950s and early 1960s, there is a strong anarchist impulse in several of today’s auspicious organizing projects.  These anarchistic currents flow among people and groups who do not consider themselves anarchists (for instance, organizations such as Incite! and Critical Resistance, which seek non-state solutions to problems such as domestic violence and are doing some of the most thoughtful work around state violence and restorative justice).  To these projects could be added those who proudly identify as anarchists in some of the more successful anti-war, racial justice, and workplace organizing that we saw.  Thus, the anarchist critique of state power, and its valuing of principles such as direct democracy/transparency and mutual aid, find much expression in radical movements.

At the same time, as an ideology for making revolution and building a non-capitalist, anti-oppressive society, anarchism is woefully undertheorized.  Though anarchism remains powerful as critique, many seem to adopt it as a vision and organizing model more by default than as a result of the concrete political programs it offers.  Social democracy and authoritarian communism have been proven un-solutions.  Anarchism has had little chance to prove itself a success or a failure.  A significant factor in the Marxist-Leninist turn among sectors of the 1960s/1970s left was the fact that various third world revolutions were based on those ideas.  With that model no longer dominant, anarchism has reemerged — if not as a fully realized framework, than as a sensibility and a name for a deep-rooted belief in the possibility of radical alternatives.  And as third world liberations struggles helped define ’60s and ’70s radicalism in the U.S., anarchism today is buoyed by the exciting recent experiments and successes in Latin America.  Still, while opposition to the state in its current form and criticism of the state as a construct are both valuable, and despite the fact that anarchism has attracted many impressive and committed organizers, an ideology that is dominant by default is not a stable enough ground to fight from.  We have serious and substantial work to do to create a praxis that synthesizes and further develops the achievements of feminist, anti-racist, Marxist, anarchist, queer, and ecological theory and practice.

7. How Do We Organize Simultaneously on Local, Regional, National, and International Levels?

Many people expressed a desire for a national (or international) movement and yet frustration with attempts to date or confusion as to how.  The rebirth of Students for a Democratic Society should be seen as an effort to move in that direction.  SDS organizers we met boast of significant interest among not only college but also among high school students (building, no doubt, on the successful and impressive role of high school youth of color in struggles for education and immigrant justice).  While the ’60s nostalgia indicated in the organization’s choice of name and promotional materials concerns us, perhaps the explicit modeling on an historic initiative has helped to overcome the hesitancy towards building nationally coordinated organizations expressed by some radicals in recent years.  How successful SDS will be in training people as organizers, incorporating a profoundly diverse membership and leadership, and building a radical anti-war, anti-racist, queer-positive, and pro-feminist program among students is unknown and unfolding.

While SDS is developing, there are other efforts at regional organizing that are more developed, recognize geographical specificity, and extend beyond students.  The two main networks we saw were the Northeast Federation of Anarcho-Communists (NEFAC, a syndicalist association of anarchists involved in union organizing primarily in Montreal and Boston) and Project South (a Black-led training and leadership development organization based in Atlanta).  Project South helped organize the recent Southeast Social Forum and is spearheading the U.S. Social Forum to be held in 2007, which should prove an exciting prospect for developing regional and national collaboration.

In general, although urban areas have a bigger left base and more organizing going on, it would be a mistake to overlook or neglect the political work emerging from rural and non-urban areas, particularly in the South.  The South has been a vital place in U.S. radical history, and it remains the site of an impressive multiracial and multigenerational collection of organizers and organizing.  In smaller towns, sectarianism tended to be less of a problem because people cannot afford the disunity that often prevails in bigger cities and places with a larger left presence.

8. How Do We Relate to Sectarian Groups?

In addition to the ever-present divisions of class, race, and generation already mentioned, a wide gulf persists, as it has for decades, between groups seen to be sectarian and those not.  This division runs so deep that participants on the opposing sides frequently refuse to recognize one another as true radicals, or members of the left.  Although they exert a bigger presence in the major cities, the various groups hawking papers, obsessing over the “right political line,” and supposedly building vanguard communist parties are a ubiquitous, if frustrating, reality for those, including us, who take different approaches.  We ran into people active in such groups — more than a few of them doing concrete political work — in several places, including smaller towns that would have seemed unlikely homes for these groups.  While many of us have learned (or been counseled) to ignore them, this response is insufficient.  It is not enough to write them off for their dogmatism, their rigidity, or their hostility to other groups — although all of these things tend to be there in the practice if not the theory of groups such as the Spartacist League and the International Socialist Organization.

Despite these characteristics, sectarian organizations have an appeal that needs to be understood.  Such groups offer people, especially newer activists, a defined organizational structure, political education, leadership development, and a sense of strategy and participation in a broader movement.  All of these attributes are valid and valuable, even if their application is thoroughly problematic.  The fact that democratic and non-sectarian groups have generally been unable to offer such things to newer activists expands the ranks of the sectarian groups.  We need to see what they do right so as to understand their appeal.  We need to be able to articulate our differences with these groups more specifically and concretely than we have to date.  It is insufficient to dismiss them solely for peddling papers too aggressively or making long-winded statements during Q&A periods.  Rather, our criticisms must be of their political vision and organizing approach — one which prioritizes the promotion of their organizations over what is best for the movement as a whole.  Where possible, we need to have some kind of relationship to these groups — not to tolerate their disruptions or manipulations, but to be able to work with the expatriates and frustrated former members.  And, ultimately, we need to out-organize them, to build organizations and movements that offer a sense of analysis, development, and program without making claims at being the vanguard or losing our sense of transparency.

9. What Role Does the Environment — as Well as the Environmental Movement Itself (Particularly Its More Militant Sectors) — Play in the Movement?

During our travels we were gently criticized for saying little about where ecology and environmental activism fits into libratory practices, and specifically, the lack of contributions by eco-activists in the Letters From Young Activists book — criticism we took to heart.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that, even in as unlikely places as rust-belt cities, many of those who came to events were aware of and concerned about the slew of recent indictments, investigations, and grand jury subpoenas against radical environmental activists, occurring predominantly in the Western half of the United States. This is a positive sign, since even those who find property destruction to halt development tactically unsound should find common cause in fighting the post-PATRIOT ACT increases in surveillance and arrests, in addition to the undemocratic grand jury investigations that have been crucial in cracking down on many radical movements, historically and still today.

The militant environmental and animal rights movements face significant repression, which merit our solidarity, and yet there are also legitimate political differences that should not be overlooked or minimized.  To cite a somewhat extreme example, a “green anarchist” recently responded to a query about what “a primitivist response to the global AIDS crisis would look like” by arguing that, in the long run, the crisis might be for the best, as it reduces the human impact on the environment!  Approaches like this, not surprisingly, have not attracted a very broad following, at least not in the places we visited.  Such misanthropic and anti-civilization politics do find a following among some sectors of the radical environmental movement.  Yet, with widespread concern over and attention to the global climate crisis, among other things, an environmental focus can provide a crucial point of organizing.  We met with a 91-year-old movement veteran who was most politically inspired today by the urban gardening and ecological self-sufficiency movements.  She promoted the slogan made popular by Black farmers, “If we can’t feed ourselves, we can’t free ourselves.” At the same time, a community organizer working predominantly with low-income Black women championed these efforts while disagreeing that everyone is able to participate in them and that they are sufficient to meet the needs of the most marginalized.

The environment serves as a limit and Achilles heel to neoliberal developmentalism.  The fact that the eco-system cannot support all inhabitants of the planet in living anything like current American lifestyles proves the lie that neoliberal policies are pursued as the most promising path to universal material well-being.  The environment also provides a personal stake for economically privileged people in anti-capitalist struggle.  Capitalism doesn’t only destroy pristine potential vacation spots for the well-to-do — it threatens the sustainability of life on earth in general.  If the idea of total ecological collapse in some unspecified, seemingly far-off future, is not tangible enough to inspire action, the threat of more localized, if still catastrophic, climate-related disasters in the lifetime of children and grandchildren might provide some impetus to fractions of the middle classes in industrialized countries to enter into anti-capitalist alliances.  A greater emphasis on ecology and sustainability in an anti-imperialist organizing approach, then, has some potential to link constituencies and perhaps to attract some passionate activists who had previously focused primarily on direct action eco-politics.

10. How Can We Develop Strategy?

Fundamentally, the above questions and our discussions on tour all revolve around developing a winning strategy within the movement — a strategy to stop the war, to repeal the right-wing attacks (on immigrants, on queers, on women. . .), to raze the walls and borders, and to begin proactively building non-capitalist alternatives.  What does it mean to say all the issues are connected?  How can we move forward on different fronts but with a defined strategy to win?  How can we organize in a way that successfully targets the root causes and not just the more visible outgrowths?  These are the type of tough questions we need to be grappling with in defining broad, long-term strategies.  Strategy, of course, grows out of analysis, organizing, and reflection — intentionally grappling with the realities, possibilities, and pitfalls of the contemporary political conditions and of the “forces on the ground” that do and could constitute the left.  While there are many difficult questions we need to answer, our biggest deficiency is not a lack of analysis of the political situation.  Rather, with academics and organizers too often lacking strong organizational ties to one another, circulating information and disseminating analysis remains one of the biggest challenges to informed strategic planning.  In addition to building these linkages, we need a much better assessment of our forces.  The left is so splintered that we often don’t know what organizations exist, what resources we have, and what each other is doing.  As overwhelming a task as it sounds, if we are to begin developing winning strategy, we need to map out the left by city, state, and region.   Taking these steps can deepen our understanding of the situation, its roots, and possibilities for ruptures in the system, along with popularizing and organizing around radical conceptions.

There is a definite relationship between the war, immigration, prisons and criminalization/repression, patriarchy, the media, the transgender liberation movement, radical unionism, the education system, struggles for the environment, and beyond.  How do we connect those issues in our own work?  How do our organizations work strategically on their own fronts but in shared strategy/coalition with groups working on different fronts?  What should we expect to happen, and what goals should we set for ourselves for the next 10, 25, and 50 years?  Collectively grappling with these questions can lead to collective liberation.

Concluding Comments:

Although at nearly every event we critically discussed Weather’s gender politics and read a powerful excerpt from the Letters book about the state of the feminist movement and the continued centrality of a gender analysis to radical political projects, few people seemed interested in discussing the state of feminist and LGBTQ activism in the U.S. or how to conceptualize and respond to the persistent right-wing attacks against women and queer rights.  While many seemed to acknowledge and decry the severe and unique burdens placed on third word women by war and by the new international division of labor, we had few conversations about how to conceptualize the relation of domestic feminist and queer work to anti-imperialism and a unified left political project.  Regrettably, this is a pattern that we have reproduced in this report.  It signals a need for more concerted theoretical work and relationship building in these areas.  At the same time, the strengths and legacies of the queer and women’s liberation movements, along with the emerging transgender liberation movement, were apparent.  Even if not the subject of as much explicit conversation, many young people in particular have internalized feminism and queer and transgender liberation as fundamental to their politics, and queer cultural expressions infused many of the activist scenes or spaces we experienced.

Histories of groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the original Students for a Democratic Society show the important role played by traveling speakers and organizers in attempts to link local efforts, debate strategies, and provide support to activists who felt isolated in less than hospitable climates.  Though we didn’t represent an organization, we found our trip to be a success and worth the effort (not to mention, a lot of fun), as it allowed us to make new contacts and pass along old ones, debate common issues in many places, and serve as a transmission belt of ideas and actions between different cities.  More traveling to promote ideas, books, films, and other projects is likely to help create and expand activist networks and to raise the level of discourse in ways that will hopefully lead to more formal connections.  Of course, traveling requires time and money, making fundraising and other forms of assistance to such efforts crucial.

We would like to thank everyone who helped organize events, provided us with a place to stay, donated generously for gas money, engaged us in brilliant conversation, or otherwise helped make our trip incredibly fun, productive, and stimulating.  We decided to write this report because we have found similar “debriefs” and “report-backs” by traveling comrades to be thought-provoking and to provide a feeling of connection with a wider movement that it is often easy to lose in the daily grind of local work.  We hope this report has, to some small degree, served these same purposes, and we are eager to hear your reactions and continue these conversations.

Andy Cornell is a union organizer and graduate student living in Brooklyn, NY.  He is a contributor to Letters From Young Activists and editor of the political fanzine The Secret Files of Captain Sissy.  Contact him at arc280@nyu.edu.

I was born on July 4, 1983. I was raised an All-American boy in a working class family in a small town outside of Philadelphia. As a child, I excelled in sports (I was an all-star baseball player for 10 years), and in school (I was placed in the “gifted” class at the age of 7). Ambler, Pennsylvania was a wonderful place to grow up in. My neighborhood friends and I used to walk to elementary school in the morning and chase fireflies in the park at sunset. But my hometown was also burdened with a painful legacy from its industrial past, one which illustrates how capitalism’s obsession with profits far too often leads to environmental damage and human suffering.

The twin house I grew up in was originally home to Italian immigrants who worked in Ambler’s asbestos factory in the early 1900′s. Owned and operated by Keasbey and Mattison Corporation, this five-story factory made Ambler what it was – an industrial working class community and the “asbestos capital of the world“^[1]. Asbestos, a mineral known for its fire-resistant properties, was very popular at the time as a material used in everything from home insulation, roofing tiles, ship engines, brake pads, and shoes. Unfortunately, asbestos also has a nasty habit of giving people a form of lung cancer (mesothelioma) from breathing in its dust. Hundreds of the Italian-American workers and their family members contracted mesothelioma and suffered for years with breathing problems, or died^[2]. When the factory was finally shut down in the 1970s, 3 million tons of asbestos waste had been piled into what are now known as the “White Mountains” – thinly-covered man-made hills of toxic waste.^[3]

While I was growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, over 50,000 claims were brought against Keasbey and Mattison by former workers, residents and consumers who had been exposed to asbestos poisoning^[4]. At the same time, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was classifying the White Mountains a Superfund site, sealing it off from the public and cleaning up some of the carcinogenic mess^[5]. Nevertheless asbestos pollution remains a persistent concern for Ambler residents^[6], and according to a Montgomery County Health Department analysis mesothelioma rates in town continue to be significantly higher than normal^[7], despite the factory closing over 30 years ago. One resident interviewed in 2008 stated, “Six households on one block report a family member dying from asbestos-related disease. I have lost 5 members to asbestos-related disease”^[8].

Although the company almost certainly knew the dangers of asbestos and its connection to lung cancer as early as the 1930s, it kept the information secret, from the public, and from its workers, despite the growing cases of illness and death. The reason is obvious. If people knew that asbestos would give them cancer, they wouldn’t want it in their homes or their household products, and would stop purchasing it. And if workers could prove that the company was responsible for their health problems, they would sue and the company could go out of business. In other words, the corporation knew it was causing ecological and social harm, but lied about it to protect its profits.

Ambler’s story is not that exceptional. Every town in America, indeed across the globe, has its own story about how it’s been affected by capitalism.

Likewise my decision to devote my life to the cause of environmental and social justice is not that exceptional. People all around the world are making the same sorts of decisions about how to live their lives in harmony with nature and with their fellow human beings, every single day.

I attained a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Lehigh University in 2005, then went on to receive a Master’s in Political Science the next year. During college I got involved in activism and led a successful campaign pressuring my university to purchase wind energy to help supply the school’s electricity. Since then, I became an organizer with Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a national youth organization working for peace and democracy. Now I’ve begun working with other men to overcome sexism and male-dominance in our lives and in society. I currently reside in Philadelphia and work at a community college, where I teach English as a Second Language (ESL) and Computer Basics courses. Besides writing, I enjoy bike rides, music, food, and hanging out with friends.

My overriding inspiration is that the places where we live – where our children grow up – and the people in our lives – loved ones and strangers – don’t need to suffer the way Ambler and its inhabitants have. We don’t need to be slaves to a system that considers profits more important than human and ecological well-being. I think these priorities are skewed, and I think most people would agree with me. And just think, if everyone who feels this way were to work together, we could change the world. In fact, millions of people are already engaged in this work and through their efforts, the world is changing, slowly but surely. Healing doesn’t happen overnight. And we need to heal not just ourselves, but our communities, as well as our planet.

I believe in our capacity to heal. Even in an economic crisis, our spirits will never be silenced. When we let go of capitalism, we can embrace a better future – one where human life and environmental sustainability are more important than the profits of large corporations.

A new world is on its way. We are building it, one day at a time.

Alex Knight
activistalex@gmail.com
August 3, 2009

Spy for the US Military Exposed: Spent Last Two Years Spying on Activists

Brendan Maslauskas Dunn

July 27, 2009

“John Jacob” was an activist well liked by many in Tacoma and Olympia, WA.
He was active in the anti-war and anarchist communities in both towns. He
did extensive work with the group Port Militarization Resistance (PMR)
which blocks military shipments to and from Iraq and Afghanistan through
Northwest ports. He went to numerous Students for a Democratic Society
(SDS) events and actions, was interested in starting a chapter or Movement
for a Democratic Society, worked closely with Iraq Veterans Against the
War, but spent most of his time with anarchists. Aside from attending
meetings, events and actions organized by activists, he spent much
personal and leisure time with other anarchists in the area.

But some recent records requests done through the City of Olympia, asking
the City for any information on anarchists/anarchism/anarchy, SDS and the
radical union Industrial Workers of the World, surfaced an email from a
John J Towery II from Fort Lewis Force Protection with a daily force
protection update for Fort Lewis. Interested in this email and the name
attached to it, several activists did some research that eventually
confirmed the identity of “John Jacob” as John J Towery II.

Two anarchists met with John Towery after this information was confirmed.
By his own admission, John Towery spent the past two years spying on
anarchists, Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans, SDSers and anti-war
activists in Tacoma, Olympia and the Pacific Northwest. He admitted that
he reported to an intelligence network that included county sheriffs from
Pierce, Thurston and other WA counties, municipal police agencies from
Tacoma, Olympia, Seattle and elsewhere, WA State Police, the US Army, FBI,
Homeland Security, Joint Terrorism Task Force, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency among other agencies.

John Towery further admitted he passed information on to the above listed
network of authorities about the activities of anarchists and PMR
activists. He admitted that the Tacoma Police placed a hidden camera on a
utility pole across the street from the anarchist social space Pitchpipe
Infoshop for surveillance purposes. John Towery mentioned that the Olympia and Tacoma police were both planning on raiding the Pitchpipe Infoshop and an activist house in Olympia and he claimed that they had repeatedly approached him for any information that would give them a green light to raid the houses. He also claimed to have knowledge of other informants that were sent to spy on Port Militarization Resistance and anarchists in Olympia, but refused to reveal their identities.

In his role as an administrator of the PMR listserve, John Towery had the
email addresses of all subscribers, and the names of most persons involved
with the organization. He had an intimate knowledge of how organizations
in the activist community operated, how and when actions were planned and
the beliefs, politics and personal matters of many activists.

The records requests that leaked out John Towery’s name also leaked out
information that Thomas Glapion from the 305th SFS/S2 based out of McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey was investigating activities of SDS, PMR and “other left wing anti war groups”. Other agencies involved with
intelligence gathering and surveillance of Olympia SDS in particular and
Olympia activists in general include the Coast Guard (where there is an
informant spying on activists according to one record) and US Capitol
Police.

Attorney Larry Hildes of the National Lawyers Guild has made numerous
attempts to get information from the military and federal agencies for
court cases and civil suits connected to the port protests, only to run
into the repeated refusal of Brian Kipnis from the US Attorney’s Office in
Seattle to give this information to Hildes and other defense attorneys.
Kipnis explicitly told the US Army not to give information to Hildes and
others. Kipnis is also the same lawyer that prosecuted Lt. Ehren Watada
and was involved with a number of Guantanamo cases. This information is
perhaps the beginning of a larger network of surveillance across the
nation.

Press contacts:

Brendan Maslauskas Dunn
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Port Militarization Resistance
(360) 878-1879
maslauskas84@gmail.com

Drew Hendricks
PMR Intelligence Network for Observers
(360) 870-3127
drewhend98513@yahoo.com

“The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry and What We Must Do to Stop it”

by Antonia Juhasz

2008 HarperCollins

Ever wondered why the US government spends trillions of dollars to launch massive wars against Middle Eastern nations that have never attacked us, but refuses to do absolutely anything about the ongoing climate crisis?  This book is for you.

The Tyranny of Oil is an exposee of “Big Oil”, meaning Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips, and Royal Dutch Shell, the largest oil corporations in the world (and some of THE largest corporations in the world).  The book exposes how these enormous oil octopi have gained virtually total control over the US government, and use their money and political power to make big profits at the expense of the public and the planet. (For example, Exxon Mobil in 2003 posted the largest profits of any corporation in history, then proceeded to beat that record each of the next 5 years).

It all starts with the origin of Big Oil, the mother, Standard Oil. Juhasz stresses the importance of monopolies and corporate mergers, in a sense missing the deeper analysis of capitalism, but nevertheless we come to understand how enormous companies wielding enormous profits can and do undermine democracy.

The book progresses to tell a story about Big Oil’s development and control over the government agencies that are supposed to be regulating it, and finally Big Oil’s plans for the future (War and Trashing the Planet, basically), before an inspirational chapter on What We Can Do. (There’s also a shoutout to SDS here and to our No War No Warming action in DC last year! Cool!)

This is essential reading for all US citizens, because if you aren’t familiar with the concepts she lays out, you frankly have no understanding of the country you live in.  Environmental racism, corporate lobbyists and corrupt government agencies, the criminal behavior of Cheney’s Energy Task Force, deregulation and Enron-style fraud, tar sands, and the list goes on.

My only major complaint of the book was the virtual silence on the looming and imminent reality of Peak Oil and how this will transform everything.  Juhasz does recognize the scarcity of oil and the likelihood of oil peaking, but chooses to essentially overlook its importance, instead blaming oil companies and speculators for driving up the cost of oil.

This is not just a minor quibble, because the BIG TRUTH is that we’re not just in a struggle against Big Oil, we’re in a struggle against capitalism, and it’s a fight that is reaching perhaps its final act.  Peak Oil will challenge the dominant for-profit institutions of power, and can create an opening for social justice activists and organizers to push for much more radical change than appears possible within the current system.  Nevertheless, this is probably a subject for another book (mine!), and Juhasz treads on steady ground by appealing to a more mainstream audience and demonizing the oil companies exclusively.  This is a very effective book, highly recommended!

Finally, my favorite quote (pg. 325):
“As Paul Wolfowitz said in 1991, ‘The combination of the enormous resources of the Persian Gulf, the power that those resources represent – it’s power. It’s not just that we need gas for our cars, it’s that anyone who controls those resources has enormous capability to build up military forces.’”

At the "Funeral for Capitalism" - photo by Jake Cunningham

Hope in Common
David Graeber
Originally published by InterActivist Info Exchange, November 17, 2008.

We seem to have reached an impasse. Capitalism as we know it appears to be coming apart. But as financial institutions stagger and crumble, there is no obvious alternative. Organized resistance appears scattered and incoherent; the global justice movement a shadow of its former self. There is good reason to believe that, in a generation or so, capitalism will no longer exist: for the simple reason that it’s impossible to maintain an engine of perpetual growth forever on a finite planet. Faced with the prospect, the knee-jerk reaction—even of “progressives”—is, often, fear, to cling to capitalism because they simply can’t imagine an alternative that wouldn’t be even worse.

The first question we should be asking is: How did this happen? Is it normal for human beings to be unable to imagine what a better world would even be like?

photo by Christa H

Hopelessness isn’t natural. It needs to be produced. If we really want to understand this situation, we have to begin by understanding that the last thirty years have seen the construction of a vast bureaucratic apparatus for the creation and maintenance of hopelessness, a kind of giant machine that is designed, first and foremost, to destroy any sense of possible alternative futures. At root is a veritable obsession on the part of the rulers of the world with ensuring that social movements cannot be seen to grow, to flourish, to propose alternatives; that those who challenge existing power arrangements can never, under any circumstances, be perceived to win. To do so requires creating a vast apparatus of armies, prisons, police, various forms of private security firms and police and military intelligence apparatus, propaganda engines of every conceivable variety, most of which do not attack alternatives directly so much as they create a pervasive climate of fear, jingoistic conformity, and simple despair that renders any thought of changing the world seem an idle fantasy. Maintaining this apparatus seems even more important, to exponents of the “free market,” even than maintaining any sort of viable market economy. How else can one explain, for instance, what happened in the former Soviet Union, where one would have imagined the end of the Cold War would have led to the dismantling of the army and KGB and rebuilding the factories, but in fact what happened was precisely the other way around? This is just one extreme example of what has been happening everywhere. Economically, this apparatus is pure dead weight; all the guns, surveillance cameras, and propaganda engines are extraordinarily expensive and really produce nothing, and as a result, it’s dragging the entire capitalist system down with it, and possibly, the earth itself.

photo by Christa H

The spirals of financialization and endless string of economic bubbles we’ve been experience are a direct result of this apparatus. It’s no coincidence that the United States has become both the world’s major military (”security”) power and the major promoter of bogus securities. This apparatus exists to shred and pulverize the human imagination, to destroy any possibility of envisioning alternative futures. As a result, the only thing left to imagine is more and more money, and debt spirals entirely out of control. What is debt, after all, but imaginary money whose value can only be realized in the future: future profits, the proceeds of the exploitation of workers not yet born. Finance capital in turn is the buying and selling of these imaginary future profits; and once one assumes that capitalism itself will be around for all eternity, the only kind of economic democracy left to imagine is one everyone is equally free to invest in the market—to grab their own piece in the game of buying and selling imaginary future profits, even if these profits are to be extracted from themselves. Freedom has become the right to share in the proceeds of one’s own permanent enslavement.

And since the bubble had built on the destruction of futures, once it collapsed there appeared to be—at least for the moment—simply nothing left.

photo by Jake Cunningham

The effect however is clearly temporary. If the story of the global justice movement tells us anything it’s that the moment there appears to be any sense of an opening, the imagination will immediately spring forth. This is what effectively happened in the late ‘90s when it looked, for a moment, like we might be moving toward a world at peace. In the US, for the last fifty years, whenever there seems to be any possibility of peace breaking out, the same thing happens: the emergence of a radical social movement dedicated to principles of direct action and participatory democracy, aiming to revolutionize the very meaning of political life. In the late ‘50s it was the civil rights movement; in the late ‘70s, the anti-nuclear movement. This time it happened on a planetary scale, and challenged capitalism head-on. These movements tend to be extraordinarily effective. Certainly the global justice movement was. Few realize that one of the main reasons it seemed to flicker in and out of existence so rapidly was that it achieved its principle goals so quickly. None of us dreamed, when we were organizing the protests in Seattle in 1999 or at the IMF meetings in DC in 2000, that within a mere three or four years, the WTO process would have collapsed, that “free trade” ideologies would be considered almost entirely discredited, that every new trade pact they threw at us—from the MIA to Free Trade Areas of the Americas act—would have been defeated, the World Bank hobbled, the power of the IMF over most of the world’s population, effectively destroyed. But this is precisely what happened. The fate of the IMF is particularly startling. Once the terror of the Global South, it is, by now, a shattered remnant of its former self, reviled and discredited, reduced to selling off its gold reserves and desperately searching for a new global mission.

Meanwhile, most of the “third world debt” has simply vanished. All of this was a direct result of a movement that managed to mobilize global resistance so effectively that the reigning institutions were first discredited, and ultimately, that those running governments in Asia and especially Latin America were forced by their own populations to call the bluff of the international financial system. Much of the reason the movement was thrown into confusion was because none of us had really considered we might win.

But of course there’s another reason. Nothing terrifies the rulers of the world, and particularly of the United States, as much as the danger of grassroots democracy. Whenever a genuinely democratic movement begins to emerge—particularly, one based on principles of civil disobedience and direct action—the reaction is the same; the government makes immediate concessions (fine, you can have voting rights; no nukes), then starts ratcheting up military tensions abroad. The movement is then forced to transform itself into an anti-war movement; which, pretty much invariably, is far less democratically organized. So the civil rights movement was followed by Vietnam, the anti-nuclear movement by proxy wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua, the global justice movement, by the “War on Terror.”

But at this point, we can see that “war” for what it was: as the flailing and obviously doomed effort of a declining power to make its peculiar combination of bureaucratic war machines and speculative financial capitalism into a permanent global condition. If the rotten architecture collapsed abruptly at the end of 2008, it was at least in part because so much of the work had already been accomplished by a movement that had, in the face of the surge of repression after 911, combined with confusion over how to follow up its startling initial success, had seemed to have largely disappeared from the scene.

photo by Ethan Miller

Of course it hasn’t really.

We are clearly at the verge of another mass resurgence of the popular imagination. It shouldn’t be that difficult. Most of the elements are already there. The problem is that, our perceptions having been twisted into knots by decades of relentless propaganda, we are no longer able to see them. Consider here the term “communism.” Rarely has a term come to be so utterly reviled. The standard line, which we accept more or less unthinkingly, is that communism means state control of the economy, and this is an impossible utopian dream because history has shown it simply “doesn’t work.” Capitalism, however unpleasant, is thus the only remaining option. But in fact communism really just means any situation where people act according to the principle of “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”—which is the way pretty much everyone always act if they are working together to get something done. If two people are fixing a pipe and one says “hand me the wrench,” the other doesn’t say, “and what do I get for it?”(That is, if they actually want it to be fixed.) This is true even if they happen to be employed by Bechtel or Citigroup. They apply principles of communism because it’s the only thing that really works. This is also the reason whole cities or countries revert to some form of rough-and-ready communism in the wake of natural disasters, or economic collapse (one might say, in those circumstances, markets and hierarchical chains of command are luxuries they can’t afford.) The more creativity is required, the more people have to improvise at a given task, the more egalitarian the resulting form of communism is likely to be: that’s why even Republican computer engineers, when trying to innovate new software ideas, tend to form small democratic collectives. It’s only when work becomes standardized and boring—as on production lines—that it becomes possible to impose more authoritarian, even fascistic forms of communism. But the fact is that even private companies are, internally, organized communistically.

Communism then is already here. The question is how to further democratize it. Capitalism, in turn, is just one possible way of managing communism—and, it has become increasingly clear, rather a disastrous one. Clearly we need to be thinking about a better one: preferably, one that does not quite so systematically set us all at each others’ throats.

All this makes it much easier to understand why capitalists are willing to pour such extraordinary resources into the machinery of hopelessness. Capitalism is not just a poor system for managing communism: it has a notorious tendency to periodically come spinning apart. Each time it does, those who profit from it have to convince everyone—and most of all the technical people, the doctors and teachers and surveyors and insurance claims adjustors—that there is really no choice but to dutifully paste it all back together again, in something like the original form. This despite the fact that most of those who will end up doing the work of rebuilding the system don’t even like it very much, and all have at least the vague suspicion, rooted in their own innumerable experiences of everyday communism, that it really ought to be possible to create a system at least a little less stupid and unfair.

This is why, as the Great Depression showed, the existence of any plausible-seeming alternative—even one so dubious as the Soviet Union in the 1930s—can turn a downswing into an apparently insoluble political crisis.

Those wishing to subvert the system have learned by now, from bitter experience, that we cannot place our faith in states. The last decade has instead seen the development of thousands of forms of mutual aid association, most of which have not even made it onto the radar of the global media. They range from tiny cooperatives and associations to vast anti-capitalist experiments, archipelagos of occupied factories in Paraguay or Argentina or of self-organized tea plantations and fisheries in India, autonomous institutes in Korea, whole insurgent communities in Chiapas or Bolivia, associations of landless peasants, urban squatters, neighborhood alliances, that spring up pretty much anywhere that where state power and global capital seem to temporarily looking the other way. They might have almost no ideological unity and many are not even aware of the other’s existence, but all are marked by a common desire to break with the logic of capital. And in many places, they are beginning to combine. “Economies of solidarity” exist on every continent, in at least eighty different countries. We are at the point where we can begin to perceive the outlines of how these can knit together on a global level, creating new forms of planetary commons to create a genuine insurgent civilization.

Visible alternatives shatter the sense of inevitability, that the system must, necessarily, be patched together in the same form—this is why it became such an imperative of global governance to stamp them out, or, when that’s not possible, to ensure that no one knows about them. To become aware of it allows us to see everything we are already doing in a new light. To realize we’re all already communists when working on a common projects, all already anarchists when we solve problems without recourse to lawyers or police, all revolutionaries when we make something genuinely new.

photo by Jake Cunningham

One might object: a revolution cannot confine itself to this. That’s true. In this respect, the great strategic debates are really just beginning. I’ll offer one suggestion though. For at least five thousand years, popular movements have tended to center on struggles over debt—this was true long before capitalism even existed. There is a reason for this. Debt is the most efficient means ever created to take relations that are fundamentally based on violence and violent inequality and to make them seem right and moral to everyone concerned. When the trick no longer works, everything explodes. As it is now. Clearly, debt has shown itself to be the point of greatest weakness of the system, the point where it spirals out of anyone’s control. It also allows endless opportunities for organizing. Some speak of a debtor’s strike, or debtor’s cartel.

Perhaps so—but at the very least we can start with a pledge against evictions: to pledge, neighborhood by neighborhood, to support each other if any of us are to be driven from our homes. The power is not just that to challenge regimes of debt is to challenge the very fiber of capitalism—its moral foundation—now revealed to be a collection of broken promises—but in doing so, to create a new one. A debt after all is only that: a promise, and the present world abounds with promises that have not been kept. One might speak here of the promise made us by the state; that if we abandon any right to collectively manage our own affairs, we would at least be provided with basic life security. Or of the promise offered by capitalism—that we could live like kings if we were willing to buy stock in our own collective subordination. All of this has come crashing down. What remains is what we are able to promise one another. Directly. Without the mediation of economic and political bureaucracies. The revolution begins by asking: what sort of promises do free men and women make to one another, and how, by making them, do we begin to make another world?

From Bank of America’s website:

“Bank of America is particularly concerned about surface mining conducted through mountain top removal in locations such as central Appalachia. We therefore will phase out financing of companies whose predominant method of extracting coal is through mountain top removal. While we acknowledge that surface mining is economically efficient and creates jobs, it can be conducted in a way that minimizes environmental impacts in certain geographies.”

We are thrilled that just two and a half weeks after RAN’s day of action against coal and coal finance, Bank of America has made a public commitment to stop financing the devastating practice of mountaintop removal mining. This has been a major demand of the banks for the Global Finance campaign and we applaud Bank of America as it takes a step in the right direction – a step away from coal. Congratulations to everyone who has helped to pressure Bank of America to end it’s financing of coal and mountaintop removal – this is a truly incredible grassroots victory!

We will have more information about Bank of America’s announcement soon, as we work with our team and our allies to respond. For now, let’s celebrate!

Originally posted by Annie on Rainforest Action Network’s website.

by David Gilbert

2004 Abraham Guillen Press/Arm the Spirit

I recommend this book. David Gilbert, lifelong political prisoner in New York since 1981, and former member of the Weather Underground (now being exploited in McCain political ads), here writes on many subjects of interest to all anti-imperialist activists.

David’s a great writer; very straightforward, focused, but with tenderness and humor, and he has a way of making sense of complicated and terrible political dramas in short and effective little essays. In addition to essays on Gilbert’s own history in SDS and Weather, the best samples here are on the U.S. white working class historically, the prison system, Colombia, Afghanistan, and neoliberalism. But Gilbert delves into a wide array of subjects from feminism to AIDS to institutional racism in many forms, and always with an amazing insight without requiring a lot of effort on the part of the reader.

It’s a damn shame that this man is behind bars, but luckily he’s still able to share his wisdom with us. Check this out!

“Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity”

by Dan Berger
2005 by AK Press

Outlaws of America is an interesting and refreshing look at a somewhat overdone subject, the Weather Underground. The use of interviews with David Gilbert, Bernardine Dohrn and many other former members of WUO, as well as an array of former members from revolutionary groups like the Black Liberation Army and Puerto Rican nationalist groups really brings the subject to life. Dan Berger also emphasizes throughout the book the relevance to today’s movements, and points particularly to the prison abolition and global justice movements as places where the legacy of Weather can be seen.

The book delves into the difficult past/present of armed struggle and state repression, and does a good job of keeping criticisms of the group grounded in the bigger picture of state violence. Some of the 70s history is unnecessary for most readers, but there’s also a lot of proactive criticism of the lack of feminist and queer analysis or practice within Weather, and even the racist mistakes which happened too often and too dramatically for comfort. These are the most important lessons I drew.

This is not necessarily a complete history, but Dan does a much better job approaching the subject critically and from a radical perspective, than most other authors, who tend to condemn and dismiss Weather as stupid and insignificant. Still, this book takes a view of Weather which is rosier than mine, and for me leaves a good deal of questions lingering.

What did Weather give up when they dumped SDS? Why did they pursue such a short-sighted strategy when they turned to bombs instead of organizing? How did they allow themselves, or even encourage themselves, to become isolated from the mass movement around them, instead of seeing themselves as a part of it? What’s a better way for white privileged organizers to be effective anti-racists and stand in solidarity when the state is brutally attacking the movements of people of color?

These are questions that don’t necessarily have easy answers, and we can’t expect a book to give them to us, but the difficult questions are the ones we need to discuss with a constant vigor

PRINT and DISTRIBUTE to your Chapter, Campus and Community!

The SDS News Bulletin Working Group is proud to bring you our fifth issue, the best yet. From front cover to articles to action reports to poetry to art, we loaded this issue up for maximum pleasure, and once again you made it all possible by sending in your work, thoughts, ideas and love.

Now here’s the result:

http://newsds.org/bulletinfiles/final_bulletin5.pdf

(You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer to view the PDF file, which is FREE software you can downloadHere)

Enjoy! and Distribute widely!

Send us your stuff to be published in Issue 6:sds.bulletin@gmail.com

Want to join the bulletin working group? Get involved by signing up for our email listserv:http://groups.google.com/group/sds-news-bulletin

-The SDS News Bulletin Working Group

by Cathy Wilkerson
2007 by Seven Stories

This is probably the most important book on the Weathermen written by one of its participants, tackling the many difficult inner complexities and questions that haunted the explosive project while remaining deeply committed to progressive social change and anti-racist organizing. In the end, this book taught me quite directly how and why the WUO went astray, and how a lack of open and participatory democracy can distort even the brightest of movements.

Wilkerson starts off slow by talking a lot of her middle-class childhood, and first stumblings into activism at Swarthmore College, supporting poor blacks organizing in Chester through the ERAP project there, and winding up in SDS as the Vietnam War heats up. A few years later, Wilkerson wanders even more clumsily into becoming the editor of SDS’ weekly paper New Left Notes, just in time for SDS’ grappling with the emergence of women’s liberation. She then spins off into the orbit of Weatherman, again accidentally stumbling into joining their cadre in Chicago just before the Days of Rage “Bring the War Home” through street fighting with police.

Here the book becomes deeply enthralling, full of enigma as Wilkerson delves deeper into the unique and strange cult-like Leninism of Weather, all the while questioning why the rhetoric and macho posturing of imminent revolution and armed struggle doesn’t match her inner voice. In this inner conflict, the desire to belong and to sacrifice everything as a privileged white person for the national liberation movements of Third World peoples and blacks within the US, leads Wilkerson to silence that inner questioning voice and to commit passively to do whatever the Weather leadership (who appear to know what they’re doing) tell her. Despite the apparent flaws of Weather politics, Wilkerson lets her attraction to certain male leaders and the appeal of being part of a revolutionary vanguard convince her to fatefully arrange for her estranged father’s townhouse become the setting for a Weather collective to haphazardly build bombs which were to be used to blow up a military Officer’s ball, and the rest is history.

Wilkerson, an accidental survivor of the ensuing blast, writes with a determination and a wise clarity about those events that defined an era of resistance to US imperialism, and the errors taken by impatient movement leaders which contributed to the general defeat of the left over the next several decades. Now, at a time when the US is again openly asserting its imperial aims, a nuanced and complex understanding of where the old SDS went wrong is desperately needed, and Wilkerson here makes a major contribution to our understanding by asking tough questions, like

How do we build a revolutionary movement in the heart of Empire that is democratic and liberatory, while moving with sufficient urgency to stop the assault on the globe?

What is the role of privileged whites (and students) in supporting the liberation of blacks, Latinos and other oppressed nationalities when those groups demand self-sufficiency and separation from white involvement?

How can movement organizations sustain necessary militancy and collective structure (especially in the face of state repression), while also remaining supportive and nurturing of individual voices, particularly those of women, queer folks, trans folks, youth, people of color, working class folks, and others who have been silenced by dominant society?

What does revolution even mean in the post-industrial US?

“Ravens in the Storm: A Personal History of the 1960s Anti-War Movement”

by Carl Oglesby

2008 by Scribner

Carl Oglesby, former top-security-clearance defense contractor stooge-turned SDS President, writes a personal view of SDS and the movement against the Vietnam War that is insightful, amusing, and cutting. However, Oglesby has a clear bias and it’s hard to know how much of his account (which is largely based on his memory of various heated conversations) is completely fair or accurate. Also, Oglesby’s account ends up being more depressing than inspiring, as he falls into some pessimism about the prospects for movement building in the US, largely based on his experience of SDS cannibalizing itself.

Worth reading though, mostly because it’s a quick and interesting read that cuts through a lot of bullshit about the romantic 60s, and attacks the reality of war and social change with simple and rough words like so many arrows.

Oglesby reviews his rise to power in SDS straight out of working for Bendix Corporation, and how years later this fact was used by the RYM/Weatherman faction to create suspicion and have him expelled from SDS’ National Council (he wasn’t Marxist-Leninist enough). The Weathermen are definitely the villians in this retelling, probably to a highly exaggerated degree, but not for bad reasons when you consider the collapse of democracy within SDS and the self-conscious scuttling of movement building in favor of “raising the stakes”.

He also explores how his relations with his family, including his wife and children, and separately, his Southern family, were strained by his movement activism and non-stop work against the war, and how this related to his strong conviction that the movement needs to appeal to ordinary people who don’t already agree with us, and not alienate them with more-radical-than-thou posturing.

Anyway, it’s worth reading for the SDS history, but don’t expect to be blown away by new inspiration or great new leaps of logic. I’m following this up with reading Cathy Wilkerson’s memoir, David Gilbert’s book No Surrender, and Dan Berger’s Outlaws of America to get a more well-rounded retelling of SDS’ history. I also recommend SDS by Kirkpatrick Sale, which is the most detailed overview.

written by SDSers and sit-in particpants Brendan Maslauskas Dunn, KTeeO Olejnik, Brooke Stepp, and Jamie Hellerman

May 30th marked the 10th day of the sit-in of Evergreen State College administrator Art Costantino’s hallway. Students are demanding the immediate reinstatement of Olympia SDS and have recently added the additional demands that Kelly Beckham, an SDSer be offered her job back as well as compensation for time lost, and a change in the process by which student groups lose their RSO (Registered Student Organization) status that is determined by those most affected, the students and members of these organizations.

The banning of SDS as a student group is an indication of the current political climate at The Evergreen State College, one that has been increasingly suppressing student dissent, which includes the aiding of law enforcement agents in the arresting of students, the handing over of student records to law enforcement agencies, punishing students for their political beliefs and activities. This includes the firing of Kelly Beckham and the firing of students who were allegedly involved in the events of February 14th, but who have not been convicted or even charged as well as the selective enforcement of a “concert moratorium. The Evergreen State College is also on a path of becoming increasingly more mainstream which is pushing the college in a direction contrary to its original mission statement. The students sitting-in want to see an end to all of this.

Olympia SDS, which formed in May 2006, was suspended as a student group following a series of events slated for March 7th. The first event was a panel discussion on the San Francisco 8 to discuss issues of torture, police and government repression, COINTELPRO, the Black Panther Party and political prisoners. The second event was a folk show with musical artists David Rovics, Danny Kelly and Mark Eckert to raise awareness about anti-war activist Carlos Arredondo whose twenty-year-old son Marine Lance Corporal Alexander Arredondo was killed in Iraq.

Just two days before the events were to take place, the administration decided to cancel both events using the moratorium on concerts (created after the Valentine’s Day rebellion) to cancel both the folk show and the panel discussion. Members of SDS consulted with the musicians, panelists, and community members who helped organize the events and decided to go through with them to honor the wishes of all involved and because SDSers felt their group was being targeted by the administration and this was a matter of free speech. In addition, members of SDS and many other students not in the group approached administrators Phyllis Lane and Les Purce to try and go through with these events. But the administrators did not listen.

The events were a success but the administration came down hard on SDS following March 7th. The group found itself suspended until 2009. This meant that SDS lost their several thousand dollar budget, access to school equipment, resources and facilities, and the ability to host events and meetings on campus. SDS went through the appeals process established through the school and had their punishment slightly lowered. The last appeal was held on March 21st and SDSers are still awaiting the final decision from this appeal.

A Free Speech Rally was also held on the day of the last appeal at Evergreen where 150 students and college workers (staff and faculty) gathered in Red Square for the rally. Speakers from SDS, MEChA, Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador and the Evergreen Animal Rights Network spoke about the free speech fight at Evergreen and made connections to political repression in the Green Scare, against MEChA in the Southwest and the FMLN in El Salvador.

When the rally ended students marched toward Vice President of Student Affairs Art Costantino’s office in the Sem 1 building. He was outside of the building instead of in his office. Students confronted him and chanted “Free Speech!” and “Reinstate SDS!”. Students attempted to have adiscussion with him, but Art refused and walked away. The students then decided to march up the stairs in the Sem 1 building and sit-in outside of his office. Around 60 students started the sit-in.

Since then, students have been taking shifts in the hallway, with numbers ranging from just a few to well over 20 at times. Banners and signs hang from the windows and walls that say “Student Power”, “Occupied by Students: Reinstate SDS!”, “Free Speech” and “Welcome to People’s University”. SDSers and other sit-in participants decided to use the sit-in tactic as a last resort because all other options have been exhausted. Costantino in particular was heavily involved with the decision to suspend SDS and has spearheaded this most recent crackdown on political activists, free speech and academic freedom.

The space that the sit-in participants are occupying has been transformed into what is being called “People’s University”. It’s a space where students have more control and wield more decision-making power over their education and their lives. Classes started on Memorial Day, which the police and administration wanted cancelled, and have continued throughout the week with a series of workshops, teach-ins and film screenings covering a variety of issues from radical queer history, radical labor history, post-Katrina New Orleans, lockboxes and prisoner support. Alumnae, college workers, community members, veterans and people from as far as Tacoma and Seattle have stopped by to show their support, including Ed Mead and Mark Cook, former political prisoners and members of the George Jackson Brigade.

Efforts like the People’s University that seek to increase student power are just part of the broader vision sit-in participants have begun to think about. Among one of the largest achievements so far is that this has become more than simply another SDS event. This is about all of us. The sit-in has proved to be a space where more and new people can get involved in fighting for social justice. It’s about more than just SDS. The vision of building student power at The Evergreen State College is a guide for our practice and for our action. Sit-in participants approach this vision with the realization that this task is complex and is going to take time and hard work. These aren’t things that are going to happen overnight, but will hopefully happen slowly, over time, and in a way that gets people’s needs met while also challenging the power structures that oppress us all and providing meaningful alternatives to these structures. This means we are building the world we want to see in the here and now, in ways that push boundaries and get to the root of the problems we see facing us. As students, we are see ourselves as part of this process and because of this, want to see a democratization of Evergreen with those who are most affected having the most say in the decisions that get made here.

Among other things, this vision also calls for a radical commitment to environmental sustainability, dismantling structures at the college that reinforce violence and racism, finding an alternative to the police at Evergreen, fighting for collective liberation and increasing the decision-making power of those who are most affected by decisions that are currently made at Evergreen. A broader Vision Statement is being crafted currently and will be released to the public soon.

The outcome of the sit-in is uncertain, but what is certain that the entire process of the sit-in has not only empowered people but has built some tangible level of student power at Evergreen, however small it has been thus far. The struggle is long and will take a lot of work, but SDSers and others at the sit-in are up to the task.