A warning: Rise to defend the revolutionary
Posted by Mike E on October 6, 2011
by Mike Ely
Here is the deal: The smell of sulfur is upon the land. Satan himself is coming now…
Of course we don’t believe in Satan. It is a metaphor.
What I mean is this: The real and difficult struggle within this movement and for this movement is now starting.
The media is turning on the machinery. The unions officials will now come as “supporters” but broker for the liberal establishment. “Advisers” will show up. People (who are pliant and acceptable) will now be declared leaders and spokespeople in the media. Demands will be announced or promoted or demanded that correspond to the program of the Democratic Party…. and much more.
We see it on every side: The Democratic Party (through many instrumentalities) is coming to convert the Occupy XXX movement into a liberal version of the Tea Party (their personal reserve to whipping up their social base for the coming elections). It is, to put it bluntly, what death looks like for this new movement.
They are coming in disguise, with honeyed words, with promises and seductions. As they have come for previous generations.
The liberal establishment themselves will now try to shape and coopt. And i mean those who currently dominate an empire and wage wars to maintain it.They are the confidants of the bankers, the guardians of the status quo. They will whisper the language of populist rage and reform — while offering a servile place in their election machinery. Those who are coming have money, agents, foot soldiers, spotlights, avenues to fame, perfumes of power and the weight of their system’s deadening political logic.
Look at Wisconsin — where a righteous resistance was funneled into a lame recall campaign… the way cattle are funneled toward the zapper.
The system is not fixable. We don’t want a way back in. Obama is the president from Goldman Sachs. He serves as commander in chief of an empire and its wars. We don’t want a seat in his campaign table. And we don’t want tactical advice on how to help his campaign appeal to “Middle Americans.”
We will reach the people ourselves (especially the youth of ghettos and barrios and Middle America) with a subversive message that won’t compute in the calculators of this system.
What will they do: The Republicans sent in a steel backbone of trained operatives (led by Dick Army) to simply take over and shape the Tea Party — replacing the rightwing grassroots with a flogging of mailing lists using Fox News. The Democrats will now try the equivalent with the Occupy movement — if we allow it.
Can we allow ourselves to become a house-broken leftwing chorus within an oppressive and corrupt status quo? No.
Meanwhile the libertarian and conspiracy theorists are seeking to grab this movement for the radical right — promoting free market dogmas that culminate with a call for abolishing the Federal Reserve. Can we allow ourselves to become a megaphone for some mythic unrestrained capitalism? Obviously not.
How we will defeat this:
First, we need to take an inventory of who we are — the revolutionary, the discontented, the dissident, the energized and visionary — and see the great potential for this radicalism. We are not something that “turns off” — we are not something that has to be tamed, or hidden, or cleaned up. On the contrary, we will have to deepen our critique and its radicalism — because the problems run deeper than even many of us know, and the solutions will require more disruption and change than even many of us imagine.
And so, we need to prepare a sophisticated defense of the radical: within the movement and within the larger society.
This movement has punched a hole into the public sphere. The whole world is watching — use it!
Our enemies are now turning on the big carrot and big stick and big lie. They will now start to red-bait the radicals, revolutionaries and “crazies” in the movement. It is already happening. Learn to ride the tiger.
Look at the major questions of power and politics concentrated in this moment and this movement. Get on a high plane.Represent the future within the present and the whole within the part. Represent the revolutionary within the movement — in a sweeping, not nit-picking, way.
We need strategic messaging when we write and speak. We need to identify forces inside and outside the movement we are speaking to.
Above all, we need to grasp the power of that very radicalism that they will try to extinguish.
Don’t focus on the petty
If reactionary shit goes down within the movement (especially the usual racist and sexist shit of American society), let’s call it out — short, sharp, clear. Bring it to a stop and move on. But our self-cleansing is process, not the central work. Don’t get bogged down.
I hear complaints — about the naive and goofy within the movement (including consensus rules, hand gestures, an attempt to avoid leadership or what ever). Deal with such things when they get in the way — but don’t get lost.
We need to help build a core of the most determined and radical (together with others) to grow through the offensives that will be thrown at us.
Revolutinaries need to develop a generous, inclusive, and sweeping manner of speaking — that sharply indicts all that abuses the people. We need to speak to (and for) the revolutionary within this movement.
This requires some quick transformation, quick learning, mutual training and creative work. Do it. Time is running out.
Proclaiming the revolutionary: Breaking down the tasks
Revolutionaries within this movement face some incredibly challenging responsibilities. Let’s rise to our crucial tasks.
Prominent among them: We need to solve the problem of getting youth from oppressed communities deep into this movement, and help transform it. Help actually solve the problem… Make outreach of that kind into a movement of the advanced.
And my main theme here: We need to help wage that proud and unapologetic defense of the revolutionary (inside and outside the encampments)
For that…. four things:
1) Develop a visible and creative pole of revolutionary discussion — we need arguments based on the overall direction and purpose of this movement (not on petty correctives). What does that consist of? First, putting forward revolutionary, socialist and communist politics clearly and creatively — and (when appropriate) in an all round way. Second, identifying the two or three key political points that the movement needs to have breakthroughs on — and find the ways of articulating them powerfully. (Identifying those make-or-break issues is a fluid and creative process — rooted in context and actual need — not in our own pre-existing checklist.)
2) Identify and unite the advanced (using a mass line method )– a creative task that has not yet been accomplished.
3) Rely on the advanced (mobilize them, help them articulate a common approach) to influence and win over the intermediate.
4) Work to isolate the backward. In this case, the backward are those determined to turn this movement into a liberal version of the Tea Party, and perp -walk everyone into the 2012 elections as loyal subjects.
This is happening now.
ienoil@igc.org said
It is wreckless to not have a real conversation about the need for this and all mobilizations to be rooted in an anti-colonial, anti racist anti oppression framework. Social movements lead by people of color have a lot to loose, if we are going to change things it must be led by the most marginalized and oppressed….
Mike E said
I.e. noil:
You can’t declare leadership “by the most marginalized and oppressed.” You can’t simply demand that everyone else follow “the most marginalized and oppressed.” These are things (alliances, programs, distinctions) that actually have to be forged in real life.
Here is a suggestion: sit back and veto every political development that doesn’t suit your preconceptions and demands. don’t dive in. Don’t mobilize your preferred social base. Complain you were consulted, flattered and stroked. How is that working for you? How is it working for the people?
If you don’t like the movements that emerge, why don’t you just fire them, and hire some different movement?
charley2u said
I think you should include two additional ideas: keep the GAs open and welcoming to any who want to struggle — it should have no more membership requirement than a union. And, pursue opportunities to link the movement directly to the worldwide struggle.
The first, I hope, would keep it from becoming a simply left movement. The second might help to overcome the mystification of national politics by introducing a global perspective and scope.
andrewraygorman said
What is meant by your “pole” of revolutionary discussion?
Yours for the Revolution,
Andrew
jmf said
I agree that petty bantering is not productive, and I am certainly against the kind of Left “holier than thou” kind of organizing that needs to split hairs over every single issue…but how one conceives of the police has everything to do with how a radical movement grows and develops.
Some of the criticisms you list here were in reference to my comrade’s observations at the Houston march — and he was absolutely right to be concerned.
I do think Houston draws a demographic particular to its region — the “end the fed” folks, the tea party libertarians, etc., that may not be true of other “occupy” movements so one should not overgeneralize from this one example — but as someone who was there — as someone who saw women and people of color routinely silenced on the stage by the organizers (who were the ones perpetuating the pro-police message)…as someone who was told to not be “inflammatory” when I voiced my dissent in a private conversation at that type of messaging, I am put off by the suggestion that those are “petty” issues to voice to a wider audience.
Moreover, I don’t believe that those who voice those opinions cannot be struggled with in a productive way. If co-option is what we’re worried about, we need those folks too. You ask us to look at “major questions of power and politics” — how does working with others to challenge the police establishment not fit into that?
There is a component to your dismissal that reeks of a kind of elitism that sidelines a legitimate need to struggle with those who do not necessarily have “backward” tendencies, but also have not yet thought deeply and critically about the role police play in these and other struggles. To dismiss these concerns is not only to ignore the systematic way police brutality exerts itself against non-whites, the poor, queer folks, women, but — also — to take for granted and perpetuate a problematic discourse that — once again — takes the white, male standpoint as the given perspective from which to see what should and should not be prioritized in these struggles.
Sure, accuse me of identity politics, but this sentiment is the same old same old to me — pretty antiquated and all too familiar.
PatrickSMcNally said
A major obstacle is that these Occupation-protests broke out on Obama’s watch. A common pattern has been that when antiwar protests break out in Bush’s term then Democrats try to play up to them, and when Obama came into office the Teabaggers were funded by the Koch brothers to create a diversion in favor of the Republicans. But normally one expects protests against a Democrat to be coopted by Republicans. If not Republicans then perhaps Libertarians of some brand or other. But that does not seem to be the main trend yet.
Democrats will undoubtedly try to turn on the fears of another Republican administration in order to push people to pull the level for them in 2012. But they are not really well-positioned to coopt things by offering a better trade union deal or anything like what might have been offered 6 decades ago. Fear of a Republican reurgence is all that the Democrats have going for them right now.
Certainly no one should be deluding themselves that this Occupation-movement represents the beginning of a new party, and as long as there appear to only be two parties many of the participants here will eventually drag themselves back to the voting booths in 2012. That much is given. The real issue is how deep does the disillusionment reflected by these events reach in the longer run?
charley2u said
@PatrickSMcNally
Do you think a new party is the optimal outcome? If so, why?
jmf said
Looks like you’ve already revised this piece heavily to take out the part about excusing those who are explicitly pro-police — or calling those who struggle with pro-police folks “petty.” Glad to see you came around…whew.
Mike E said
I am editing and re-editing this — to refine it. Thanks for the input.
Keith said
I would add one task: Setting up reliable supply lines to the occupation. At the moment the whole thing is kind of sitting on top of the forces physically occupying Wall st.
As the weather gets colder, especially around the first snow things will get difficult. If the numbers drop it will be easier for the police to move in.
PatrickSMcNally said
“Do you think a new party is the optimal outcome?”
Of what? I don’t envision any real outcome from these Occupation-protests other than a steady growth of disillusionment with the Republicans & Democrats alike. That is the only outcome to be gained from this. As a more long-term issue, well of course a new party will have to grow. But that isn’t something to look to these protests for.
I think the SEP/WSWS has taken a good stance towards this protest. Fairly regular reporting of the event has been combined with a statement of their own critical analysis, but without burying the ordinary reporting under a heap of polemics:
http://wsws.org/category/united-states.shtml
That’s the approach which rings correct for me at this juncture.
PatrickSMcNally said
This is like what I meant by “Fear of a Republican reurgence is all that the Democrats have going for them right now.”
http://wsws.org/articles/2011/oct2011/wall-o06.shtml
John Samuelsen, president of Transport Workers Union Local 100 representing the city’s bus and subway workers, made clear before the rally began that the bureaucracy’s main agenda was to steer the anti-Wall Street protests behind the Democrats and President Barack Obama.
“There may be some criticism of Obama,” he said, “but I think when you look at the Republicans, there’s really no choice.”
Asked if he thought that the young people who have mounted the Occupy Wall Street protests should get behind the Obama reelection campaign, Samuelsen responded, “Yes I do. The alternative spells disaster for the United States of America.”
Andrew Cohen said
How, indeed, does one handle the Paul-ites and the end-the-fed types? My feeling is that keeping it all fairly loose but together, agreeing on major principles, while tying into local issues and existing local organizations ought to work better than trying to eat the whole beast whole in one ideologically correct gulp. Just takes longer, is all. I don’t want to throw anybody out of a nascent movement because they don’t agree with me in every particular, even if some of their particulars are crazier than mine.
Andrew
Chuckie K (@ChuckieKautsky) said
“articulating communist politics powerfully. — rooted in context and actual need — not in our own pre-existing checklist.” — Your general argument would seem so straightforward, I was hoping more for concrete suggestions on implementing this point. It’s not just a question of identifying the issues. I felt a few minutes reading the 99% tumblr did that. In this context, finding the language that is appropriate, and appropriate will mean not our pre-existing language either, seems to me to be a major practical challenge.
Mike E said
Chuck K writes:
I hear you. And agree that this all needs to be concrete. And I suspect that many people want clear and concise models to apply.
However that essay was not the place to elaborate my own ideas on this. this site is where we have been working this out…
And (frankly) a lot of the work for a new communist “presentation” is a problem facing us — it is not settled, it is not done. Its solution lies ahead. And a new generation needs to actually DO that in the undertows of real life.
We need to gather the experiences and innovations of the many working on this now… and we offer this site as one place to do that.
I have many ideas about how to present our communist politics directly and clearly. I have spoken on this — several times. Here for example is one attempt I made.
But really… communism at this moment is a problem not a solution. The problem involves vision, theory, language and presentation. We have been lagging and we need to run to catch up. Help us get where we need to be.
Binh said
Based on discussions with a lot of people in Liberty Park, I’d say this is highly unlikely. See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/06/occupy-wall-street_n_999048.html
Carl Davidson said
Is ‘a liberal version’ of the Tea Party the only option? Why not a ‘left-progresive’ or ‘radical’ version? Or an ‘anti-finance capital’ version of the Tea Party?
Actually they will all be in play. A radical space has been opened up purposely without leadership and without a set platform, but with a correct target, finance capital. That means ALL trends will contend in this space, from communists to anarchists to social-dems to liberal Keynesians out in the cold. Even Obama tipped his hat to it today.
But all means, develop a strategy, approach and mass line. The lesson is very clear: If you don’t have a strategy, you’ll be part of someone else’s strategy.
I’ve been arguing for and presenting what I think is a decent working hypothesis for one one this site and others for some time, the popular front vs finance capital. I’ll fan the flames from this movement, while testing it out, via the mass line, with the youth in the squares and their wider allies that are coming into activity.
But I’ll be very interested in seeing what others here come up with. Indeed, it’s show and tell time.
More later. I’m just back (and well sunburned) from the ‘Freedom Plaza’ occupation in DC. I’ll check out Wall St next week.
jmsc2009 (@oversled21) said
I see nothing wrong with Occupy Wall Street. They’re patriots.
ish said
Mike I’m finding your voice on this issue incredibly clear and thought-provoking.
Thanks!
dodge said
” I see nothing wrong with Occupy Wall Street. They’re patriots.”
JMSC……..agreed! The other side of the street are very good at waving the flag….but can’t quite extend their patriotism to actually paying taxes…..which rankles.
Talk was ever cheap…..it makes all their talk look even cheaper…..ring fencing military spending..whilst penny pinching the nations health and care of elderly. They tip their golf caddy more than they contribute. As events take their course it will be ever more apparent that finance capital is out of all control. How do we tame it? If they can make or lose millions on the pressing of ENTER key its high time we took those gadgets away from them. (toys for the boys) and gave them something less destructive to play with….
Gregory Dean said
Noam Chomsky’s protege came up with parecon (PARticipatory ECONomics). It’s a revolutionary methodology which requires systematically cooperative, solidaritous, equitable and diverse outcomes. I suggest we build a participatory economy through the credit unions and a federation of our own participatory co-ops. The people need their own institutions, one’s which can’t be taken over by a “coordinator class” as Chomsky’ protege – Michael Albert – calls it. In parecon, no one person owns entire forests, factories or roads and bridges, but instead there is now social governance by participatory worker and consumer councils over the productive means. According to the principle of say proportionate to stake, people have nearly complete control over their personal things, like clothes, bikes, housing that doesn’t have a large foot print, etc.
Say proportionate to stake says that in so far as an issue will effect you, you get to affect it. So if the issue is day care in a neighbourhood, then a mom with 4 kids will get 8 votes compared to the 0.8 votes that goes to an 18 year old male who is thinking about being a child care worker.
Balanced Job Complexes (BJC): Within a person’ chosen focus of work, they can rotate through a balance of menial and conceptual work. This achieves efficiency in that now everyone will have to rotate through the shitty work, so no one class of people can isolate themselves from the crap by delegating and, essentially, forgetting about it. So now it’s in everyone`s interests to automate or prevent work from accumulating. Also, every member gets to see a respective operation through different aspects of the productive cycle, making the operation more intelligent. Even if you introduced ‘democracy’ into a corporation today and you had the 10 workers come to a meeting with 1 vote each, only maybe 3 workers – the owner, the accountant and the marketing guy – would have enough information to vote in an informed way. Those 3 want to protect their cushy jobs, so the marketing guy for example, isn’t going to give away all his sales leads and sense of various markets’ demand, cause then he’s no longer the only one who the company must rely on for his job. So we see quite quickly that if the 7 workers care about their jobs, they have to sit on their vote and go along with what the 3 coordinators say should happen, or otherwise they vote blind, potentially flying the operation and their jobs into a wall.
Because with BJC there is more structural sharing of skills across task types, we get a highly skilled work force. Instead of people keeping their trade secrets, it’s in everyone`s interests to share skills; learn one, do one, teach one, gets instituted everyday, everywhere. No longer do specialist professionals get to say, ‘my skills are rare and in high demand so I don’t have time to teach and I should get paid more’ (while their professional association like the American Medical Association actually prevent more people from becoming doctors, for example).
Remuneration based on effort and sacrifice (RES): Those who do the hard, crappy work no one likes to do will get paid more, and work where you sit in a corner office, on the phone or over business lunches gets paid less.
Because we now determine together what wealth is in worker and consumer councils, we find that each unit of remuneration is now a mere divisor of total wealth in circulation. This puts it in everyone’s interests to invest social wealth towards realizing the most efficient gains for the economy so that the value of our units of pay represent more actual goods and services without requiring more inputs (like work)to create those extra goods and services. Even if one person is in publishing and the question is whether to invest more in culture or energy, and there are much greater efficiencies to be had in investing in energy innovation, then the publishing worker will vote to invest in energy research and development. As new energy technology does away with all kinds of work, engineers who used to be in the energy industry can now move into other industries, including publishing, where the publishing worker can hand off some of his old tasks to the new workers now freed up to work in publishing. Also, the original publishing worker can buy more energy and lots of other things because now the overall economy is %30 more efficient due to prioritizing research on energy. This is basically how parecon also does away with designed obsolescence, deviating standards for the same parts, etc., and instead builds things to last, and to be repaired easily… Because it means we all work less while receiving more REAL wealth.
Professionals today say that they deserve to be paid more because they gave up income during 4-8 years of college. But in parecon, because we get rid of markets (the world wide system which makes the world into the horror that it is now) in the Fed.I.rise transition strategy, we also eventually get rid of labour markets, meaning that we now pay for people to educate themselves, because educating oneself is work, it’s enjoyable work, so learning doesn’t get paid that much but it does get paid. So people no longer have the excuse of getting paid way more in their professions because they forwent 4-8 years of income while in college.
Participatory Worker and Consumer Councils: Are just that, people who are affected by a decision in their industry or region get to participate in decision making. Due to the equity and efficiency from the mechanisms above, we all now have more time to participate, because in parecon we can work less to make ends meet. Also people would be cultured to think and apply the participatory skills they practice in their daily jobs, so they now have the ability to participate coherently in conversing on wider decisions for society.
Not every council has to talk to every other council when making a decision that overlaps, because we have a computer network (Facilitation Board) which archives all decision and data from other councils. So a council can just refer to the inventories or expectations of available parts to come from another industry.
Even if everyone doesn’t participate, we’d still have statistically significant participation from people experienced to each issue, which is better than one single class of people (lawyers, doctors and businessmen politicians) ‘representing’ or ruling over everyone else, sometimes with consultation of ‘experts’.
Consumers of a particular good have power on par with producers and can reach right into an industry and help in the design, production, distribution, even full cost accounting (the cost is the `price` in parecon). Society as a whole, through a participatory polity, would also have more say over big production decisions.
Equalize said
Occupy Portland just established our occupation today. The struggle over the role of the cops (concentrated in the slogan “the police are part of the 99%”) has been particularly intense over the past week leading up to the large march (4-5,000) today. The conflict between the radical left activists and the left liberal leadership has been focused on this issue and has defined the politics of the general assembly. I have had many 1on1 conversations in which I think I have effectively exposed the fallacy of “the cops are part of the 99%”.
But, I am now less concerned about ‘winning’ this struggle in the general assembly and starting to view the strident arguments on this and related questions by the various radical activist forces as mis-guided. The masses must learn from their experience. The goal of ‘winning’ the debate is an attempt to substitute our consciousness for that of the masses. At this point (not always -some such struggles might be critical to the success of the movement, and in the future, even soon, this particular question might be critical) it is less important that the group make the ‘correct’ decision than it is that we help people to transform their world view while building an important social movement and our connection to it.
That is not to advocate tailing the masses or hiding our views. It is to understand that, now, the decisions of the group are less important than it’s training and it’s trust and respect for us.
FleeYourHomes said
Equalize, I would like to continue on this thread that you are speaking about. I was recently in New York for the Brooklyn Bridge fiasco and down at Liberty Plaza.
After the round up and arrest I had an opportunity to talk with a nice cross section of the crowd as we were getting bussed around on MTA busses from precinct to precinct looking for a station that would process us. The bus I was on was a much greater mix of people than I had expected from most of the cynical write ups by crusty leftists. Their were old, young, black, white, and latino all represented on my particular bus. Interestingly enough a heated debate emerged about the role of the police on the bus.
A young black activist was browsing on his phone on the bus with his hands cuffed behind his back (as most of us were). The cop who was assigned to monitor us on the bus had been playing his usual “nice cop” role, while the other police at the front was barking orders at everyone, he was the “bad cop”. The cop then asked the guy if he could “check out his pics”, with a smile on his face. To our surprise the guy laughed and handed the cop his phone. The cop starting browsing through all of his stuff, taking mental notes or whatever. Not only that, the police new this kid from earlier that week after he was beaten at the Union Square rally and charged with assault on a pig.
Me and another person sitting nearby, struggled with the kid telling him not to interact with the cop. The cop grew angry, gave the kid his phone back and started cussing at all of us, saying “this is why you can’t be nice to you fuckin people” etc etc… Big surprise…
Another older woman (also in cuffs) then speaks up and says, ” officer, some us would just like you to know we appreciate your kindness and hard work.”
This was followed by someone immediately saying, “I appreciate nothing you all do.” followed by cheers and floor stomping, and a few jeers and some awww cmon’s by the cop lovers.
Needless to say, it is still an intense issue that is being argued down there, sometimes with a cops boot literally on your neck.
Later that evening my cell mate and I spoke about the need to develop a really sharp concise flier about the role of police historically, their real function in capitalist society, and address the great lie about them being “just working class guys”.
I am currently working on a flier/short analysis to circulate and would appreciate any input/stories/ideas from those who are also deeply troubled by the fucking ridiculous cop fawning that is taking over people’s minds at these occupy movements.
Another small point, I believe Rodstarz from Rebel Diaz was getting at something when he said something along the lines of, if the hood was represented down there, things would be a lot different.
If people who understand the role of police were in liberty plaza in larger numbers, maybe some of these cop lovers wouldn’t be so vocal and aggressive.
For the record, I also agree with JMF that this is not some nit picky issue. It is alienating to people who are harassed, shot at , and live in communities occupied by these anti social thugs. It is a central issue that must be addressed.
Thoughts?
g. bylinkin said
Equalize-
Thanks for your thoughts. I don’t want to get too caught up in Portland minutiae, so someone let me know if I’m out of line here. I only have caught bits and pieces of Occupy Portland so far due to my job, I was there at a couple of different points though. I’d be interested in where you saw radicals be too strident and alienating about the role of the cops. It’s hard for me to see how we should be less strident about this though. Over the last several years the police have been gunning down poor and oppressed folks in this town. There have been major struggles here against police brutality from Church meetings to near riots. As a result of this officer Ron Frashour was fired for shooting Aaron Campbell, a young unarmed Black man, in the back with an assault rifle. Now the Portland Police Association is about to get him his job back through closed door meetings. The cops have been a polarizing force in city politics and Occupy Portland should be on the right side of this question. Saying that the police are part of the “99%” seems to reinforce the whiteness of this movement. Folks of color in Portland I think tend to have fewer illusions about the cops being on their side. An overwhelmingly white populist mobilization claiming the police are on their side certainly raises questions for folks of color already alienated by the white culture and politics of the mobilation. I write this as someone who is thrilled by what is happening, but wants to support it in moving in a more revolutionary anti-capitalist direction. Just some late night thoughts.
Alex Brown said
Ask a white underclass male. I am offended by your terminology. Whte males get brutalized by the police all the time! Black/gays/woman are not the only victims of capitalism in this world. In fact woman get far less hassle from the police than males do.
Using that sort of generalization is going to put people off. Often this sort of langage is used by middle class fuddy duddies, who are only concerned about the treatment of their speical groups, and are totally blind to class.
Equalize said
G: “I’d be interested in where you saw radicals be too strident and alienating about the role of the cops.”. – the GA on Tuesday evening especially. That meeting of about 200 people, was dominated by this question all evening. I didn’t say “alienating” – we actually ‘won’ the issue in some ways – the GA reached ‘consensus’ to not get a permit or to tell the cops the route. The tactics committee, after almost an hour of intense discussion agreed to ‘ask’ the cops present to leave.
“It’s hard for me to see how we should be less strident about this though.” -
Please do not misunderstand me. I am not arguing that cops are not our enemy or that we do not need to transform, as quickly as possible, the liberal view that “the cops are people too”, or even that this illusion is anything but very dangerous. I am seeing it as a matter of training and how does that happen.
“Saying that the police are part of the “99%” seems to reinforce the whiteness of this movement.” – true! I am still trying to get my feet under me and I don’t have ideas how yet, but involvement of broader masses would go a long way toward transforming the liberal illusions of the predominately white petty bourgeoise that is currently in motion.
Flee: I agree that this is a key issue. Not only because the “cop lovers” are alienating to people of color, but because the liberal illusions will get heads busted and weakens our movement.
Intense discussions and agitational materials, I think help a lot. I would love to see a persuasive flyer arguing against “the police are part of the 99%”. I would distribute that here.
As I remember it, in the 70s, people more and more called them “pigs”. The transformation and common adoption of that term came about over a period of time (years?) in reaction to people’s experiences.
Right now, due partly to recent well-publicized incidents embarrassing the Portland police department and their tactical hope to defuse this movement, we are getting the velvet glove. Which might give us some time, at least, to make some points and to prepare conditions so that we can gain maximum advantage from harsh experience to come.
Maybe not though. The leadership chose the park we occupied yesterday because the mayor said it would be ok. Around dusk, maybe two hours after the march was over and the crowd had dwindled down to, maybe 1500 or less, we heard that the mayor needed to relocate us to another spot because the park was previously reserved for another event. As it stands AFAIK, the city demands that we leave by 9am. The situation is pretty fluid right now…
I guess that the insight I am trying to express is this:
The focus of our activity in the occupation should about the mass line – and that means understanding that the decisions of the group would be different than we would decide and that is, in the main, ok. Our role is in the dialectical activity of participating, connecting, learning, gaining trust and training.
My equivocation (“in the main”) is because, sometimes, the actual decision made is critical to the success of the movement. In Portland, so far, the decisions informed by liberal illusions about the cops and the city government have not been critical yet.
Carl Davidson said
The core role and function of the police is to defend the current order. And in many cases, they frost that cake with wanton act of violent repression, usually aimed at minority communities of color and the working class and poor more generally, just to remind everyone’s who boss on the streets.
That’s a core conviction of every revolutionary and sensible progressive person engaged in social change. We need to stick to it.
At the same time, like any large institution, the police have fault lines and internal conflicts of their own. We need to understand these and how they work. In Chicago, for instance, certain stations, like the one that John Burge, the convicted torturer worked out of, had a core of KKK-type cops that were highly politicized. A good number of Black cops around the city were well aware of it, and found ways to work against it. They formed their own organization that was helpful in many ways to the lawyers working on bringing Burge to justice. There are other fault lines as well, and not every cop leaves his or her humanity at home when they go to work. They have lives full of contradictions.
There is no need to needlessly provoke police with various epithets and actions. If you’re doing an organizing jobs that’s powerful and challenging to the existing order, you’ll get attacks without provocation soon enough, as we are seeing.
The police are not all-powerful. With good discipline and a keen sense of tactics, they can be out-maneuvered from time to time. Battle can also be won against them politically and in count from time to time. But we must have a sense of security around information. A good rule of thumb is be open as possible to the masses, and as closed as possible to the police.
Thinking strategically, there will come a time, under revolutionary and insurrectionary conditions, where we will want to split and break up the police, neutralize some and even win over a few, even temporarily. That’ is considerably down the pike, however. For now, the task is getting to know them and their role as adversaries.
Tell No Lies said
The vast majority of these questions, in my view, fall into the category of “contradictions among the people.” That goes for the Ron Paulites as much as the liberal illusions about the police (though there are differences of degree). Our attitude with all of these people should be to struggle patiently, to trust them to be able to learn from what they are experiencing, and to understand that these contradictions run deep and will not disappear quickly. I think we should avoid and oppose any efforts to handle these questions administratively by driving people out for having bad politics. We should treat the presence of articulate representatives of bad politics as an opportunity to help people clarify their own understanding of these questions. The Occupations are much more spaces in which people are struggling to understand things than they are formal coalitions where it is important to hammer out a basis of unity.
I think a series of well-designed agitational leaflets is definitely in order. These should be aimed at posing questions and articulating the issues, not at attacking particular other trends. They should be friendly and non-sectarian in tone and should invite people to discuss questions. A few topics that jump to mind are:
What is the Problem? — a basic argument for an anti-capitalist orientation
What Will it Take to Win? or Don’t Be Afraid to Talk About Revolution — why it will take a revolution to address the problems that produced these protests.
Which Side Are the Cops On?
Will We Be Co-Opted? or Should We Be the Democrat’s Tea Party?
What is Communism?
Why Do Communists Support OWS?
These are off the top of my head and I am sure others have other ideas, but I think it would be great if one of these came out every two or three days.
Abbas Goya II said
Well, sharp, to the point note. What I believe is missing is an organizing, synchronous body, A Political Party. This guideline needs specification, concrete practices, and synced activists. How on earth are we going to do that? Over a site? We need to found the leadership, not exclusively on a theoretical level, or movement based actions . Where is that body, http://kasamaproject.org?? Don’t get me wrong. This site is fantastic to get the INDIVIDUAL revolutionaries, activists connected. But this doesn’t substitue the Political Party that average joe on the streets would need to see and be a member of. Where is that physical body, its short and long term platform that I need to show to the people I outreach? A note on a site? How do you expect the very poor who applauds your discussion rely on you that you actually can carry on what you say?
Folks, without ONE (not two, not 5, not a coalition of 600 organizations), one and only Party that could represent the radicalism, this movement will have hardly any chance to resist the melt down into the gigantic body of a political party like Democrats.
NONE of the above is to discourage any and all of the guidelines. After all, we have to deal with the situation with what we have at hand right now. As a matte of fact we need to be the most active right now even if our only objective is to found a worker communist party. Looking at how each and every time Democrats were able to manipulate a radical ACTION in the past three years, ie Chicago workers occupation and later on Wisconsin’s protests we need to finally address this issue. Resolving the main barrier from an strategical point of view, that is, the leadership, the ability to be the most effective body to confront both the external, the US establishment, and its extension within the movement, the Democratic Party, requires a Political Party.
We all OWE that to the working class of the US. Now, the best hotbed in which a political party can emerge is right in the middle of an ongoing social battle where you can spot each other, by their positions and actions, when the whole working class are watching us, waiting for something to pop up. They will join it if they see it coming out strongly. Let’s put our act together and add that crucial topic of “The necessity and the steps to build a worker communist party” on our agenda.
Seamus said
How’s this for a slogan : The Police defend the ! % ! ? On a related note i had read that the leader of the NYC TWU had denounced the NYPD forcing Union drivers to transport Prisoners on City Buses . But then i had read mixed reports re the leaderships response . One said that they had stated that if and when the cops had commandered buses drivers should refuse to drive them and get off and walk away . But then i read that they (TWU leadership ) had just officially complained to the City and hadn’t actually called on drivers to refuse .
Does anyone know what actually occurred ? There’s a big difference . One would be a direct Labor action against State repression but the latter would be just another example of a typical feeble ineffectual protest .
guytoyourleft said
I haven’t had a chance to read everything but Mike sounds like he’s implying everyone who has genuine questions and concerns is an ultra-left sectarian and ultimately counter-revolutionary.
I strongly support the occupy movement but we don’t do anyone any favors by not fully participating. I think that it’s really important to consciously be as constructive as possible, but we don’t need to hide our light.
Carl Davidson said
We had a great poster back in SDS days. A picture of the old cop statue at Haymarket, the one with a hand raised to stop traffic: Overprinted text:
The Real and Exact
Job of the Cop….
Stop! Stop!
Join SDS…
Equalize said
seamus: “The police defend the 1%”. I think that this is the right direction. I am looking for a short and sharp slogan or sentence that says it all. And not to get too hung up on the wording, I am trying to think through the ‘defend’ aspect. We know that they more than defend – they enforce the rule and interests. But, to say that simply…
I have found this argument to be effective in one on one conversations: I understand where that comes from. 1% of the U.S. population earns over $300,000 per year, and cops are in the other 99% that earn less. While that way of thinking about it has some value and is an indicator of who the 99% are, it is mis-leading because the cops have a special role as the enforcers of the will and rule of the 1%. They are the foot-soldiers of the 1% against the 99%. If force is exerted against us, it will be by the cops.
I have seen people have a “lightbulb moment’ with this formulation. I would like to sharpen that.
Maybe: “The police (serve, enforce the rule of, are the foot-soldiers for – or something like one of those) the 1%”
I am also thinking about how to bring in the more advanced perceptions of non-settlers to challenge the blind-spot of liberals: they want to be anti-racist and broad minded, but I have no strong contribution to make yet in that regard.
Tell No Lies said
Guytoyourleft,
While he can defend himself, I don’t think that is what Mike is saying at all. I think he is arguing for a strategic appreciation of which questions are mainly about contradictions among the people and which ones involve conscious efforts by the ruling class to channel and coopt this movement. All this is greatly complicated by the intersection of questions of race and participation in the 2012 elections. These demonstrations by their very nature are bringing out very politically heterogenous crowds with all the contradictions, especially in the form of white chauvinism, that implies. At the same time there is a whole constellation of formations officially outside of but actually closely attached to the Democratic Party whose leaderships can be expected to opportunistically seize on these very real contradictions with the objective of channeling this movement away from its more radical anti-capitalist trajectory and into getting out the vote in 2012.
What should the posture of revolutionaries be in the face of this? I think our general approach to both questions of chauvinism (white dudes hogging the mic, etc…) and illusions about Obama and the Democratic Party should be “treat the illness, save the patient.” In both instances there will of course be hardened sorts — intransigent chauvinists and cynical apparachik — but most people (including ourselves!) bring their contradictions along with a very sincere desire to do what is necessary to achieve a better world. Our approach, I think, should be to see in these inevitable conflicts an opportunity to deepen peoples political understanding — of how racism and sexism and other systems of oppression sabotage efforts to unite the people to fight for their liberation AND how cooptation of grassroots movements by established professionalized apparatuses attached to the Democratic Party does so as well. Being able to understand both of these dynamics and their complex interaction demands a higher level of political sophistication than most people presently have. what Ithink Mike is arguing for is that we need to make sure we as revolutionaries have that level of understanding ourselves so that we can go and fight for it among the masses of people being drawn into political life, sometimes for the first time in their lives, by these demonstrations.
FleeYourHomes said
Alex Brown,
You are absolutely correct. People from white society are constantly brutalized by police and understand that they do not “protect and serve”. My point was more that, in the context of the occupy movements, it is alienating to people in occupied communities to say “police are part of the 99%”.
Obviously many white people live in occupied poor communities as well, and will just as easily laugh at such a silly slogan.
That being said, there were some people at the GA on Wall Street that were openly hostile to the idea that police were “all bad”.
The occupy Chicago movement is probably the worst example of this, the other night a young kid broke a Walgreens window. Not the best tactical move ….but whatever….people tried to CITIZENS ARREST him!!!! It was stunning. Luckily some younger people ripped them off of him and he was able to flee before CPD waddled over.
The Wall Street occupy haas a much different feel.
land said
That should be a story. What to do if you see someone getting arrested.
The Bostonian said
As a general comment to make, this being my first on this site, that what we are witnessing about the occupy wall street movement is a political dead-end dominated by the petty-bourgeois left. I’m a almost life-long resident of Southie and know what it means to be born, and raised, as a working class man. What I see is a movement that will rapidly disintegrate to the Democrats and all the pseudo-left parties of the upper-middle class academia.
I’ve seen the movement in Dewey Square an have seen it more as ‘life-style anarchism’ than a true movement dedicated to real social change. I mean, we of the left really need to have an explicitly socialist agenda for every time the left comes out it’s shouted down by these ‘participatory democracy’ types. All this is detrimental to the working-class, for we really need a real movement organized by the proletariat! Also the cops can be persuaded, not all police are these lurking brutes. Popular hatred of the democrats and republicans has been around forever. The unions have always been more like medieval guilds than actual progressive worker’s organizations (which a guild really helps, since I’m actually a welder working successfully to join one.) What is needed are real leftist cultural institutions like communist libraries, recreation, clubs, and institutions to prove the worth of socialism!
Also what 99%? This masks the huge inequality among the urban poor, urban and suburban working class, upper-middle class, and what not. These groups all have different ideas as to what society is to be like.
What we must do is to participate in the OWS, in order to expose it as the false hope it is. To make a movement and party that appeals to the real pain, suffering, humiliation, that we endure. Not the politics of spectacle (losers in the park pretending to imitate tent cities is almost a ridicule.) There is a large and growing population of part-time and casual workers. As the clock winds back to the 1870′s for the working-class and as automation destroys more and more skilled blue-collar and white-collar jobs, now is the time to stop messing around and get it done! No more phony left ‘horizontal leadership’ or postmodernism, but real a worker’s party with proletarian democracy not ‘participatory democracy’. No identity politics, but class politics. I’ll leave it at this.
Carl Davidson said
Is ‘Bostonian’ for real? Or is he putting us on? This post has so many howlers, one hardly knows were to begin, But before I take the time to dissect and reply, I’d like to make sure it’s not someone from ‘The Onion’ pulling our leg.
The Bostonian said
I’m not from the onion. I’m a real person! The problem is that the process becomes so frustrating that a howl serves as a real feeling. A howl at how we can endure what is happening. It means that we need to return to the roots. I remember reading the ‘Pages from a Worker’s Life’ by William Z. Foster and feeling how true it was what he wrote of himself. I read the histories of the great leaders of the left that have existed like the old IWW and Eugene Debs men who howled and channeled the feelings of what it’s like being part of the silent majority not the conservative fiction, but the real hard and true struggling to make a living. It’s emotional what I wrote, but when has politics never been emotional?
Gerald Rubin said
The 1% plutocrasy is very misleading as FleeYourHomes points out using the police as an example. Of course police are economically in the 99%, but they are by nature of their job description representing and protecting the 1%. I hazard to throw out that at least 20% of the population and perhaps significantly more indentify with the 1% or have major vested interests with them. This numbers game is very important because it gives much more realism to the struggle. The whole planning process has to take this into account, figuring out how to guide various interests to divest themselves from the 1%. For policemen, for example, the simple knowledge that many of their comrades are now being fired due to budget cuts could be a very strong motivator.
The Bostonian said
=Sorry, I meant vertical leadership!
The Bostonian said
About the police, many of them are people of color. They’re all union members and do a lot of things that are not oppressive such as regulating traffic, preventing violent crime, and responding to emergencies. I’m positive many police officers feel that they are abused by the system. They pay home mortgages too, have families to feed, and all the other problems of daily life. The police are also the tool of oppression, when the situation calls for it. Gerald, you make the great point that budget cuts are hitting departments hard all over. I think the police question will be resolved when the shit-hits-the-fan. However, the historical record has shown the police to be oppressors, when crisis happens such as during the 1880′s long depression and the 1930′s and the upheavals of the mid 60′s to early 70′s.
Abbas Goya II said
Mike: “we will have to deepen our critique and its radicalism”.
Radicalism = hitting the root cause.
Mike “Demands will be announced or promoted or demanded that correspond to the program of the Democratic Party”.
Vagueness = defeat; Clarity = immunity
Hitting the root cause in contrast to that of Democratic Party program requires a Declaration of a Clear, Radical Demands. All these four items ( Declaration, Clear, Radical, Demands) are required to immune the public from the Democratic Party and any other derail-intended tendencies. If interested :
“Immediate demands, why do we need them?”
http://www.facebook.com/notes/abbas-goya-ii/immediate-demands-why-do-we-need-them/10150321727627702
Carl Davidson said
@ Abbas
The Democratic Party has no firm ‘program’ or set of planks or demands that anyone is held to. It has about five or six major factions that collude and contend in varying degrees. The only thing they know for sure is that they are not socialists nor very much interested in fundamental change that alters relations of power. At the core, finance capital and other sectors of big business own it
t1201971 said
To The Bostonian: FUCK THE PIGS!! The F.O.P. (the Fascist Order of Pigs) is not a union, it is the organization that defends racist cops when they shoot down Black/Latin@/Asian/Arab kids in the street. Has this so-called union EVER respected a picket line? Or are they the ones bashing workers heads in on the picket line and escorting scabs thru? “Responding to emergencies”?? Haven’t you ever heard anyone say “if you got a problem and you call the cops, when they show up you got two problems”? “Preventing violent crime”? Half the time THEY’RE the ones perpetrating violent crimes! Pigs are waaay more likely to physically abuse their partners than workers that do honest jobs instead of being enforcers for the system. What’s next, are we to be encouraged to have sympathy for mob hitmen too? Gimme a break. The Panthers were right, OFF THE PIGS!! That shit’s non-negotiable.
The Bostonian said
Hold on T1201971! What you write is true, that in the USA the police departments have been dens of corruption with organized crime ( look at Whitey Bulger and the FBI), of racism( also cops shoot whites down too!), cruelty, and most of what you wrote is spot on accurate. I also wrote that the history of the police for the most part has been negative. The truth is that police do things that are helpful, like they evacuated where I lived when there was a carbon-monoxide leak in a very orderly fashion. They also, in Detroit, brutalized that innocent family when the stormed the wrong house for a drug raid and pretty much murdered a 7 year old girl. Or down the block, the police stopped a BDSM party that was connected to a crystal meth factory, which was the biggest in New England! I mean would you want some type of “socialist” organization responsible for preventing such madness? There will be one, but it will function basically like the ideal of what police department should do. Obviously police are more likely to be more sadistic, violent, and demeaning people, since the job provokes that type of mentality. You could say the same about the army, but the biggest push for the Russian revolution cam from the soldiers and sailors of the former Imperial Army! The army was the strikebreakers in those days and they helped to overthrow the czar. Some of the strongest voices for the anti-Vietnam movement came from Veteran’s for Peace. Also at work, most of the veterans tend to be very anti-war and learn from being on the front lines of imperialism what it’s like to brutalize mostly innocent civilians and lay waste to other nations history and land. Plenty of cops feel repulsed by that aspect of their job enforcing domestic imperialism against the inner cities. Also no naivete, many enjoy it and they are cruel people who are what you wrote vile people. All I stress is that tread lightly with these ‘enemies of the people’, for some might be willing to switch sides which has happened. Overall T1201971 you are correct, but subtly and caution are tools to be used.
Abbas Goya II said
I find “The Bostonian” APPROACH a down to earth, objective one with some rough edges. Starting from the exchanges on police, Police, like any other armed forces, ** might ** have a dual rule, an oppressive role and an enforcer of the rights we have earned!
Suppression
The police main function is to violently suppress, brutalize, terrorize the mass in favor of the capital order at a time of social dissent. Not every day is a revolutionary, upheaval state in society. However, working class struggle is non-stop, such as various conflicts with employers which might lead to the need of cops to confront an individual or a group of workers!
Enforcer of laws that might be in favor of working class
A capitalist society has a structure which is spelled out via its laws. When looked at from the class struggle point of view, law represents the CURRENT balance of the class struggle. When looked from the perspective of a capitalist society structure, it is to maintain its structure. If no cop at that intersection with broken traffic lights, it will cost the capitalists money in delayed workers.
However, when cops intervene a family dispute, for example, to protect an abused woman, that act originates from the balance of class struggle. Workers have at some point imposed some level of equal rights, which is then has become the ACT 123 of law, the enforcers of that law are the cops. Perhaps the very cop that saves a battered woman tonight, would brutalize the very woman is she is marching against the gathering of G20 tomorrow. (more later…)
Carl Davidson said
I have news for some folks here. If you plan on going down to one of the squares and finding lots of clones of yourselves and your set ideas, you’re going to be disappointed.
Politics are often generational, and this is a new one on the rise. The 1960s, ‘Off the Pig’ and all that is just stuff in history books to them, or stories they hear from their grandparents. What’s more, you’ll find a whole range of thinking, where some even might –Gasp!–fly a flag or sing ‘America the Beautiful.’
The most amusing charge is ‘Bostonian’ calling them petite-bourgeois. How would he know? Because they don’t look or dress like the young William Z Foster in his mind’s eye? Does he have any idea what young semi-employed workers look like these days? Does he have any idea of the tortuous debt burden forced upon them just to go to state schools and community colleges?
When I was at Penn State in 1961, my tuition was $1500 a term, and I could buy books and live on another $500, which I earned as a janitor and book store clerk. If they’re lucky, these kids are hit with $10,000-$20,000 a year. Textbooks alone are outrageous.
Besides, if you’re an orthodox Marxist, to be a petite-bourgeois, you have to own a small business or be a self-employed professional. Hardly any of the youth in the squares fit in there. Most of them probably have a negative net worth. Some of their parents might fit into that pigeon hole, but likely far less than you would think.
But whatever you what to say about them, one thing they have in common is that they picked the right target, finance capital. The other thing is they decided to rebel against it. That’s a terrific start. Now work with them to make it wider, deeper and more effective. Study! Teach! Organize! That’s the revolutionary Karl Liebnicht excellent summary of our tasks when the struggle is on the rise. Make the most of it. the tide has turned, but it won’t last forever. Tides also ebb, but hopefully this one will take a while.
FleeYourHomes said
This is something that needs to be addressed point by point to sharpen up the debate on police. I don’t have the time to do all of it but will take on some.
Specifically,I would like to address Bostonians claim that the police are just working stiffs in unions. Not to pick on your post, I do realize you later clarified that their position towards labor and other radical movements has mostly been repressive. But I think a good point to start at would be there so called “Unions”.
In New York specifically they begun as the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association in 1951 (you couldn’t make up a better name). The NYPD actually challenged the legality of the PBA and the court ruled that the PBA could organize police because it specifically wasn’t a union, but rather an association.
Kristen Williams in his book entitled “Our Enemies In Blue” puts it like this.
Police Unions Are Not Unions
“Police associations thus developed in relative isolation from the rest of the labor movement, while building close ties with the command hierarchy within the departments. This fact points to two related reasons why police unions are not legitimate labor unions. First, the police are clearly part of the managerial machinery of capitalism. Their status as “workers” is therefore problematic. Second, the agendas of police unions mostly reflect the interests of the institution (the police department) rather than those of the working class.”
He goes on to say,
“In 1970 the NY PBA made a move to break parity with other city workers, including firefighters, corrections deputies, and sanitation workers. This is telling, and not just because it shows the lack of solidarity between police associations and the rest of the working class. It indicates that police associations organize more along institutional rather than class lines. That is, they organize police as police, not as workers.”
I believe this is vital to people’s view of police as just another set of workers who sell labor power. They have contracted out with the state to gain a temporary lease on “legitimate state violence”. Their unions serve to further their bargaining power, further their own institutional demands, and increase their ability to wield the leased state violence with little to no oversight.
In most cases the capitalist classes are happy to meet the demands and increase the power of the police so long as they serve to dish out violence to the rebellious and dispossessed and perpetuate enormous class inequalities and wealth hoarding.
Alone, in normal “civilian” society, lower ranking police may face day to day hardships that most people deal with, but they are tied to an institution that is responsible for using state violence to kill workers and poor people, and feed the vastly increasing prison industrial complex(legal state and federal slavery) with fresh meat.
As for the certain few civilian roles they occasionally take on. That is meaningless. Other institutions not only have in the past taken on those roles, but could be developed to do so more effectively in any future society. Specifically Bostonian mentions traffic directing, but these roles also include the enforcing of certain social laws that do in some cases protect people. Laws against domestic abuse, rape, or violent anti-social crime is the example most often used. But the idea that this their main function, or even a function that must be wedded to the police force is problematic and also short sighted.
Community patrols could easily be formed to deal with anti-social crime in a different society with different aims. As we know, in revolutionary society this often happens along with armed insurrection by the forming of dual power structures. Of course, Fanon deals with the idea of dual power and reclamation of violence as something that is basic to any de colonization or revolutionary process.
In our current society, because police alone own the leased rights to “legitimate state violence”, any dual power structure, armed and ready to deal with contradictions among the people is seen as a threat. This is why gang enforcement is one of the central tasks of urban police departments.
This issue has its specific history in the radicalization of different Black and Brown Power movements in the 60′s and 70′s and their pointed challenges to state violence.
Gangs in urban areas represent the legacy of that. They are an organized threat to the legitimacy of the police’s ownership over state violence. Half of the work the Police Departments do, for instance, is work to perpetuate gang turf wars and keep the flow of drugs into poor communities well monitored. This is far preferable to them than armed, conscious, and unified “gang members” who are working for the betterment of the people.
In short, police are not ordinary workers. Individual members may in some cases have some private sympathy to any number of progressive or reformist ideas, but until they throw their uniform in a bonfire, there is just no trusting them, and even then….
What do others think?
Maybe a few specific posts about the role of police may be in order?
g. bylinkin said
On the role of the police, I would highly reccomend Kristian Williams’ book “Our Enemies in Blue” on South End Press.
FleeYourHomes said
I second that
FleeYourHomes said
Also “Forces of Deviance: Understanding the Dark Side of Policing”
by Victor E. Kappeler ; Richard D. Sluder ; Geoffrey P. Alpert
Abbas Goya II said
Great, detailed debate on the role of the police. There is nothing you can say that you could defend this oppressive institution. Is a police a working class member? If you go by the Marxian definition of “worker is someone who has nothing to sell but his/her labor”, Yes, a police is a worker. But that fact doesn’t make him a defender of the working class INTEREST. Quite the opposite. that institution is by default to suppress the working class VIOLENTLY, direct physical violence to the point of killing. But then, don’t look at the cop as a self-relied institution as I hear. A state doesn’t just “like” the police.The armed forces, police specifically, is an inseparable section of the states. If no armed forces, we could get rid of the whole 193 states around the world over a night.
At the same time, we should not forget the dialectics of the class struggles that would make this very force to act as the enforcer of a law that we shoved into the system. So, if I see a woman is beaten by her partner and I can’t help her otherwise, I won’t hesitate to call a cop while I know, that tomorrow when I’m rallying against the wage cut, that very cop will beat the hell out of me under the pretext of “trespassing” the sidewalk of Department of Finance.
When looked at the individual unit of this force, you might see that that young fellow who joins this force has a totally different reasoning and perspective. He might genuinely has a good intended vision. He joins the police because he wants to get rid of the scumbags, the evils, the drug dealers, the mobs. He doesn’t see himself as confronting the working class. But then the “scumbags” extends to those who interrupt the order of the traffic (such as in the 700 arrests on Brooklyn Bridge), etc.
Finally, would some cops defect at a serious confrontation with the working class? It is possible. That’s where you could actually look at a cop as a human. We could and I think we should encourage that. Telling the cops that he has a choice NOT TO OBEY his boss when he’s told to beat and arrest us at our rallies. Let’s turn the table. Let the fear of not trusting each other reaches the police station this time. After all a split within that force is always beneficial to the society at large!
Enough about the police role on my part. (more later …)
Mike E said
Class is not a sociological label for individuals in Marxism, it is a description of groups of people (i.e. classes). Even leftists in the U.S. (soaking the generalized individualism of society) think of class in individual terms, rather than thinking of class in class terms. The working class is not an aggregate of working class individuals (the way a bag of marbles is made up of individual marbles). The working class is a class (it is itself an entity) with gray zones at its fringes, its own history, its process of differentiations and stratification, an arc of development and influence.
When the discussion slips into individual sociology (is a waiter with a masters a worker? is this cop a working class guy…) the actual point is gone at some point — and the discussion has slipped, in a very mainstream american fashion, away from class and back to evaulating individuals.
Cops are often drawn from the working classes (especially from the most aspiring and backward parts of the working classes). But their role (on that landscape of classes) are not as workers, or as part of the working class. On the contrary.
But the relationship cops have to society is not as workers — but as enforces of the dominant system.
They don’t “work” — they aren’t part of the production, transport or even “service” sectors of society. They are enforcers.
And the fact that their job situations have the crude trappings of a working class life (wages, bosses, unions, complaints, whatever) doesn’t make them workers.
They are armed enforcers of a legal system that defends and codifies the oppression of millions.
I once said, casually, that homelessness could be solved overnight in this society. Someone hearing that snapped back “How?”
All you would have to do is call the cops off in society (as a thought experiment). On a bitter cold night in Chicago, what prevents the homeless from sleeping in the hotels? why are they (like rats) forced down below into Wacker Drive? Only the cops. If (by some magic) there were no cops suddenly, all the daily-enforced rules and barriers of wealth, property, etc. would reveal their reliance on armed force. What makes this building his, and not yours? nothing but a structure that arises from class society, is codified by law, and enforced by police guns.
SKS said
I am orthodox on this:
“State and Revolution” by V.I Lenin has all you need to know about cops :)
BIDD said
There are many points that are worth discussing here, and Bostonians non-dogmatic down to earth approach rooted in the ‘quotidian’ experience of everyday life is very welcome; it’s sad to see the more dogmatic folks going after him for speaking honestly from his own experience. The problem I have with the revolutionary oldboy set is that there can be a tendency to be incredibly dogmatic about a limited library of texts from marxists/revolutionary thinkers and the theories within them. While it is true that many of those theories were rooted in the politics of the time and daily life struggles, the longer they have been dislodged from their context the more the potential grows for them to be used in ways that cause more suffering than they prevent. Particularly dogmas that paint an entire group of people as good or bad, like the ‘police are our enemies’ dogma are incredibly dangerous because they close the door on so many opportunities for experimentation. Yes the ‘police’ is a structure of power but it is constantly manifested and recreated in the minds of individual officers who are thinking feeling humans. Assuming they are all thinking the same way all the time is not only a way of thinking that resembles elements of fascist ideology, it ignores the possibility that maybe some are not thinking the same way, or maybe some would want to think differently if given the chance. You can still have your ‘cops are the enemy’ theory, but why enforce it the way that bible-thumpers enforce their gospel? It just seems like a waste….
I want to emphasize that ALL THEORY comes from everyday life, and the strongest ideas will be rooted in the most direct experience of the NOW, not the spanish civil war or paris 68 or Russia or anything except the here and now. Of course standing on the shoulders of giants is important and classic theories must be constantly reinterpreted in order to fit them into context. Think of Liberation theology and how its approach to ‘gospel’ like the bible is different from evangelical/orthodox christianity, this is the kind of playful attitude toward texts that will prevent you from dying alone in an abandoned marxist reading room behind a dusty door on some street corner. (not a lib. theologist by the way just using it as a metaphor…)
the second thing I want to emphasize is MULTIPLICITY. The concern seems to be about ‘who is in control of the movement’, and of course you see the astroturfing happening right now from democratic groups and even Obama at a recent press conference essentially using the OWS crowd as his ‘attack dog’ which will ‘only get more upset…… if you don’t pass my bill’. Of course you want to try and prevent this kind of co-opting… but wait! isn’t that exactly what is being talked about here when commenters say “we need to get into this OWS thing and do it right, according to classic socialist rules”( or whatever camp you come from). When it comes down to it, any popular movement is a moving equilibrium, there are many entities of power who are constantly fighting to determine the ‘identity’ of it. The poster seems to want to stop this activity and prevent something along the lines of a sanitized liberal hegemony over the movement…. but isn’t what is being proposed here similar to what democratic astroturfing would seek to do? that is, swallow the vibrant swarm of fish collectively forming OWS using one big ‘shark’… well what do you think, would that actually be more powerful? to have ‘fixed’ and ‘frozen’ the identity of the movement in this way?
well, I don’t think so. It’s called a movement because it moves! rather than seeking to discourage multiplicity, I believe it should be encouraged. If I had my choice in terms of philosophical idols… I would like to see more Deleuze and Dubord and less Lenin (god forbid right). Just as the moment of revolution cannot be predicted, the specific formula or faction that ends up being the tipping point cannot be predicted (as much as every camp wants to be the one to do it). Therefore I say that MULTIPLICITY should be defended rather than any one interpretation. “DEFEND MULTIPLICITY” still allows criticism of the astroturfing that will happen now, but it also allows each person to follow the movement according to their faction’s interpretation, you can go all out Leninist if you want or follow whichever dogma you believe in, and as long as you let other factions coexist, and no single one dominate. If this is done well and organic ‘movement’ that is always this, that, and the other is kept alive and kept from being killed and frozen or stuffed in some democratic or marxist taxidermy project, then it can ONLY grow bigger, and whatever portion of it ends up accomplishing changes can be allowed to do so.
Funnily enough this vision in it self is a detournement of the wall st. “market”, it is an activist free market that is people-centered, and the capital it generates is human capital, and ideally justice, goodwill, peace, revolution, what have you. These are the real commodities and we have the chance to share them equally rather than ending up in a sick immitation of wall. st itself where one small faction hordes all of the ‘capital’ and enjoys exclusive dominion over it and it is never shared or allowed to circulate and be consumed. I propose allowing the movement to be what I think it is right now already despite various attempts at astroturfing: an alternative ‘free market’ of human capital that is generating wealth through generous and equal exchange of human commodities like peace, justice, goodwill, revolution, food (for eating!), etc etc etc. Unlike wall st, in this “market” or Bazaar if you will, commodities are for consumption and their value is determined rationally by the people who need and use them; it is regulated by everybody not just a few leaders, and any abuse or attempt at hoarding is checked by the collective as soon as it rears its head. Like post structuralism, labels and dogmas that fix and dominate the unlimited possibility of the everyday are fought against, but unlike post-structuralism that eschews all labels and paralyzes itself in unreadable esoteric theory, the perspective of multiplicity accepts labels and their value/necessity. it does not value one over the other and embraces multiple perspectives, meanings, signs, and constructs. Rather than DE-constructing or tearing down, Multiplicity hacks into, modifies, works with the fundamental truth that all constructs are in motion and every system is constantly being reconstructed by the people in it and therefore open to change, sublation, metamorphosis, mutation, etc etc.
in summary, we can build many beautiful worlds at the same time, why settle for one!
KDN
lowgenius said
When I start hearing these “occupiers” start talking about how to help someone besides themselves, I’ll cheerfully get on board. As it stands right now? I hear “forgive MY student loan debt,” but I don’t hear “free university education.” I hear “give ME health care,” but I don’t hear “I’m willing to pay for someone else’s health care.” I hear “MY life is hard,” I hear “*I* can’t afford,” I hear fingerpointing and blame-laying, but I’m not seeing or hearing a damn thing that comes close to people finally waking up and taking responsibility for their own cheerful and enthusiastic complicity in creating the monster that they now wish to put down.
You want a revolution?
Start with learning how to give a damn when it’s NOT all about you.
Mike E said
I love all the cranky arguments about how the world has to comply before they “cheerfully get on board.” No responsibility toward the new, no generocity toward the newbie. Just irrelevant demands (of the people no less!) and a stand-off crankiness.
Part of me suspects that the next radical movement is better off without this tone and mood — and its carriers.
Abbas Goya II said
I second Mike’s post re the class belonging. The cops, the US president, and the factory worker might all be considered as workers when looked at individually. However, what ultimately makes them part of a class is their function. A capitalist state, including the US president and the cops are to oppress the working class on behalf of capitalists even if none of the members of the state apparatus own a single means of production. That’s all to it.
When I meet a cop on Brooklyn Bridge we hardly ask each other’s class-id. It is a war with clear distinction on who stands on what side. When a scab wants to cross the picket line, it is a war. Their side is clear, so is mine. The scabs happen to be the most desperate workers. BUT when they attempt to cross the picket line, the are declaring a war against working class on behalf of capitalists.
By the same token, I don’t need to worry about the class-id of my fellow protesters on Brooklyn Bridge or in various Occupy actions. The protesters’ function is this: they are challenging capitalism and hence I write down their actions in my “Working class struggle” calendar.
The Bostonian said
BIDD, thank you for your comment defending my writing here. I have to stress that daily experience and the world we live in as both thinkers and doers, or as Achilles father said to him before going off to the Trojan war ” be a speaker of words and be a doer of deeds.”
Mr. Davidson, no need to be ‘fresh’ with me on this blog. The amusing thing is that you believe that the OWS has some type of radical value, when it has been funded by non-other than corporations such as Ben & Jerry’s (at least in my hometown it is.) The truth is that many of my dear friends have pulled there weight in life through community college and state school with little debt problems (the devil-in-the-details is that they served in the army), since they have worked hard most of their late teens and early adult lives saving up, applied for the proper financial assistance, but also went to the unions for their generous apprentice training programs. UMASS Boston, the biggest commuter state school, costs 5,000 dollars a year in grand total. Not the 55,000 at least to go to the private colleges in the city. These colleges that are private still are mostly the tromping ground of the upper-middle class.
Most of these people are out-of-state. Basically the movement is fast becoming the liberal astro-turf of the democrats. Demanding capitalism with a human face, fair trade, and all the liberal-left bullshit pouring from the center-left media like The Nation, or Z Magazine.
The Tea-party was also for a short moment a really frustrated layer of the middle-class upset about themselves, now Fox news has swept in and the rest is history.
The 2 movements are pawns of the liberal/conservative corporate elite. The only ‘movement’ from OWB is the movement of their tents at night trying to score! My dad told me what it was like being raised in Europe during 68′. It was the same type of ‘defective consumer’ mentality with a blue-collar world sick of doing dumb jobs at car factories and revolting not for socialism, but for being tired and confused with the modern world. The movie the Dreamers is a good display of the attitude, (forgive me but most of the movie sucks, but reading an intelligent review would be just as good.)
But the silver lining in the cloud, many people are pissed off about this economy. People do have genuine emotions of being part of a real movement, but if it’s stuck with wearing stinky cloths dirty cloths, dread-locks, and bongo drums, this is only a party. Also, if they were really the poor and suffering, they would all be looking for a job, hustling to work under the table, but no they live an atavism of the 60′s and late 80′s early 90′s.
Also at least Foster had the balls to be a communist, and never compromised his heart for what he saw through, during the progressive era and all it’s howling about the malfactors of great wealth.
The left must be ideological! No mincing words! I agree Davidson that there is a yearning toward something better and the goal must be to educate them, but we also must bring in better members to this and maybe be prepared for these more negative and detrimental types in my opinion.
Also, multiplicity is a good term to keep in our minds, but always be weary of who is included in such a fruitful and chaotic mess around the corner.
FleeYourHomes said
Bostonian, you make a lot of valid points…. that said, yours and others cartoonish representation of the protesters as smelly hippies with bongo drums is way off base. Try going down there and doing a little investigation. I mean, actually talking with people, finding out their problems with the system, their stories etc etc…
Yes, for the fucking record everyone, there are some off the grid, anarchist traveller kids. Most of them are pretty cool and are the ones doing the job of actually occupying the park while everyone else leaves at night to go home for their job. The nights I was there, I was pretty happy that they were their and had some great conversations with many of the campers.
So what if they are unemployed and parasite off the massive waste produced by capitalist society, more power to them. Saying that ‘if people were desperate they would hustling for under the table jobs and trying to find jobs’ is not actually correct. Most traveller people, hobos, and homeless people drop out of the rat race and live on the minimum they can scrape together. They usually don’t give a shit about making enough money to dress up like a big girl or boy and have a car and a nice itemized apartment.
If people don’t have the same values or family responsibilities as you, who are you to tell them to “get a job” etc etc… More boring conservatism masked as radicalism IMHO.
As far as the analysis of “this won’t go anywhere because of this and that class analysis” … I have yet to hear anyone give an informed argument as to why it hasn’t collapsed yet. Seems like people are almost waiting for it to collapse. I think valid and pointed criticisms are welcomed and correct. I am not saying to just close your eyes to the problems of the movement, but, If you don’t like it, organize your own contingent of radicals and exert some influence on it.
FleeYourHomes said
Also how is the “devil in the details” that your friends went to college with funding from the army totally cool with you, but the “devil in the details” that Ben and Jerry’s gave money to one of the occupy movements somehow not ok with you. Seems contradictory.
Abbas Goya II said
Um, well, unfortunately the shaky position of Bostonian is now turning to the right completely although wrapped under the goodwill for “communism”. What goes on right here, along these lines of debate, is a class struggle from within (if we consider the ideas exchanged as part of OWS protests).
Let’s for a second assume that all criticism of BIDD, Bostonian and the more explicit neoliberalist Lowgenius towards the OWS movement are true. The question bounces back to all of YOU. What do you want to do with a movement, that has targeted the financial heart of capitalism and its popularity is reaching Taiwan, a movement that liberals/conservatives are so desperate to tame, a movement that the working class in their various organizational forms are supporting it. (I don’t care what the intention of the leaders of Democrats’s affiliated union are. Once they commit to this movement, they’ll be in trouble to back it off because the base of unions, the anti-capitalist workers, won’t let the unions to back off its support that easy).
You can either sit down and watch the meltdown of this movement into the body of the Democrats OR you can ATTEMPT to take over the lead and articulate its deed. That’s your choice. Where do you stand on this?
FYI: There is no such a thing as a clear cut industrial workers movement, wearing factory uniforms, marching on a sunny day towards the white house, determined to demolish capitalism with their hammers. Failure to understand the dialectics of class struggle would end up to be either sitting at home, doing nothing or in the case of the above-mentioned folks turn into the proxies for the capitalists interests in various degrees.
BIDD said
these are all great comments, my little brother is one of those travelling anarchist kids and they are a very solid bunch, not parasites at all or ‘lifestyle anarchists’ just very resourceful talented artistic youth not concerned with what anyone thinks of them really. As the college educated son who didn’t drop out, I borrow a lot of money from my parents and am certainly guilty of the ‘spoiled’ stereotype although I’m banking on being able to pay my debts with what I can do later in life. My little bro on the other hand borrows absolutely nothing from our parents, gets by all on his own. I can’t help but think he chose the better way to live. Everyone I know who was in school with him says he is the happiest person they know. If kids like him can reconcile with the communist camp and other camps and somehow coexist, there is great potential for a thriving social ecosystem, the anarchists would be the decomposers/scavangers, and others could take the roles they are skilled at….
also check out this http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/677498/%22occupy_the_hood%22:_black_protesters_start_chapter_to_educate,_diversify_ows/#paragraph2
very interesting to watch everything develop…. Abbas lumped me with the criticism crowd, but I am very much in favor of OWS and looking past the stereotypes being thrown around about them to see what is really going on. Having connected to mainstream media, organized labor, and with sub caucuses like black caucus supposedly springing up, they have achieved in a matter of weeks what is a lot of crusty revolutionary type’s wet dream… I think lots of people who werent initially involved are quite jealous and everyone wants to tell them how to run it or try to lead it in their direction.
I think theres this emotional impulse to co-opt that Moveon.org and those elements of the political machine are feeling when they launch co-opting projects like this stupid “virtual march’ campaign that was a thinly veiled attempt to get people to sign up for their mailing list. It’s the SAME impulse, in my opinion, that some communists on here are feeling when they say they should “attempt to take over the lead and articulate…”
welcome to the opportunism stage, many life lessons to be learned here for all involved
BIDD said
also for reference, this is how the 60s generation did it, what kinds of insights might you draw from comparing these images to today? http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/2011/10/black-mask-wall-street-1967.html
BIDD said
Fink thinks that today’s Occupy Wall Street protests are different. “We’ve gone past the time when utopia seemed like a viable option,” he said. “There’s no hope for some kind of Marxist future, so it seems formless. They just know that it can’t go on like this: the greed, the inequality. It can’t go on, so we’ll sit here.”
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/2011/10/black-mask-wall-street-1967.html#ixzz1aFHRtuaQ
I’m sure you’ll have a field day with that quote, har har! where to begin eh?
Abbas Goya II said
BIDD:
“Multiplicity” that is concluded from the above fuzz, is the code-name for “Democratic Party program”. After all the winner of a “free market of human capital” over a bid for ***real commodities such as goodwill, peace, or revolution*** is the one who can afford the highest bid.
Which current single OWS-involved organization can compete the “goodwill” manipulation of the Democrats, (goodwill here = tax the rich program of Obama)? Multiplied atoms? Either these “multiplied atoms” can get a unified organized lead of their own or the bigger fish will infiltrate & eat em all, one “multiplied atom” at a time if necessary.
No matter how one attempts to twist and turn and distort the OWS movement, the outcome is clear, the benefit of the capitalists or that of the 99%. Which side are you on?
BIDD said
right well I agree, the ‘capitalism with a human face’ thing is entirely what the democrats are about… but that’s not what I was trying to argue for. If you want to be entirely polemic and black & white about it, then I would fall into that camp maybe… but I hate the neoliberal warm and fuzzy capitalism as much as you I think… what I am more interested in are alternative experiments, what about punkmoney, bitcoin etc (although I predict bitcoin will fail). Just because the dems preach capitalism with a human face doesn’t mean they know what that means.. I wouldn’t call it capitalism since it would involve many alternative systems of value and exchange with the goal of living sustainably rather than generating ever more wealth (again the word ‘sustainable’ has been co-opted by green yuppies etc, but I mean it in a more literal sense not in the ‘recyclable designer watches’ sense). I firmly believe that multiplicity/diversity/broadbased/tolerant language is not the sole domain of the warm & fuzzy neoliberals– for them it is just an aesthetic smokescreen they put up because after all they are not so warm and fuzzy in practice, actually just about the same as the fellow capitalists across the aisle from them. That’s the difference with the repub/dem false dichotomy basically.. they both do the same things, but one tries to pretend it has a conscience about it. I am totally with you there,
I just think that there are actual positive ways of working across systems, hacking them, morphing them, turning them to new uses, rather than the communist POV where anything that is an apparatus of the capitalist system is automatically cursed and can’t be touched, reused, repurposed (it must be burned and an entirely new system constructed from scratch!!)… this way of thinking is actually very similar to how capitalists on wall st think! They burn surplus capital and destroy so much wealth in commodities that could be used by normal people to put food on the table or help their communities. Like this argument about the police, how that structure is corrupt and cursed and beyond repair, so in your utopia you would have to create ‘street patrols’ from scratch…. it’s like, well would you burn their uniforms and make new ones? would you let cold people on the street wear the old uniforms even if you didn’t use them, or are they like so cursed that you could even allow that. I just think it’s incredibly wasteful to insist on destroying every aspect of a flawed system before you can build anything new.. the other problem is that in the transition from destroying the previous structures to building your new ones you have nothing to support people and you end up causing a lot of suffering. The off-the-grid anarchists mentioned in the above posts are an example of how the waste of the system and elements of the system itself can be repurposed… there are a lot of useful scraps out there, it is a brave new world and as we see more environmental and economic disasters only the resourceful are going to be able to thrive… the wasteful be they speculative capitalists or communists who want to throw everything out and start fresh, are going to have a hard time!
so not only is that approach A)wasteful, its B)difficult!, and C) very very unlikely to happen… as fucked up as it is, we have what we have, bricks and mortar and fiber optic lines and institutions and models and data archives…. they are all there right now for you to take and use in *good* even very radical ways, this is the real ‘warm and fuzzy diversity’ not the one that wants to sedate you into doing nothing and going along with the same old stuff…
Abbas Goya II said
Guardian Today:
Well, we can debate it all we want. Both on local and a global scale, the fact that’s this movement is growning this fast this soon is wonderful and the conscience level appears to be pretty high. The cry for a worker communist leadership is higher than ever, in my opinion. As long as we don’t have a declaration of “clear, radical demands” coupled with organized anti-capitalist worker socialists this movement can go anywhere, we already experienced the unfortunate destiny of antiwar movement in 2002-3.
Keep it up All, Cheers
BIDD said
^for sure, definitely. keep it up is right.
here is concise summary that I liked: it confirms some of your fears and others’ excitement, arguing that what OWS could end up being is a ‘reformation’ for capitalism the way that the christian church experienced. http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2011/10/occupy-insert-your-city-here-making-capitalisms-crisis-reality.html
one thing that is true i think is when he talks about capitalism as the last great ideological system in a post-ideological world. but the communist perspective here would find his summary troubling I think, am I right?
james walsh said
Look at the majorquestions of power and politics concentrated in this moment and this movement. Get on a high plane.Represent the future within the present and the whole within the part. Represent the revolutionary within the movement —’ in a sweeping, not nit-picking, way.’
@’ in a sweeping, not nit-picking, way.’
We do have to go into our own experience in rather detailed ways to find out who is trustworth etc and reflect on our own menories to find the truths we need. But I’m into Zen- but if you combine that with Marxism and looking for self and class interest- I find it a very powerful tool and we need to go through that because their are a lot of wrong ens and stupid and foolish and self deluding that our ‘part’ of our tribe.
Some ‘nit picking’ is very necessary.
PatrickSMcNally said
“what OWS could end up being is a ‘reformation’ for capitalism the way that the christian church experienced.”
Capitalism already experienced its own Reformation from the time of the New Deal down to the Great Society, with the Civil Rights Acts along the way. The 1930s and on down to the ’60s were the time of reformation. This crisis today came about as the declining rate of profit dictated that from the ’70s and onward capital had to squeeze more profit out of labor and could no longer afford social reforms.
To follow the analogy with the Christian Church, the Reformation was not able to save the old power structure of that era either. It did for a time, but eventually the old was swept away much more comprehensively than the Reformation had allowed for. That is the stage which we are converging to today.
PatrickSMcNally said
“Which current single OWS-involved organization can compete the “goodwill” manipulation of the Democrats, (goodwill here = tax the rich program of Obama)?”
How much has Obama really said about taxing the rich? I understand that Alan Greenspan has spoken in favor of allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/07/greenspan-bush-tax-cuts_n_1000260.html
I haven’t heard anyone talk about rolling back the Reagan tax cuts. Speaking of the “tax the rich program of Obama” without reference sounds like something which Rush Limbaugh would preach. In general Obama has been very devoted to preserving Ronald Reagan’s heritage.
Abbas Goya II said
@Patrick
“Reporting from Washington— President Obama and Democrats in Congress have aligned on a populist, “tax the rich” strategy for the 2012 campaign. Now they have to figure out exactly who that is.”
Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-tax-rich-20111009,0,2167342.story
While I agree with your earlier assertion re the cause of current crisis, “as the declining [tendency] rate of profit”, however, I’m not sure what your position to “tax the rich” is. “tax the rich” is only to act as a pacifier to OWS movement. It has next-to-none effect on the economy of the US when it relates to the well being of the 99%.
Out of the projected $3.7 trillion US budget in 2012 , a ca combined $1.5 trillion is allocated for social security programs including medicare and ca 40% of the budget goes into military. All in all, there is not “shortage of taxes”. Never mind that taxes are nothing but the surplus we created, dedicated mainly into the state apparatus and its armed forces.
Bottom line: Tax the rich is to legitimize the profit making system while OWS movement is about negating the profit making system.
BIDD said
here is an interesting read from the NYT op-ed page, from a former president of SDS, would be interested to get your perspective:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/opinion/sunday/occupy-wall-street-and-the-tea-party.html?pagewanted=2&ref=opinion
Abbas Goya II said
Mike:
NYT:
Mansoor Hekmat:
Where I stood in the social context of 1979, I stood in the exact same spot in 1990, 2001, 2011: A (relevant, practical) worker communist. I was never a pro-soviet/Maoist/Trotskyst let alone Castro-ist/Hoxha-ist/Tito-ist/Euro-communist. I neither had any root or alliance with the guerrilla warfare, nationalism, reformism either. I found myself having more in common with let’s say the 18th century working class movement of 8 hours working day movement than the pro-soviet communist party of Iran in 1970s (aka “Tudeh Party”).
To me, the only short lived socialist revolution that managed to take over the political power was 1917 revolution. It was defeated from within in late 1920s, resulting in a state capitalism. While I consider Lenin as a great working class leader, I never was a Leninist either. Once I found myself critical of the society, I chose the perspective that I criticize it and I learned it DIRECTLY from Marx.
Where I was in 1992 for example, it allowed my trend to be the most outspoken, militant communist of the time. I was not dropping “communism” from my organization name, I was not moddifying my party program to incorporate more “democracy” in it, I was not trying to learn “Multicultural” vocabulary to defend the “underdog” capitalist countries.
I felt NONE whatsoever in loss of East bloc when it pertains to worker communism as a social movement. No wonder that, for instance, in the early years of 1990s led me as a practical communist find myself next to Anarchists (the only other militant leftist of the time that felt nothing out of collapse of East bloc) fighting together against the rising fascism and racism in Europe.
Having said all the above, as much as the October Revolution itself shook the world, the collapse of East bloc shook the world too, in an almost opposite direction. The bourgeoisie communism of soviet had collapsed. Good ridden. But at the same time, the “communism” abstracted from prefixes has to reclaim itself via reinstating as a political power – a state – in order to prove its feasibility, specially in the West bloc and more specifically in the US where there has always been on ongoing anti-communism propaganda machine. Now, in order to reclaim communism on a state level you need to lead the mass in order to take over the power. At the first glance it appears paradoxical. (more later …)
BIDD said
that’s a great response, thank you for sharing your perspective, hope to read more…
as for me I feel more of a lineage with the marxists-turned-anarchists or just plain anarchist types like Henri Lefebvre, Guy Dubord, and their next generation: Manuel Castells, Edward Soja, Zygmunt Bauman and more. So that’s my faction.. but it’s interesting how we all try to regain ownership over our labels and make them fit what is happening now. I don’t want to step on others’ feet unless it is fascist feet, because what we have now is a sort of anarchist ‘free market’ for activism growing, where your factions value is going to depend on your contribution. OCCUPY is more of a platform now, an hub and exchange, where you can bring what you have to the table and try to gain a following and value.. this could be criticized but so far it seems to be working and gaining momentum:
right now you have anarchists playing with capitalism, and capitalists playing at being anarchist. Look up dark pool / dark liquidity in investing… they are decentralizing and going horizontal in the same way that the op-ed author argues the left has. what does this mean? is it one being corrupted by the other, another mask of continued capitalist system? or are former solid barriers and structures, us vs. them, all melting into liquid? what will be left? what can we build?
BIDD said
FYI Zizek just spoke to/with the crowd at #ows
Tarig Anter said
Occupy Wall Street and Ron Paul are different but together they are the only hopes for the US and the World right now. Obama must go!
http://tariganter.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/end-the-fed-and-ron-paul-political-positions/
Mike E said
Abbas Goya II:
Bragging that you haven’t changed your views since 1979 strikes me as nothing to brag about.
Arguing that you didn’t need to incorporate new ideas or insights (over two generations of vast changes) is the problem I was talking about when I used the word “lagging.” While you have been stubbornly stuck in your fantasy of permanent correctness — the world has been changing, and many new experiences in the world have demand to be summed up. You can, of course, say that nothing significant happened since the 1920s in the Soviet Union… and so there is nothing to sum up…. but that itself is a problem.
Given what we learned (for example) in 1968, or through the Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions, or the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, or the following decades of counterrevolution… we have new things to sum up about the assumptions and decisions of the early communists of the 1920s.
Abbas Goya II said
I noticed your posting after I wrote this, I’ll get back to you in my next posting. As a matter of fact I would have addressed the point you mentioned anyways but I’m happy that you raised it.
A quick breach
A) Sure Ron Paul is “different” from OWS, the same way that the dark is different from the light. One is the seed for fascism (in its exact meaning), and the OWS is about worker’s socialism.
Let’s not forget that it’s not only the communists or the anarchists who are against the state apparatus, extreme right wings are against it too. This marginalized trend within capitalism has existed since the French revolution. It only gets some highlights at a time of capital crisis. It seeks a “totally free market”, seeks elimination or a very small govt in order to remove any and all barriers from capital, a tea party propaganda but a classic right wing tendency.
Check this “disguised” tea party guy out who actually makes the same propaganda in the midst of OWS crowd: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFz1VVXsWRU
Which reminds me again that opposite to “No taxes” of the tea party is NOT “more taxes” or “tax the rich”; it is “No Profit”. At a time of capital crisis, only radical ideas get attention, either the extreme right or the radical left. “in between” solution, such as “tax the rich, resolves nothing; neither capitalists buy it nor the people.
B) An observation -165 years ago Marx said: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways: the point, however, is to change it.” and now we have some academia who call themselves “Marxist philosophers”!? Talking about contradictions and Zizek. But then, as soon as the “Marxist philosopher” enters the politics sphere, he is nothing but a “traditional left”, a critic of capitalism from a nationalist, from an anti-imperialist, from a middle-class…(you mention it) point of view, anything BUT a critic of capitalism from the WORKER’s point of view.
PatrickSMcNally said
“One is the seed for fascism (in its exact meaning), and the OWS is about worker’s socialism. Let’s not forget that it’s not only the communists or the anarchists who are against the state apparatus, extreme right wings are against it too.”
That’s pretty convoluted. Unless one is simply using the term “fascist” as a slur, there is really no resemblance between that and “free market” ideology. Hitler and Mussolini certainly never leaned towards “free markets” as an answer. They strongly adhered to the idea that state intervention was necessary to compensate for what the free market failed to deliver.
“End the Fed!” is a reactionary slogan based upon a Misesian perspective. But it really doesn’t bear much fundamental relation to fascism. The Federal Reserve System was first established at a time when the capitalist state was still amenable towards passing regulations upon capital.
The Free Banking Era of the 19th century had seen unregulated private banks issuing paper notes which were supposedly backed by gold but which routinely exceeded by factors in the thousands the volume of gold which the issuers of the notes actually possessed. This periodically resulted in bank-runs where people would panic and try to exchange their notes for real gold, only to find out that the bank was forced to close its doors because it had no gold left. In the early 20th century reformers saw fit to place regulations upon private banks which required that some reserves be kept in holding proportional to the notes issued. That led to the creation of the Fed as a regulatory agency.
Since the 1980s we’ve seen any effective regulatory capacity which the Fed once exerted more or less done away with. That does not mean that Marxists should be absorbed in trying to resurrect old bourgeois regulations which were first enacted and then abolished by the bourgeoisie itself. But there is a difference between slogans such as “Restore Glass-Steagall!” versus “End the Fed!” The first type of slogan is part of an effort to return to the older era of bourgeois regulations on capital. The second is part of an effort to strip such regulations even further away than has been done yet.
Abbas Goya II said
Mike, I’m not sure how you concluded that I’m not incorporating ideas in my critic, please note that I mentioned I belonged to a ** relevant, practical ** worker communism. How could one claim to be relevant and practical and yet have no ideas about the world TODAY, and of course of the past? As you know there are “clean hand, library communists” who practice nothing. Whenever you ask them what do you think about the world today, they say “the cause of all our problems is the antagonism of labor and capital”. A true, general statement without any whatsoever practical conclusion.
Working class theories and ideas doesn’t bloom in vacuum and in libraries, nor in contemplation room. It emerges from the midst of class war.
The theories that I belong to, and differentiated itself from all other expressions of communism emerged from within the 1979 revolution, starting by criticism of populism which was the dominant trend in the left of Iran. This criticm ithin short let to the foundation of the biggest communist party in Iran, namely, the communist pary of Iran (CPI).
The critique of populism included the critique of nationalism, nationalism the critique of guerrilla warfare, .
The other breakthrough theories of the trend I belong to was the critique of Russian revolution. we consider that the only working class revoluton that led to the take over of the power and hence an exprience that we need to examin carefuly and learn from. As the reuslt of s lengthy debate we concluded that the defeat of Russian revolution ultimately occurred in the implantation of socialist economy, which its outline was a matter of a lenghty debate within the Belshovic’s party in the post-civil war in late 1920s. All other countries that later on used the state capitalism of Russia as their model of “communism” therefore and simply put were running on a state capitalist economy. Their history are not mine. Also, the fact that a superpower in the world of two superpowers was associated with workers, many irrelevant movements (which in essense were nationalists seeking indepenent) were disguized with “communism”, so was China and Vietnam. So was the ME “Arab socialism” and the African “third way to socialism”. None of those the victory or expriences of working class in power, not our history so to say.
Once soviet collapsed we wrote “Our differences” in which we outlined the main political trends of capitalism that plays a role in the post-cold war era, namely nationalism and democracy. We criticized both the concepts and practices of the two beyond Marx criticism.
BTW – While Trotsky was a great cadre of Belsheviks, what ultimately was coined ast “trotskysm” was his critique of state capitalism from the democracy point of view.
I’m using “we” while I should really give the main credit to Mansoor Hekmat who was a great Marxist thinker and formulated all the above.
The last brilliant critique Hekmat had before he passes away out of cancer in July 2002, was “The World After September 11″ in which he criticized both US militarism and political Islam as two poles of terrorists.
In short, Marxism to us is the critique of capitalism form Worker’s point of view, not only we have incorporated original but marxist ideas , but if you compared the ideas presented from this trend to that “traditional left”, you find the latter stuck in cliches, typcially sectarians who would wake up with a dream to polycopy wished the state of russian in 1917 into the US of 1985, frankly a rozen, low calibred mindset incapable of applying Marxism to the world of TODAY.
Anyways, this is longer story that I can fit into this comment box, if interested check this a short and more accurate summary to the development of Worker-communism I belong to.
http://abbasgoya.com/1591
BTW – Quite a few of Mansoor Hekmat’s essays are published in marxists.org
Abbas Goya II said
Sorry about the typos/syntax errors in my previous posting. I didn’t get a chance to edit it before posting.
@Patrick
“That’s pretty convoluted.”
Sorry about that. The two sentences you quoted were not immediately related. What I meant is this:
Fascism was first a political movement, a populist tendency that appears as a grassroots movement. It would use public’s dissatisfaction for its own objective. “Hitler rose to power by exploiting the bigotry of his constituency. Today, the tea party movement and the GOP are doing much the same thing.” (this is just a random quote I found on the Net but it describes my point).
You’re absolutely right that the “End the Fed” does not remotely match Hitler or Mussolini’s state capitalism. That’s why I say these guys (Ron Paul and the guy on video) are the “seeds” of fascism. What this seed would look like tomorrow in terms of a specific economy, is hard to tell. It’s frankly hardly up to them.
I believe that this libertarian nonsense (“total free market”) is only good for capitalism as a political movement in contrast to worker socialism, in order to APPEAR radical and beneficial to individuals. However, once a grass-rooted capitalist movement sits in power, the economical options are unlimited as long as the options serve to reconstruct the capitalism out of the crisis, which can only happen on top of a gigantic human cost.
Abbas Goya II said
BTW – When it comes to our confrontation to this tendency, we need to both expose it as a political movement resembled to that of fascism AND confront its specific economic rant of the day. One calls it “End of Fed”, the other calls it “Restore Glass-Steagall!” makes no difference. We need to expose each and every specific expression ** IF ** that specific policy is used to gain popularity among the mass.
Abbas Goya II said
BTW – When it comes to our confrontation to this tendency, we need to both expose it as a political movement resembled to that of fascism AND confront its specific economic rant of the day. One calls it “End of Fed”, the other calls it “Restore Glass-Steagall!” makes no difference. We need to expose each and every specific expression ** IF ** that specific policy is used to gain popularity among the mass.
Abbas Goya II said
Linguistically speaking, I’m learning alot of English words on this site – which is great -, one of which is “convoluted”. Using an online dictionary, I gathered that it means “unclear” and hence the apology. If its usage is beyond that, well, it doesn’t make sense to apologize.
While at it, I rephrase
“once a grass-rooted capitalist movement” to
“once a grass-rooted extreme right movement”
and
“that specific policy is used to gain popularity among the mass.” to
“people start paying attention to them”.
BIDD said
“For infinite eons our elemental body has drifted along in the waves of birth and death, compelled by craving, never at rest for a moment, going from one state to another, piling up a mountain of bones, drinking oceans of milk. Why ? Because we have no insight and do not realize that the five clusters are fundamentally empty… ” – Shih-Shuang
SKS said
How libertarianism leads to fascism requires both an understanding of libertarian theory, and of the history of fascism and of anarchism – and might be too extensive for this medium.
Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom” is purportedly a criticism of socialist slavery, a celebration of libertarian capitalism. However, read critically, it is an unwitting explanation of one of the roots of fascism: the emergence of a mass movement against big capital in the midst of a crisis of capital – which leads to ruling class panic and the seeking of the abolition of parliamentarian democracy and the establishment of fascist dictatorship. It is made obvious by Hayek’s defense of “anti-communist” dictatorships, most notably Chile under Pinochet, which he goes as far as to describe as “freer” than even the USA.
Miniarchist and anarcho-capitalists might declare themselves anti-fascist, but this is an idle declaration with no teeth: fascism is only the dictatorial expression of capitalism and the only way to abolish fascism is to abolish capitalism altogether.
Going back in history, we find that (anarcho)-syndicalism played a role in support of all of the big F facisms: in Italy one of the leaders of the March on Rome, Michele Bianchi was a syndicalist until he joined the labor group of the Fascists, in Spain Ramiro Ledesma founded the Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-sindicalistas (JONS – Unions of the National-Syndicalist Offensive) – the direct precursor to the Francoist Falange Española, in Germany the Strasser brothers gave voice to these views, Otto Strasser being the grandfather of modern Third Positionism as he survived the war.
Libertarianism, and the anarchists unwilling to fight against libertarianians because of ideological similarities, are not the trojan horse of fascism, they are fascism.
Abbas Goya II said
Gorbachev’s Perestroika & Glasnost were supposed to lead USSR to a social democratic welfare state such as Sweden of 1980s. The outcome however was a neoliberalist free market. Gorbachev was the seed and Boris Yeltsin was the result.
We can’t be more catholic than the pope. We can’t predict the exact economic format of capitalism that suits it best at its crisis even though logically speaking a state capitalism makes most sense. Honestly, I care less what economic format suits capitalism the best.
All I know is this: To survive capital crisis, capital has to be reconstructed and in the process capitalism eliminates a good portion of its C (constant) and V (variable) capital. V being labor, being human. In reality, this process appears first on a political level, a fascist like movement that can delude people. It must be in a fascistic style in order to justify the V elimination.
All I do is this: I refute and confront whatever capitalists claim to be the solution, now and in the future – in crisis or in booming- and as alternative I agitate for socialism, worker socialism and try to get our movement strong enough to overthrow capitalism.
Marq Dyeth said
SKS makes a very important point when they point out the tangled history of fascism and parts of the Left. I think it is a mistake, though, to say that anarchism is fascism. Or that libertarianism is fascism. That seems to leave out a lot of the contradictory nature of fascism from the picture.
J. Sakai (of Settler’s) said this about fascism in a review of Don Hammerquist’s book Fascism and Anti-Fascism :
and
The whole (long) book review is here. And it has flaws! Sakai sometimes seems willing to go along with an Islamism = fascism formula that reminds me of things that Christopher Hitchens and the Neo-Conservatives were writing in the early ’00s. But there are valuable observations and analysis to be had, too.
http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/books/fascism/shock.html
BIDD said
this man speaks common sense and not dogma, if he isn’t listened to, I fear that history will just repeat itself: http://www.youtu.be/O-25qp55ECA
Tarig Anter said
Any country must not be hostage of one ideology and all of it painted with the color whatever it is. Capitalism, socialism, and all other ****isms must coexist and this is the beauty and challenge of life.
Let us not be judgmental and understand Ron Paul political positions on different issues. Definitely any group or individual will disagree with many of his stands. But this is not enough to give up any negotiation and attempts to discover middle grounds and viable program.
The government system is not in the White House or The Capitol; but it is in the bigger establishment. And no real changes may come fast, easy or complete.
I still insist that bringing Ron Paul to power is the best way for all the different lovely mosaic of Occupy Wall Street movement.
Let me end with a smile: Courtesy: Alan Scott, http://maureenholland.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/we-know-who-broke-this-but-can-anyone-fix-it/
3 reasons form a disgruntled right winger about why the Tea Party is better than OWS are:
[With all due respects, the Occupy Wall Streeters are not fit to carry the tea bags of the Tea Partyers .
Tea Partyers do not block traffic and pick fights with cops . Tea Partyers shower .]
Tarig Anter said
Ron Paul is implementing a good tactics. If things keep going the way they are he is going to force the neo-con Republican party to reject the Constitution out in the open where all can see.
Then his forces can start new drive to elect Dr. Paul as the people’s Independent candidate, putting the burden on the phony left and the phony right to not only attack one another but the Constitution and the people at the same time.
No matter what lies they try to put forth through the mainstream propaganda machine they cannot change the fact that the protesters are united as individual free citizens fighting for the re-institution of the Republic under the Constitution and as such they cannot be defeated.
In short, Dr. Paul is using the Republican platform and the exposure it offers to get the message out for as long as possible.
Abbas Goya II said
@SKS
I appreciate your informative note.
@Marq Dyeth
“Fascism is a revolutionary movement of the right against both the bourgeoisie and the left, of middle class and declassed men, that arises in zones of protracted crisis.”
Interesting. All of a sudden we have found a new social form: “a revolutionary movement of” the “Middle class and declassed men”. It might be fine to you but not to me as a Marxist. In the Manifesto of the Communist Party, chapter 1, Marx says:
“In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.
Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.”
To be honest, even if Marx had not mentioned the above, I would still define fascism as the ultimate inhumane face of capitalism.
Tarig Anter said
from my long experience in dealing with governments in more than a dozen of them I assure you that if you slash more than half of government officials or the so-called public dis-service and throw them to the streets you will definitely get better, effective and efficient administrations. I am sure they are the source of corruption and corporate greed support. I have never seen in long life any government department or an office functioning properly.
They are excesses, idles, and the antithesis of innovation, ethics and productivity.
People must have regular and uninterrupted access to monitor what are going on in any government office, low or high, including the judiciary, the police, the security, and the military.
When you deal personally with a successful private business you feel your power as a valued customer even if it was unethical business. But when I personally deal with any government office I feel their arrogance and wickedness; I wish I could spit on their faces.
The public service anywhere in the world is ten times it’s optimum size, and they are very good in employing the failures and the dishonest for life.
To Occupy Wall Street and bring social, political, and economic justice people must axe useless officials first.
Abbas Goya II said
@ALL
Does anyone have insight into the clashes between KKE (Communist Party of Greece) and Anarchists in Athens today?
http://www.demotiximages.com/photo/887712/many-injured-severe-inter-protester-battle-athens
Marq Dyeth said
@ Abbas Goya II:
Marx wrote the Manifesto of the Communist Party in 1848. I believe things have changed substantially since then. But even so- Marx was well aware of the phenomenon we are discussing. In Part I of the Manifesto he writes
The “dangerous class”, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.
Whether you support what Marx wrote about the “dangerous class” or not, it is clear from history that 1. fascism can have a popular base among people who experience a lived antagonism to capitalism and 2. while fascism may be used as a tool by bankers, landlords, and generals in times of crisis, it can also get away from them and turn the tables. Fascism in Germany and Italy both followed this pattern.
I know that George Jackson called David Rockefeller a fascist. I just don’t happen to agree.