Sunday, November 27, 2005
Remembering How We "Partied" in 1999
Six years ago, on November 26, 1999, I had a pretty good time joining some kids in a Reclaim the Streets demonstration that stopped a street near Times Square for a short time. It wasn’t the best RTS demonstration (which was without a doubt the save-the-gardens event the prior April), and it was far from the first one here in New York (that would be the one I went to in the fall of 1998, I think), but it was a good marker for some of us New Yorkers, a nice little warm-up for the Real Event that would happen four days later, a few thousand miles to the west.
I didn’t actually go to the demos in Seattle. I was caught up in a very taxing full-time publishing job at that time and neither I nor anyone else knew that the anti-WTO demo would turn out to be such a major breakthrough event, so I decided to stay home and simply help some people to organize a solidarity demonstration at the World Trade Center - which turned out to be a kind of pathetic little scene with about 50 activists shivering and virtually unnoticed in the freezing cold. I wasn’t even watching what was happening in Seattle that day, because I was too busy handing out leaflets, first in front of the WTC, then in the subway and Path stations below. But while I was handing out leaflets, I got more and more comments, mostly very positive, about the major stuff going down in Seattle. My fellow demonstrators were also hearing and talking about a few things, but it wasn’t until I got home and turned on the Internet and then the TV, that I understood the full impact of the demonstrations, the police reaction, and the battle taking place.
It would be kind of pathetic if I were unqualifiedly nostalgic about that event. I'm all too aware of all the flaws in the movement that that explosion created here in the U.S. I understand now how difficult it is to maintain anti-capitalist movement based on the activities of a relatively small group of mostly young people, mostly students, who are generally quite affluent, without a diverse demographic base. (Most activists were conscious from the beginning about the relative lack of diversity in race, but few ever even recognized the lack of diversity in general culture, access to information, and age.) Plus, this movement had an even bigger flaw, being that there was next to no grounding in real working-class-based struggle or much first-hand experience among many of these student types in what it's like to be a worker constantly dependent on wages to survive. (Yes, there were teamsters with the turtles, but that was relatively short-lived, and a real workers’ struggle can do so much better than teamsters anyway. The point is not that we need more involvement by people in big unions, but that we have people who know all too well, first-hand, about the exploitive relationship of capitalists vs. labor, which is the driving force of the whole system, and who might work together to turn that relationship on its head.) And I know that these are some of the reasons why this movement imploded pretty quickly in North America, though it did better overseas and, especially, in Latin America, where there really was grounding in the struggles of workers, farmers, and exploited indigenous groups. I also know, ultimately, how limited our "anti-authoritarian" groups really were in terms of how much they absorbed the basic principles that supposedly motivated them, and how, when the initial rush had receded and the pressure was on, the groups disintegrated into ugly infighting, internal rivalries, confusion, and eventual apathy. (One might say that 9-11 had a lot to do with that disintegration, but I think they were on the way to imploding before then.) But all that having been said (and I know it’s a whole lot, certainly), this was a defining and momentous moment in North America for the struggle against capitalist powers and the state.
Anybody who’d been around for a while before this demonstration happened (and the ones that followed, like the ones that I went to on April 16-17, 2000 in Washington, DC, and April 19-20, 2001 in Quebec) knows what a surprise it was to see and experience this kind of awareness, involvement, and smart, well-honed social-political disruption happening in North America, especially the U.S. Since then, of course, we regressed to the conventional, vague and ineffectual demonstrations that have been typical of our thoroughly confused and cowed "anti-war" movement, and anybody who was ever really involved in the "anti-glob" demos of five or six years ago must realize what a comedown this has been. But those who’d been around for much longer know that for a couple of decades into the 1990s, the condition of active dissent in North America, especially the U.S., had been even worse. And a lot of people also know that before the demonstration in Seattle on November 30, 1999, relatively few even knew what the WTO was and relatively few people in North America had much awareness about the workings of "corporate globalization," neoliberalism and its institutions, or the highly undemocratic ways that these institutions decided on our collective future. Nor, for that matter, was there much awareness or discussion going on about creating "another world" and working toward a more egalitarian society. But all of that, at least for a brief time, changed, at least among a number of people, and activism, itself (though still limited as activism) definitely did change, too. For all those reasons, the demonstration in Seattle that began on November 30, 1999 was a demonstration that actually made history and that should not be forgotten for a long time.
For me, there was also a very personal element... Back when I was growing up, I was very conscious of the fact that I had just missed the chance to be a truly active participant in the rebellions of the 1960s (maybe it would have been possible at 17 or 18, but not at 7 or 8!), and by the time I reached the "age of majority," I found that many former '60s activists were already quite smug and jaded, and even the ones who didn't or couldn't become complete sellouts still seemed to be embarrassed at the sight of a younger person who wanted major social change. All too often, when I was in my 20s, I got the line from old-hippie acquaintances that I should have "been around" in the '60s, because that’s when people were doing things...as though there was no point in even thinking of doing things now. (And keep in mind that when I got this lecture, from at least a few people, my own political radicalism was still kind of vague. I was more an arty kind of rebel than anything else; I hadn’t even begun, and wouldn’t begin for another ten years, to learn about real revolutionary history and theory.) Of course, back in the '80s, there was the movement of solidarity with the struggles in Central America, which was both noble and necessary, but it didn’t seem to connect that well to the problems in capitalism that we were struggling with right here at home (or at least it didn't for someone at my distance – few could understand the relevance of the global connections at this time). And then there was the no-nukes movement, which, I'm sorry to say, was really an awful bore. From the late '70s into the '90s, it seemed that the most a young "American" who was really opposed to the whole system could do was get involved in punk rock – which was really a phenomenal rebellion for a cultural/musical rebellion, at least in the late '70s and early '80s, but in the end, that's all it was. (I know that many kids learned their politics from punk, and "anarcho-punk" developed more as the years went on, but the most important thing about that phenomenon was that they might be able to do something with those politics outside of the highly fragmented world of nth-generation punk.)
I became a full-fledged anarchist (after fluctuating between anarchist and democratic socialist groups) in 1997, when the whole activist scene was still relatively inactive. Although, I think that many of the things that motivated me also motivated a number of other people to start getting involved at that point – from the Zapatista rebellion to the increasing frustration with the right-wing turn of electoral politics, including, especially, the Clinton "New Democrats," who "ended welfare as we know it," pushed through NAFTA, triangulated enough to screw over the environment at every turn (with that fake "environmental vice president" and all), and who were ultimately completely complicit in the rightist attack on working people and the poor that was advocated more blatantly and honestly by Gingrich and other ultra-right members of Congress. In other words, while there was something unexpectedly stirring in other parts of the world (the Zapatista rebellion had been a major surprise of its own, and an inspiration to many of us), here at home, there were enough disgusting things coming out of the work of politicians to make us badly crave a movement way outside of the official politics.
And, I might add - though I don’t talk much about this stuff on this blog - that I also was heading into some major life changes that freed me up to explore my own life and ideas and potential activism more thoroughly. By 1997, my life had become less stable in terms of relationships (I'd just been through two back-to-back long-termers and, for better or for worse (so to speak), I haven't been in anything like that since), and I was starting to switch jobs a lot more, feeling less and less stable in that area, even though I wouldn't be cut loose from full-time work for real until late in 2000. Some cynics might point out that I was becoming revolutionary exactly when I was becoming unhinged, but I don't think I would call it that. Besides, I think a lot of people these days are starting to progress into stages of less stability as they get older, not the increasing stability that weve been trained to expect. (A lot of that trend is connected to the end of secure employment and the increase in "precarity." But this trend might ultimately be a good thing for activism and class struggle, if older people begin to fight back against the system that is robbing them. And, as I've always said, expect more "seniors" to become involved, given the deterioration of pensions, the threats to Social Security, and the declining access to affordable or "covered" medical care.)
Anyway, you might say that the late 1990s were a fairly hard time for me sometimes, but sometimes, when things really started happening in activism - in 1999 - I also had the time of my life. I knew when I got involved in this movement, that no job could ever give me anything like the satisfaction that I got from working for the movement, because the only job that I could ever get excited about was the job of opposing all capitalist exploitation, which meant opposing all jobs. And I admit that during some moments during those intense protests, I got a euphoric feeling of solidarity, comradeship, and shared purpose that would not come out of any conventional relationship(s) established in the normal circumstances of every day life under capitalism. It was a short-lived feeling, and probably very delusional, but I do believe that I and a few others experienced a microcosm of what some people must have felt during the heat of the late 1960s, in terms of at least seeing a glimpse of possibility for changing life as we knew it and creating that other world.
I think that if that feeling exists anywhere on a wide scale today, it’s in Latin America (albeit under much harsher circumstances – though those circumstances may help to make the drive toward revolution more real). I don’t think that the riots in France were anything like what I’m talking about, because they lacked any real direction or revolutionary focus and weren’t about to develop any, either. (By the way, the Impossiblist wrote a very interesting post, Collective Bargaining by Riot, which discusses how riots of this kind generally simply lead to more "government spending" without any real social changes.)
Of course, we’ve certainly got nothing to boast about right now here in the U.S... And like lots of people, at the moment, I’m a bit at a loss regarding what we can do. With the ultra-right government seemingly crumbling in front of us, there is renewed hope for change of some kind. But what can we do to encourage a positive change or a real anti-capitalist struggle (or a real proletarian struggle) of any magnitude? I can’t help feeling that this crumbling government will simply be replaced by the (not so) lesser evil, and any building resistance among the people will be very unfocused and ugly at first – maybe we’ll start to see some revival of rioting here too (like we experienced in the early '90s), though we know that our government’s reaction is going to be a lot more brutal than anything experienced by the rioters in France.
Sitting where I am, in this time and place, it’s hard not to be a little nostalgic, to want to party like it’s 1999. But maybe some movement will come out of the harder and uglier struggles ahead of us that will be more grounded in the real, day-to-day experiences of working people, the exploited, and the poor...which won’t fall apart or implode so easily. I think that these struggles really do become more substantial when the people involved are not almost exclusively rebellious, affluent student types or people doing something for other people who live far, far away (however good and generous this latter instinct might be). It might be better when those who are involved are definitely involved for the long term, because they are very consciously fighting for their own future and maybe even their our own lives.
I didn’t actually go to the demos in Seattle. I was caught up in a very taxing full-time publishing job at that time and neither I nor anyone else knew that the anti-WTO demo would turn out to be such a major breakthrough event, so I decided to stay home and simply help some people to organize a solidarity demonstration at the World Trade Center - which turned out to be a kind of pathetic little scene with about 50 activists shivering and virtually unnoticed in the freezing cold. I wasn’t even watching what was happening in Seattle that day, because I was too busy handing out leaflets, first in front of the WTC, then in the subway and Path stations below. But while I was handing out leaflets, I got more and more comments, mostly very positive, about the major stuff going down in Seattle. My fellow demonstrators were also hearing and talking about a few things, but it wasn’t until I got home and turned on the Internet and then the TV, that I understood the full impact of the demonstrations, the police reaction, and the battle taking place.
It would be kind of pathetic if I were unqualifiedly nostalgic about that event. I'm all too aware of all the flaws in the movement that that explosion created here in the U.S. I understand now how difficult it is to maintain anti-capitalist movement based on the activities of a relatively small group of mostly young people, mostly students, who are generally quite affluent, without a diverse demographic base. (Most activists were conscious from the beginning about the relative lack of diversity in race, but few ever even recognized the lack of diversity in general culture, access to information, and age.) Plus, this movement had an even bigger flaw, being that there was next to no grounding in real working-class-based struggle or much first-hand experience among many of these student types in what it's like to be a worker constantly dependent on wages to survive. (Yes, there were teamsters with the turtles, but that was relatively short-lived, and a real workers’ struggle can do so much better than teamsters anyway. The point is not that we need more involvement by people in big unions, but that we have people who know all too well, first-hand, about the exploitive relationship of capitalists vs. labor, which is the driving force of the whole system, and who might work together to turn that relationship on its head.) And I know that these are some of the reasons why this movement imploded pretty quickly in North America, though it did better overseas and, especially, in Latin America, where there really was grounding in the struggles of workers, farmers, and exploited indigenous groups. I also know, ultimately, how limited our "anti-authoritarian" groups really were in terms of how much they absorbed the basic principles that supposedly motivated them, and how, when the initial rush had receded and the pressure was on, the groups disintegrated into ugly infighting, internal rivalries, confusion, and eventual apathy. (One might say that 9-11 had a lot to do with that disintegration, but I think they were on the way to imploding before then.) But all that having been said (and I know it’s a whole lot, certainly), this was a defining and momentous moment in North America for the struggle against capitalist powers and the state.
Anybody who’d been around for a while before this demonstration happened (and the ones that followed, like the ones that I went to on April 16-17, 2000 in Washington, DC, and April 19-20, 2001 in Quebec) knows what a surprise it was to see and experience this kind of awareness, involvement, and smart, well-honed social-political disruption happening in North America, especially the U.S. Since then, of course, we regressed to the conventional, vague and ineffectual demonstrations that have been typical of our thoroughly confused and cowed "anti-war" movement, and anybody who was ever really involved in the "anti-glob" demos of five or six years ago must realize what a comedown this has been. But those who’d been around for much longer know that for a couple of decades into the 1990s, the condition of active dissent in North America, especially the U.S., had been even worse. And a lot of people also know that before the demonstration in Seattle on November 30, 1999, relatively few even knew what the WTO was and relatively few people in North America had much awareness about the workings of "corporate globalization," neoliberalism and its institutions, or the highly undemocratic ways that these institutions decided on our collective future. Nor, for that matter, was there much awareness or discussion going on about creating "another world" and working toward a more egalitarian society. But all of that, at least for a brief time, changed, at least among a number of people, and activism, itself (though still limited as activism) definitely did change, too. For all those reasons, the demonstration in Seattle that began on November 30, 1999 was a demonstration that actually made history and that should not be forgotten for a long time.
For me, there was also a very personal element... Back when I was growing up, I was very conscious of the fact that I had just missed the chance to be a truly active participant in the rebellions of the 1960s (maybe it would have been possible at 17 or 18, but not at 7 or 8!), and by the time I reached the "age of majority," I found that many former '60s activists were already quite smug and jaded, and even the ones who didn't or couldn't become complete sellouts still seemed to be embarrassed at the sight of a younger person who wanted major social change. All too often, when I was in my 20s, I got the line from old-hippie acquaintances that I should have "been around" in the '60s, because that’s when people were doing things...as though there was no point in even thinking of doing things now. (And keep in mind that when I got this lecture, from at least a few people, my own political radicalism was still kind of vague. I was more an arty kind of rebel than anything else; I hadn’t even begun, and wouldn’t begin for another ten years, to learn about real revolutionary history and theory.) Of course, back in the '80s, there was the movement of solidarity with the struggles in Central America, which was both noble and necessary, but it didn’t seem to connect that well to the problems in capitalism that we were struggling with right here at home (or at least it didn't for someone at my distance – few could understand the relevance of the global connections at this time). And then there was the no-nukes movement, which, I'm sorry to say, was really an awful bore. From the late '70s into the '90s, it seemed that the most a young "American" who was really opposed to the whole system could do was get involved in punk rock – which was really a phenomenal rebellion for a cultural/musical rebellion, at least in the late '70s and early '80s, but in the end, that's all it was. (I know that many kids learned their politics from punk, and "anarcho-punk" developed more as the years went on, but the most important thing about that phenomenon was that they might be able to do something with those politics outside of the highly fragmented world of nth-generation punk.)
I became a full-fledged anarchist (after fluctuating between anarchist and democratic socialist groups) in 1997, when the whole activist scene was still relatively inactive. Although, I think that many of the things that motivated me also motivated a number of other people to start getting involved at that point – from the Zapatista rebellion to the increasing frustration with the right-wing turn of electoral politics, including, especially, the Clinton "New Democrats," who "ended welfare as we know it," pushed through NAFTA, triangulated enough to screw over the environment at every turn (with that fake "environmental vice president" and all), and who were ultimately completely complicit in the rightist attack on working people and the poor that was advocated more blatantly and honestly by Gingrich and other ultra-right members of Congress. In other words, while there was something unexpectedly stirring in other parts of the world (the Zapatista rebellion had been a major surprise of its own, and an inspiration to many of us), here at home, there were enough disgusting things coming out of the work of politicians to make us badly crave a movement way outside of the official politics.
And, I might add - though I don’t talk much about this stuff on this blog - that I also was heading into some major life changes that freed me up to explore my own life and ideas and potential activism more thoroughly. By 1997, my life had become less stable in terms of relationships (I'd just been through two back-to-back long-termers and, for better or for worse (so to speak), I haven't been in anything like that since), and I was starting to switch jobs a lot more, feeling less and less stable in that area, even though I wouldn't be cut loose from full-time work for real until late in 2000. Some cynics might point out that I was becoming revolutionary exactly when I was becoming unhinged, but I don't think I would call it that. Besides, I think a lot of people these days are starting to progress into stages of less stability as they get older, not the increasing stability that weve been trained to expect. (A lot of that trend is connected to the end of secure employment and the increase in "precarity." But this trend might ultimately be a good thing for activism and class struggle, if older people begin to fight back against the system that is robbing them. And, as I've always said, expect more "seniors" to become involved, given the deterioration of pensions, the threats to Social Security, and the declining access to affordable or "covered" medical care.)
Anyway, you might say that the late 1990s were a fairly hard time for me sometimes, but sometimes, when things really started happening in activism - in 1999 - I also had the time of my life. I knew when I got involved in this movement, that no job could ever give me anything like the satisfaction that I got from working for the movement, because the only job that I could ever get excited about was the job of opposing all capitalist exploitation, which meant opposing all jobs. And I admit that during some moments during those intense protests, I got a euphoric feeling of solidarity, comradeship, and shared purpose that would not come out of any conventional relationship(s) established in the normal circumstances of every day life under capitalism. It was a short-lived feeling, and probably very delusional, but I do believe that I and a few others experienced a microcosm of what some people must have felt during the heat of the late 1960s, in terms of at least seeing a glimpse of possibility for changing life as we knew it and creating that other world.
I think that if that feeling exists anywhere on a wide scale today, it’s in Latin America (albeit under much harsher circumstances – though those circumstances may help to make the drive toward revolution more real). I don’t think that the riots in France were anything like what I’m talking about, because they lacked any real direction or revolutionary focus and weren’t about to develop any, either. (By the way, the Impossiblist wrote a very interesting post, Collective Bargaining by Riot, which discusses how riots of this kind generally simply lead to more "government spending" without any real social changes.)
Of course, we’ve certainly got nothing to boast about right now here in the U.S... And like lots of people, at the moment, I’m a bit at a loss regarding what we can do. With the ultra-right government seemingly crumbling in front of us, there is renewed hope for change of some kind. But what can we do to encourage a positive change or a real anti-capitalist struggle (or a real proletarian struggle) of any magnitude? I can’t help feeling that this crumbling government will simply be replaced by the (not so) lesser evil, and any building resistance among the people will be very unfocused and ugly at first – maybe we’ll start to see some revival of rioting here too (like we experienced in the early '90s), though we know that our government’s reaction is going to be a lot more brutal than anything experienced by the rioters in France.
Sitting where I am, in this time and place, it’s hard not to be a little nostalgic, to want to party like it’s 1999. But maybe some movement will come out of the harder and uglier struggles ahead of us that will be more grounded in the real, day-to-day experiences of working people, the exploited, and the poor...which won’t fall apart or implode so easily. I think that these struggles really do become more substantial when the people involved are not almost exclusively rebellious, affluent student types or people doing something for other people who live far, far away (however good and generous this latter instinct might be). It might be better when those who are involved are definitely involved for the long term, because they are very consciously fighting for their own future and maybe even their our own lives.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
"This accounted for the sudden embrace of authority that often characterized the seemingly libertarian anarchist."
As longtime readers of my blogs - and people who've simply had to sit and listen to me - might know, one of the most disillusioning moments for me during my several years of heavy involvement in anarchism was when I came to the realization that the "anti-authoritarian" set not only contained some of the worst authoritarians I'd ever met, but also probably contained more authoritarians, proportionately, than most other social "communities" that I'd encountered. I suppose it was naive of me not to know this earlier, but I was genuinely puzzled that some anarchists (or even, one might say, a good number) could turn out to be so authoritarian.
How can we account for this heavy irony?
I've written about this quite a bit, especially in collaboration with asfo_del (who I think has written about it more than I have), but I've always looked into the political dynamics and (flawed) ideas of process rather than psychology. I suppose that's because I'm not a big fan of psychology, which often teaches us to "treat" individually and internally those social problems that should more often be addressed socially/collectively/externally. But there are exceptions that I should look into (that I've read somewhat before, sometime ago), such as the work of Erich Fromm - who apparently wrote some very interesting things about authority.
Over on Quinlan's blog, I have found a terrific quote about Erich Fromm's observations on why some anarchists can turn out to be such authoritarians, or can be so easily led by authoritarians. From the Marxist history professor Martin Jay (whom some might know from his writings on the Frankfurt School):
"Rebellions" were pseudo-liberations in which the individual was really seeking a new irrational authority to love, even when he seemed most antagonistic to all authority. The resentful anarchist and the rigid authoritarian were thus not as far apart as they might appear at first glance. This accounted for the sudden embrace of authority that often characterized the seemingly libertarian anarchist.
Of course, some anarchists who read this won't agree; it will probably just make them more pissed off at Marxists. But, unfortunately, it rings very true as far as I'm concerned. Maybe asfo_del and I should have looked into Erich Fromm a little when we pondered The Machiavellian Circus: How Well-Meaning Collectives Degenerate Into Power Struggles and Purges.
How can we account for this heavy irony?
I've written about this quite a bit, especially in collaboration with asfo_del (who I think has written about it more than I have), but I've always looked into the political dynamics and (flawed) ideas of process rather than psychology. I suppose that's because I'm not a big fan of psychology, which often teaches us to "treat" individually and internally those social problems that should more often be addressed socially/collectively/externally. But there are exceptions that I should look into (that I've read somewhat before, sometime ago), such as the work of Erich Fromm - who apparently wrote some very interesting things about authority.
Over on Quinlan's blog, I have found a terrific quote about Erich Fromm's observations on why some anarchists can turn out to be such authoritarians, or can be so easily led by authoritarians. From the Marxist history professor Martin Jay (whom some might know from his writings on the Frankfurt School):
"Rebellions" were pseudo-liberations in which the individual was really seeking a new irrational authority to love, even when he seemed most antagonistic to all authority. The resentful anarchist and the rigid authoritarian were thus not as far apart as they might appear at first glance. This accounted for the sudden embrace of authority that often characterized the seemingly libertarian anarchist.
Of course, some anarchists who read this won't agree; it will probably just make them more pissed off at Marxists. But, unfortunately, it rings very true as far as I'm concerned. Maybe asfo_del and I should have looked into Erich Fromm a little when we pondered The Machiavellian Circus: How Well-Meaning Collectives Degenerate Into Power Struggles and Purges.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Thinking about Prole.info!..and a few other things connected to the class struggle
Thanks to the Aut-Op-Sy list, I have stumbled upon a good new Web site, Prole.info. There are a number of excellent texts here that I will probably be quoting from in the near future, but for now, I'd like to reproduce the introduction:
"Prole" is short for "proletarian" a word used by Karl Marx to describe the working class under capitalism. We are all the people in this society who do not own property or a business we can make money from, and therefore have to sell our time and energy to a boss--we are forced to work. Our work is the basis of this society.
We are not just a sociological category. Work, and the society that grows out of it are alienating and miserable for us. We are constantly fighting against the conditions of our lives. Simply standing up for our own interests brings us into conflict with bosses, bureaucrats, landlords, police and politicians everywhere. These everyday struggles are the starting point to undermining capitalism. We are not just the working class; we are the working class that struggles to do away with work and class, and the society built around them.
The experience of those who are forced to work, and who struggle against the society based on work, creates certain kinds of ideas. When we are actively fighting for our own interests, these ideas solidify into a subversive, anti-capitalist perspective. This has at times been called "communism" or "anarchism". We do not need political groups to bring us these ideas, but we do need to think about how to fight for ourselves. To that end, this site is a collection of writings from a subversive and anti-capitalist perspective on theory as well as history. Some of them use needlessly obscure language, and parts of them are definitely outdated. But they all raise important issues for the modern day prole. Hopefully they will be useful to you.
I have to add, it was particularly nice at the moment to read the line, "Simply standing up for our own interests brings us into conflict with bosses, bureaucrats, landlords, police and politicians everywhere." It was nice to be reminded of this fact, because in today's socially backward environment here in the U.S., we are constantly led to believe that if we come into conflict with bosses, landlords and the like, there is something wrong with us. We supposedly are the ones who are just being "difficult" if we refuse to be nice to and/or to kiss up to those people in the capitalist system who wield so much power over us. Even when they take advantage of their economic authority over us in obvious and oppressive ways, we are supposed to pretend that everyone's on equal footing and we simply have to know how to "get along."
One question that is sort of nagging at me is, how do you deal with a situation in which your boss or landlord fanices himself or herself as some sort of communist revolutionary too? Strangely enough, I've been in that predicament with both bosses and landlords in my life. Most recently - that is, within the last few years - I had a landlord who considered himself a left communist and even wrote and still writes for a well-regarded left communist newsletter. And, I have to say, his theory looks good. But in practice, at least in that class relationship, he definitely acted like a landlord, and far from the most pleasant kind.
I'm sorry to say that experience has led me to understand that a person's particular situation often contributes a lot more to his or her particular social behavior than any professed ideology. At the same time, while I, myself, might be somewhat educationally "privileged," I have never been in a situation in which I had real class power over someone else. (There are two minor possible exceptions that I can think of, depending on your definitions: One was a publishing job in which I had to call in and select the appropriate temp freelancers - but that was very much under the supervisor's direction, and it didn't take long for me to get out of that spot. Then there was that year or so when I was renting a place with a lease and had a couple of successive roommates who weren't on the lease - but they had other homes and/or family wealth that I did not have, and my landlords also kind of balanced that situation out by exercising their class power over me, which caused problems for me further down the road. Besides, I never really kicked anyone out; it's just that these two successive roommates kind of fled from the problem of having to live with me.) Anyway, as far as I can tell, I have never had to worry about becoming too corrupted by any personal advantages in class, considering that I have never owned anything that could earn me anything.
It is true that, according to cultural/educational definitions, many people would not consider me "solid working class." But according to definitions of "proletarian" like the one spelled out above, I am far more proletarian than many traditionally "working class"/"blue collar" people who've risen to managerial levels and/or own and even rent out their own houses and/or make profits in some other way (through investments, etc.). Which is not to say, by any means, that this kind of "blue collar" person comprises the majority of people who've come from the "traditional working class." But in today's confused social environment, we need to remind ourselves and others that somebody who seems to be more "working class" than others because of cultural and behavioral tendencies isn't necessarily so.
I also like the statement, "This has at times been called 'communism' or 'anarchism'. We do not need political groups to bring us these ideas, but we do need to think about how to fight for ourselves." This is one reason that I have little patience with those who would maintain that there are such sharp differences between anyone who would call him/herself a "communist" and someone who would call her/himself an "anarchist." These supposedly sharp differences between professed ideologies are far less relevant than the actual outlook, behaviors, and tactics that we might contribute to our shared struggle. Certainly, theory is important, but a person's real theoretical outlook isn't always so easily explained by political labels, and, besides, there are too many self-proclaimed "revolutionaries" who tend to separate everyone according to fine theoretical disagreements or minor points of political behavior (such as whether or not you go to pull that stupid lever on election day).
Some people, especially among academics and nonprofit "professionals," talk about the "class struggle" as an abstract thing which mainly involves the plight of others whom they intend to help; they don't seem to feel that they really belong to the class that needs to struggle. Personally, I feel that the class struggle is very much a concrete part of my own day-to-day life. I am aware that there are others less fortunate than I am, and others who may not have had the opportunity in their lives to make some of the choices that I supposedly could have made in the past (but did not). But that's not the point. The point is that right now, I am in a constant struggle to earn money to pay for food and a roof over my head. And that roof over my head is a big part of the struggle all by itself, as I am being reminded by my present housing situation, which is becoming increasingly insecure (thanks mostly to the fact that I am once again at the mercy of some landlord's whims, at a time when affordable housing is nearly unobtainable in the city where I live).
Of course, there are many people in very proletarian situations who won't even begin to learn what "proletarian" means. In the face of this problem, I am at a loss regarding what I, myself, can do, except to spread information here and there and hope that it might reach some people outside of the usual circles. I guess it would help if we all try to spread as much "prole info" as we possibly can.
"Prole" is short for "proletarian" a word used by Karl Marx to describe the working class under capitalism. We are all the people in this society who do not own property or a business we can make money from, and therefore have to sell our time and energy to a boss--we are forced to work. Our work is the basis of this society.
We are not just a sociological category. Work, and the society that grows out of it are alienating and miserable for us. We are constantly fighting against the conditions of our lives. Simply standing up for our own interests brings us into conflict with bosses, bureaucrats, landlords, police and politicians everywhere. These everyday struggles are the starting point to undermining capitalism. We are not just the working class; we are the working class that struggles to do away with work and class, and the society built around them.
The experience of those who are forced to work, and who struggle against the society based on work, creates certain kinds of ideas. When we are actively fighting for our own interests, these ideas solidify into a subversive, anti-capitalist perspective. This has at times been called "communism" or "anarchism". We do not need political groups to bring us these ideas, but we do need to think about how to fight for ourselves. To that end, this site is a collection of writings from a subversive and anti-capitalist perspective on theory as well as history. Some of them use needlessly obscure language, and parts of them are definitely outdated. But they all raise important issues for the modern day prole. Hopefully they will be useful to you.
I have to add, it was particularly nice at the moment to read the line, "Simply standing up for our own interests brings us into conflict with bosses, bureaucrats, landlords, police and politicians everywhere." It was nice to be reminded of this fact, because in today's socially backward environment here in the U.S., we are constantly led to believe that if we come into conflict with bosses, landlords and the like, there is something wrong with us. We supposedly are the ones who are just being "difficult" if we refuse to be nice to and/or to kiss up to those people in the capitalist system who wield so much power over us. Even when they take advantage of their economic authority over us in obvious and oppressive ways, we are supposed to pretend that everyone's on equal footing and we simply have to know how to "get along."
One question that is sort of nagging at me is, how do you deal with a situation in which your boss or landlord fanices himself or herself as some sort of communist revolutionary too? Strangely enough, I've been in that predicament with both bosses and landlords in my life. Most recently - that is, within the last few years - I had a landlord who considered himself a left communist and even wrote and still writes for a well-regarded left communist newsletter. And, I have to say, his theory looks good. But in practice, at least in that class relationship, he definitely acted like a landlord, and far from the most pleasant kind.
I'm sorry to say that experience has led me to understand that a person's particular situation often contributes a lot more to his or her particular social behavior than any professed ideology. At the same time, while I, myself, might be somewhat educationally "privileged," I have never been in a situation in which I had real class power over someone else. (There are two minor possible exceptions that I can think of, depending on your definitions: One was a publishing job in which I had to call in and select the appropriate temp freelancers - but that was very much under the supervisor's direction, and it didn't take long for me to get out of that spot. Then there was that year or so when I was renting a place with a lease and had a couple of successive roommates who weren't on the lease - but they had other homes and/or family wealth that I did not have, and my landlords also kind of balanced that situation out by exercising their class power over me, which caused problems for me further down the road. Besides, I never really kicked anyone out; it's just that these two successive roommates kind of fled from the problem of having to live with me.) Anyway, as far as I can tell, I have never had to worry about becoming too corrupted by any personal advantages in class, considering that I have never owned anything that could earn me anything.
It is true that, according to cultural/educational definitions, many people would not consider me "solid working class." But according to definitions of "proletarian" like the one spelled out above, I am far more proletarian than many traditionally "working class"/"blue collar" people who've risen to managerial levels and/or own and even rent out their own houses and/or make profits in some other way (through investments, etc.). Which is not to say, by any means, that this kind of "blue collar" person comprises the majority of people who've come from the "traditional working class." But in today's confused social environment, we need to remind ourselves and others that somebody who seems to be more "working class" than others because of cultural and behavioral tendencies isn't necessarily so.
I also like the statement, "This has at times been called 'communism' or 'anarchism'. We do not need political groups to bring us these ideas, but we do need to think about how to fight for ourselves." This is one reason that I have little patience with those who would maintain that there are such sharp differences between anyone who would call him/herself a "communist" and someone who would call her/himself an "anarchist." These supposedly sharp differences between professed ideologies are far less relevant than the actual outlook, behaviors, and tactics that we might contribute to our shared struggle. Certainly, theory is important, but a person's real theoretical outlook isn't always so easily explained by political labels, and, besides, there are too many self-proclaimed "revolutionaries" who tend to separate everyone according to fine theoretical disagreements or minor points of political behavior (such as whether or not you go to pull that stupid lever on election day).
Some people, especially among academics and nonprofit "professionals," talk about the "class struggle" as an abstract thing which mainly involves the plight of others whom they intend to help; they don't seem to feel that they really belong to the class that needs to struggle. Personally, I feel that the class struggle is very much a concrete part of my own day-to-day life. I am aware that there are others less fortunate than I am, and others who may not have had the opportunity in their lives to make some of the choices that I supposedly could have made in the past (but did not). But that's not the point. The point is that right now, I am in a constant struggle to earn money to pay for food and a roof over my head. And that roof over my head is a big part of the struggle all by itself, as I am being reminded by my present housing situation, which is becoming increasingly insecure (thanks mostly to the fact that I am once again at the mercy of some landlord's whims, at a time when affordable housing is nearly unobtainable in the city where I live).
Of course, there are many people in very proletarian situations who won't even begin to learn what "proletarian" means. In the face of this problem, I am at a loss regarding what I, myself, can do, except to spread information here and there and hope that it might reach some people outside of the usual circles. I guess it would help if we all try to spread as much "prole info" as we possibly can.
Saturday, November 12, 2005
A Quote from The Beginning of the End
Recent comments exchanges have inspired me to drag out the old quote from the book on the Paris '68 uprising, The Beginning of the End, from the section by Tom Nairn:
...Where ideas are all, the upholder of a contrary thesis becomes automatically an enemy - indeed, the most vicious of enemies, since his "position" is the most direct contestation of the vital truths. Where the revolution is reduced to this poverty, every scrap matters: every opinion, every attitude, every individual adhesion to this or that idea must be fought over like a bone. Antagonism becomes hatred, and polemic is turned into degenerate abuse. While the revolution itself tends to polarize society, so that in time whoever is not with the movement is against it, this vicious caricature of it deliberately turns possible friends into enemies. Thus, it reassures itself daily of the purity of its revolutionary mission....
...Where ideas are all, the upholder of a contrary thesis becomes automatically an enemy - indeed, the most vicious of enemies, since his "position" is the most direct contestation of the vital truths. Where the revolution is reduced to this poverty, every scrap matters: every opinion, every attitude, every individual adhesion to this or that idea must be fought over like a bone. Antagonism becomes hatred, and polemic is turned into degenerate abuse. While the revolution itself tends to polarize society, so that in time whoever is not with the movement is against it, this vicious caricature of it deliberately turns possible friends into enemies. Thus, it reassures itself daily of the purity of its revolutionary mission....
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Solidarity to the Militant Anti-Capitalists Who Gave Bush “Another Public Relations Catastrophe”
A headline in the Guardian/Observer summed up this week’s anti-FTAA protests very nicely: "Rioters shatter Bush's hopes of forging free trade coup - Violent protests have turned a prestigious foreign policy trip to South America into another public relations catastrophe." Conversely, it might be said that the militant anti-capitalists scored a public relations victory. This contradicts the messages that we get from so many of the people who try to run the protests in the U.S., who keep telling us that militant protest tactics will inevitably backfire into a defeat of the cause that we are trying to support. Sometimes militant protests actually do much more good for the cause than people peacefully marching, lighting candles, and trying far too hard to show the world how nice and unthreatening activists really are. (Question: would there have been so much of an increase in popular awareness about the WTO at the turn of the 21st century if the anti-WTO protests that happened in Seattle almost six years ago consisted only of people quietly marching around?) Often, militant protest tactics are much better at getting the public’s attention (among many other things) and showing the strength of the grassroots opposition to the deeds of the rich and powerful.
I also am happy about the anti-capitalist trends taking place in Latin America right now. It is true that we can find things to criticize and be wary of. For instance, we should avoid getting too hooked in by the the cult of personality built around popular leaders such as Chavez (though he does put our northern leaders to shame in many ways) and pay more attention to - as well as emphasize - what the people are doing at the grassroots. Nonetheless, there has been a lot of social movement in a positive direction in this part of the world lately, and we should find ways to support it even while expressing our desire to see it go much further.
________
P.S. One quibble I would have with this Guardian/Observer article is its heavily repeated description of the protests as "violent." From what I could see in various news reports, nobody was killed, few people were injured, and the only attacks against people consisted of the police attacking protesters and the protesters defending their position against the police (the usual story). There was a good amount of property destruction, but it was nothing compared to what we're seeing in France, for instance (something that I will have to think about and write about soon), and much of it was nothing to shed tears over, either. Who could cry about the entrance to an empty bank being set on fire? Not I (unless I really needed to use those ATMs, I guess).
I also am happy about the anti-capitalist trends taking place in Latin America right now. It is true that we can find things to criticize and be wary of. For instance, we should avoid getting too hooked in by the the cult of personality built around popular leaders such as Chavez (though he does put our northern leaders to shame in many ways) and pay more attention to - as well as emphasize - what the people are doing at the grassroots. Nonetheless, there has been a lot of social movement in a positive direction in this part of the world lately, and we should find ways to support it even while expressing our desire to see it go much further.
________
P.S. One quibble I would have with this Guardian/Observer article is its heavily repeated description of the protests as "violent." From what I could see in various news reports, nobody was killed, few people were injured, and the only attacks against people consisted of the police attacking protesters and the protesters defending their position against the police (the usual story). There was a good amount of property destruction, but it was nothing compared to what we're seeing in France, for instance (something that I will have to think about and write about soon), and much of it was nothing to shed tears over, either. Who could cry about the entrance to an empty bank being set on fire? Not I (unless I really needed to use those ATMs, I guess).
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Patrik Fitzgerald [not a typo]
Well, I'm delighted as anyone that a champion prosecutor named Patrick Fitzgerald might help to bring on some nice jail time for one or two of the many criminals serving the executive branch of our government. Certainly, it's questionable how much will be accomplished in the long run by peeling off just the first thin layer of such thick rot (and I hope that at least a few more layers follow), but I have to admit, some progress has been made since 2003.
Strangely, though, I can't look at his name without thinking about Patrik Fitzgerald (not a typo)... I'm wondering if anyone else has this problem, or if I am the only one around in the blogosphere who's of the right age and level of dementia...
Patrik Fitzgerald was an "acoustic punk poet" who had a (very) minor international hit in the late 1970s called "Safety Pin Stuck In My Heart" (which was also covered, probably at least a dozen years later, by Chumbawamba). Here's a good snippet of lyrics from that song:
I don't love you for your many reasons
Propagandas, doctrines, treasons
All I know's that
Beat-beat-beat-beat-beating
I've got an ear inflamed on my dog chain
Painted faces, painted names -
My shirt - it's all that
Beat-beat-beat-beat-beating
I've got a safety pin stuck in my heart
For you, for you
I remembered that I always liked hearing this song when it popped up on the jukebox over at The Hot Club, a Philadelphia punk dive that I frequented during my late teenage/early college years, late 1978 to about 1980. But Patrik Fitzgerald had better lyrics in other songs, which I really discovered tonight, when I did a search on him. I particularly like these lines, from "Work.Rest.Play.Reggae":
The black & white racial disharmony
Is just a cover story
Conducted to hide the fact
That working class people
Are still being kicked
All over the place
WORK is nothing but a diversion
Something you are supposed to do
According to the rules
Made up by who?
A long, long tome ago
A slow death tailored to suit you
And it's all being designed to say:
"Let's keep another of the fuckers down"
And that, as far as I'm concerned, is a pretty good indictment.
-----------
P.S. All the Patrik Fitzgerald lyrics above were copied from this strange page. Biography is a little harder to come by. But I did find some biography, strangely, in a Guardian interview with the writer Benjamin Zephaniah. That's because, "When he's not working on a novel or supporting one of 36 organisations, Benjamin Zephaniah finds poetry in the music of Bob Marley and acoustic punk rocker Patrik Fitzgerald." Fitzgerald himself, the article tells us, is "now a social worker in New Zealand."
Strangely, though, I can't look at his name without thinking about Patrik Fitzgerald (not a typo)... I'm wondering if anyone else has this problem, or if I am the only one around in the blogosphere who's of the right age and level of dementia...
Patrik Fitzgerald was an "acoustic punk poet" who had a (very) minor international hit in the late 1970s called "Safety Pin Stuck In My Heart" (which was also covered, probably at least a dozen years later, by Chumbawamba). Here's a good snippet of lyrics from that song:
I don't love you for your many reasons
Propagandas, doctrines, treasons
All I know's that
Beat-beat-beat-beat-beating
I've got an ear inflamed on my dog chain
Painted faces, painted names -
My shirt - it's all that
Beat-beat-beat-beat-beating
I've got a safety pin stuck in my heart
For you, for you
I remembered that I always liked hearing this song when it popped up on the jukebox over at The Hot Club, a Philadelphia punk dive that I frequented during my late teenage/early college years, late 1978 to about 1980. But Patrik Fitzgerald had better lyrics in other songs, which I really discovered tonight, when I did a search on him. I particularly like these lines, from "Work.Rest.Play.Reggae":
The black & white racial disharmony
Is just a cover story
Conducted to hide the fact
That working class people
Are still being kicked
All over the place
WORK is nothing but a diversion
Something you are supposed to do
According to the rules
Made up by who?
A long, long tome ago
A slow death tailored to suit you
And it's all being designed to say:
"Let's keep another of the fuckers down"
And that, as far as I'm concerned, is a pretty good indictment.
-----------
P.S. All the Patrik Fitzgerald lyrics above were copied from this strange page. Biography is a little harder to come by. But I did find some biography, strangely, in a Guardian interview with the writer Benjamin Zephaniah. That's because, "When he's not working on a novel or supporting one of 36 organisations, Benjamin Zephaniah finds poetry in the music of Bob Marley and acoustic punk rocker Patrik Fitzgerald." Fitzgerald himself, the article tells us, is "now a social worker in New Zealand."
