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BUILDING A COHESIVE VISION FOR INFOSHOPS
or "What the fuck are we doing anyway?"
We recently had a(nother) collective meeting in Chicago to
discuss the "focus" of our infoshop. After some discussion, i
felt frustrated because our direction was still ambigous. Our
present day paths were not being defined in the context of our
future goals. This was because as a group we had not yet had a
discussion of what our long term aspirations were, how to get
there, and what that meant we should be doing now.
I felt a lack of long term goals was also present at the Detroit
gathering. We had absolutely ZERO discussion on WHY we were
doing infoshops, what our ideas of "the revolution" were, and
what role infoshops play in achieving them. Not to slag off the
gathering, it was definitely positive in many ways and served as
a necessary point for us to meet, share experiences, trade
knowledge & advice, and get inspired. But now that we've gotten
the ball rolling, so to speak, we need to figure out what game
we're playing, and what the best strategy is.
You may be asking, "Why is this necessary?" Well, i have found
"lack of vision" detrimental in many ways. In terms of internal
dynamics, i have noticed that those with a clear concept of their
"political" aspirations have pretty definite ideas of what
projects they want to be doing now, while those without definite
long term goals are more likely to get involved with projects
that feel good, and rarely start new ones themselves. This leads
to informal hierarchies, and also to disparities in terms of
taking on workloads and responsibilities, as some are more
"driven" than others. Such imbalances then lead to problems
inside groups on personal and political levels, etc... In terms
of our infoshop network, political near-sightedness is dangerous,
because without our own direction we can become easily
manipulated into projects that aren't necessarily in alignment
with our unclear goals. Thus issue-based politics get pursued
instead of more revolutionary politics, or we get sucked into
time-consuming spectacular politics like national days of action,
which have little actual effect, and fall far clear of the impact
of say, community organizing. There are plenty of ways to be an
"activist" and do absolutely nothing effective at all (but hey
you might look good and will definitely feel "active"), and if we
don't have some theory-action praxis going, we are in danger of
falling into such powerless protest modes. Not having
revolutionary goals and ideas of how to get there also mean that
we are selling ourselves and "the movement" short, by not living
up to our full potential, and we will pose no real organized
threat to the status quo. Having a lackadaisical attitude about
politics, "the revolution", etc. puts us right alongside wishy
washy leftists and liberals who, by their inaction and near-
sightedness, end up supporting the status quo with no clear
critiques or alternatives to offer.
I feel very strongly that we need to start having more discussion
and political advancement as a movement. I'm not saying that we
need to define our political line as a collective entity
(although working out some collective goals would be great!), but
that we need to start bouncing more ideas off each other and
thinking realistically about how we're going to go about changing
this world. This means discussing our concepts of revolution,
what kind of "movement" we need, what roles infoshops (and other
counter-institutions) play in that movement, and how they relate
to the projects we are doing/should be doing now. I'm raising
these vision issues now because i want to see them discussed in
the pages of this zine, over the aaa-web, and everywhere else.
I'm also interested in seeing political discussion and
advancement be an equal focus to networking and skill-sharing at
our next conference.
We've started to have some of these discussions in Chicago. They
have in fact helped us to somewhat define our present day focus
for the A-Zone; and a major part of that focus is having a space
open for people to pass on ideas & experiences, interact &
debate, teach & learn & be inspired. We want to increase the
amount of "political education" in our communities so that
everyone can develop their own vision of what revolution is, how
to get there, and therefore what to do now. While many people
have a vision of their ideal society, and some are anti-
authoritarians because of it, many also don't have practical
ideas of how to reach that society, and so they are missing
crucial theory-practice and present-future dialectics in their
politics (oops, sorry if that was too marxist for ya!).
This also raises the question of making our informal network more
of a formal network. Do we want/need to, or should we just be
doing MORE nethworking, MORE THINGS with our network?
I can see there being some resistance to having these discussions
because the potential for conflict and alienation is high. We've
all been conditioned by society to see politics as stupid,
pointless, and not empowering, and it's hard enough just "making
a living", right? Also, looking at the groups that compose are
informal network, it's clear that their nature makes it a de
facto radical anti-authoritarian network. So there is going to
be some minimum political definition, whether we like it or not.
That will inevitably exclude and alienate some groups and people
from the network who aren't necessarily going in the same
direction (this can be good and bad). Obviously, we want to
avoid doing what Love & Rage just did (narrowing the politics and
organization to further a specific anarchist tendency). We do,
however, need to start discussing and developing theory and
variety and differences are important for this so that real
debate can occur. It is also important to network with groups
that are outside our network, that may not necessarily be going
in the same direction, but that we can work with, share ideas
with, and learn from, as well as influencing them ourselves.
Not to be all talk, and at great risk to myself, i will now throw
out some of my personal ideas and thoughts concerning these
issues. Basically, i want to encourage some open discussion, so
feel free to critique and/or support what i have to say.
Seeing as how we are a network of counter-institutions, i feel
pretty safe saying we likely all see revolution more as a process
than an event; and that process starts now with everyone one of
us in our hearts and heads, killing the cops inside. Now i feel
that revolution must include all people (altho we will doubtless
have enemies and opposition), and the movement to overthrow the
status quo and establish a new society must be popular and be
working to establish that new society now, both in terms of
personal dynamics and political praxis.
I see counter-instutions as playing a crucial role in this
movement because of the concept of dual power: challenging the
power of state and capital while also working against the
insidious forms of hierarchy and domination that have worked
themselves into every conceivable relationship, both in our
movement and in society. I envision a strategy of self-
organized, informed communities creating direct democratic,
collective counter-institutions that fulfill people's needs (and
take away their reliance on state institutions), while working
together and confederating as needed to create a popular
counterpower to the existing corporate and military structure.
I also feel that a distinct situation exists in the U$ in terms
of its oppressed internal colonies (black, latino, indigenous
nations, etc.), and that the strongest leash keeping white people
from being revolutionary is white privilege, and so i feel it is
the responsibility of white people to refuse and destroy that
privilege and the social construct of race it props up, while
providing solidarity and support to self-determined struggles of
the internal colonies. So as a "white" autonomist, i am
interested in developing counter-institutions, and especially
infoshops, to be an information and support resource for
communities for developing counter-institutions, while beginning
the struggle against personal-social power dynamics, especially
those of white privilege and "whiteness".
Ideally these counter-institutions will work to create
"situations" that deconstruct the spectacle and affect people's
consciences, as people are moved towards change most by direct
experience. I am also interested in creating non-hierarchical
ties of support and solidarity with counter-institutions
developed by the colonized nations. I think a good start is
developing a counter-institutional network to discuss these
issues, provide mutual aid (see ad in this issue), and provide
info and resources to other self-organized groups.
Well, that's a basic general overview. Trying to cram my
politics into one bloody paragraph is kinda ridiculous, but what
the hell. I should explain that i feel there is no "true theory"
about the practice of revolution, but that there is a dialectic
interrelation among theory & practice: "theory only advances as
the support of the struggle, the practice only advances when it
is backed by a theoretical construction". This is merely where
i'm at right now, hopefully it will continually change!. Go at
it.
I do feel there's a few particular questions that merit
discussion in terms of infoshop focus. Primary is whether
infoshops should function more as a resource for the movement or
more as a resource for and organizing our
neighborhoods/communities. In Chicago, we made the mistake of
trying to be both when we weren't really prepared or skilled in
being a community resource. One might point to the European
Infoshop network and how they are primarily for movement support,
as they provide space for meetings and events, distribute
literature, and have a fairly sophisticated info-sharing system
inluding 'zines and computer networks. Yet that could also be
looked at as detrimental because they ignored their communities
as they isolated themselves from valuable support. In the U$,
many of our groups are primarily white yet operate in non-white
gentrifying neighborhoods, so the community role clearly cannot
be ignored!
These are just a few off the top of my head. Others are
developing an anti-colonial/race traitor perspective, security,
ghettoization, etc etc etc . We have so much to discuss and
figure out, and if we are serious revolutionaries, we should
start doing so now!
So that's my rant, i'm going to end it with a list of some good
reading material to spark ideas & discussion, and a list of
questions we used at a recent Autonomous Zone meeting. Later.
Sprite
thanks to mckay, kate, lee, and purple bruise for the feedback!
Some good reading:
--Defining the Autonomous Struggle (article in Wind Chill Factor
#9)
--Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat, by J. Sakai
--False Nationalism, False Internationalism
--Nightvision: Illuminating War & Class on the neo-colonial
terrain
--Race Traitor: A journal of the New Abolitionism
(the 2nd issue of The Blast! has a good article on this)
--situationist theory on the spectacle and creating situations
--Revolutionary Self Theory: A Beginner's Manual
--Anti-Mass Methods of Organization for Collectives
--Building United Judgement: A Handbook for Consensus Decision
Making
--The Dispossessed, by Ursula LeGuin (good sci-fi depicting an
anarchist society)
--From Riot to Insurrection
--Post Scarcity Anarchism, by Murray Bookchin
--The Irrational In Politics, by Maurice Brinton
Questions we recently discussed at the Autonomous Zone:
--What is our/your vision of revolution and the society it will
produce (realistically & practically)? How do we get there?
What role will the infoshop play in that movement activity? What
does this mean we should be doing now?
--What do we see the A-Zone looking like and doing 6 months, 1
year, 5 years from now?
--What is our current role in the neighborhood community and how
do we see it changing?
--What is our current role in the activist community and how do
we see it changing?
--How do we encourage other collectives and counter-institutions
to form outside the A-Zone?
--How does the A-Zone operate internally?
--What makes people feel good about being involveds here?
mail: Box 420, 1573 N. Milwaukee, CHILL 60622 U$A
* / \ * phone: 312-278-0775, fax: 312-252-8269
* * matrix: thak@midway.uchicago.edu
* * *
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention!"