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Title: Stay The Course Author: CrimethInc. Date: November 15, 2008 Language: en Topics: 2008, Elections, USA, Read All About It Source: Retrieved on 9th November 2020 from https://crimethinc.com/2008/11/15/stay-the-course
An analysis of the political climate following the election of 2008; a
plea for anarchists to maintain vibrant networks and confrontational
organizing even as Obama takes office; a discussion of what it takes for
such networks and organizing to succeed; and a brief review of actions
around the election, with a glimpse of what is to come.
As much as radicals have focused on bringing people together in public
spaces over the past ten years, not all public togetherness is
necessarily radical. On election night, when sports-riot-size crowds
took to the streets of many cities to celebrate Obama’s victory, the
subtext was that representative democracy, long discredited under the
Bush regime, had been rehabilitated as the populist spectacle it was
always meant to be. The chants of “Yes We Can!”—appropriated, like most
of Obama’s shtick, from actual grassroots movements outside electoral
politics—translated to “Yes He Can”: in endorsing the transfer of power
from one politician to another, people may feel powerful, but it is not
their power they celebrate. It was exactly the kind of display that
prompts young defeatists to declare that “the masses” don’t want
anarchy; to be fair, with hundreds of millions of dollars for publicity,
anyone could probably have achieved the same results—even anarchists.
Obama has ridden to power on the same social currents that radicals have
relied on to propel their organizing and outreach over the past eight
years: disgust with the excesses of empire, longing for more fairness
and sociability in daily life, optimism about vague alternatives. It is
no coincidence that the liberal anti-war movement died out just as the
presidential campaigns got underway; the race effectively subsumed the
energy of all not explicitly critical of representative democracy. This
cooptation of popular momentum is as essential to the disempowerment of
the populace as the brutal repression associated with the right wing.
The powers that be are equally willing to tear gas us or hire us to go
door to door registering voters—whatever it takes to keep us from
building our own power outside and against their structures. In that
regard, Obama’s election marks a new phase of their efforts to keep
their system viable—calculated to defuse discontent, further marginalize
radicals, and maintain the essential power imbalances of our society
while giving the institutions that perpetuate them a makeover.
Top-down structures obscure the motivations and individuality of the
participants, but they don’t necessarily neutralize them. Some of those
who packed the streets on the night of November 4 must harbor desires
too radical to be realized under capitalism, desires which might still
bubble to the surface despite the veneer of social consensus. In
Minneapolis, not far from September’s bitter street conflicts outside
the Republican National Convention, a mixed crowd of East African
immigrants and predominantly white anarchists occupied a major
intersection for several hours, blocking traffic and defying police
until the authorities resorted to pepper spray and finally called in
massive backup. Chants of “Yes We Can!” and “U-S-A!” mingled with “Smash
the State!” and the traditional “Whose Streets?” as drummers pounded out
rhythms, dancers filled the lanes, and multiracial lines of masked youth
taunted and blocked police cruisers.
In one reading of this event, the anarchists were cynically endangering
the less privileged immigrants by luring them into a dangerous
situation; presumably, had the anarchists gone home, the immigrants
would have had the sense to stop provoking the police and get back to
pulling themselves up by their bootstraps—a challenge that can only be
easier now that there is to be a black President, never mind the
recession. In another reading of the situation, the anarchists and
immigrants found tentative common cause in seizing public space, coming
together on the basis of a shared desire to celebrate—even if they
respectfully disagreed on the details of what was worth celebrating.
Together, they were able to obtain a few hours of the visibility and
jubilation normally forbidden to their class; and the inevitable
confrontation with the police demonstrated to all that, Obama or no, we
only get what we are prepared to defend.
The Obama years will doubtless offer us countless complicated
opportunities such as this one. But bad advice abounds in radical
circles as this new era looms. Some, afraid of being misunderstood,
caution against confrontational organizing of any kind, forfeiting the
initiative precisely when it is most important to maintain radical
momentum. Others, in attempting to keep a principled distance from all
things reformist, risk isolating anarchist projects, denying them the
interplay with other efforts and milieus that makes them effective and
infectious. How do we chart a middle course, staying connected to
popular currents without subordinating our own priorities to those of
the forces that exploit them?
Unfortunately, there is a recent precedent for anarchists freezing up
and dropping the ball, which too many have already forgotten. After
September 11, 2001, radical projects and momentum collapsed around the
country as anarchists, fearful of appearing insensitive and of running
afoul of the anti-terror reaction, cancelled plans and stepped back from
organizing. The resulting loss of impetus contributed to the decline of
the anti-globalization movement in the US and enabled authoritarians to
determine the character of the incipient anti-war movement; it took
years for anarchist organizing to recover from these setbacks. The
lesson is that, however inconvenient a particular historical juncture
may be for anarchists, it’s always easier to maintain organizing than to
start over from scratch.
Yes, Obama is the first person of color to be elected President. His
victory doesn’t mean representative democracy is suddenly inclusive and
egalitarian any more than the successful careers of Bill Cosby and
Michael Jordan indicate that capitalism isn’t structurally racist; it
also doesn’t mean that the inequalities of the system are suddenly
invisible to our neighbors. We can affirm others’ enthusiasm at the
shattering of this particular glass ceiling without endorsing the
authoritarian structure that remains or giving up on our opposition to
it being intelligible to those around us. Real relationships with people
in adjacent communities are the best protection against the corporate
media accounts portraying them as lockstep converts to liberal
democracy; those who insist most stridently that confrontational
organizing is now self-defeating may do so because they lack connection
with their neighbors.
Make no mistake about it—more people of color are in prison in the
United States than ever before in history. Obama will not grant them
clemency or reassemble the communities torn apart by their kidnappings.
Global capitalism continues to plunder peoples and devastate ecosystems,
disproportionately affecting people of color worldwide. If anything is
racist, it is failing to attack the roots of the system that perpetrates
these injustices.
Some have expressed fears that any overt resistance to Obama’s
ascendancy will be misrepresented as racist, but these have already
proved unfounded. Although there was considerable discussion on this
topic before the protests at last summer’s Democratic National
Convention, not only did corporate media coverage fail to cast any such
aspersions, locals on the street also seemed clear on the motivations of
the predominantly white black bloc. Participants in the protests could
certainly have done more to convey their opposition to white supremacy,
but the precedent indicates that it is possible for anarchists to act
against Obama without being misconstrued.
Coming out of the protracted mobilizations leading up to last summer’s
Democratic and Republican National Conventions, anarchists have actually
built up some networks and momentum. It would be all the more tragic,
then, for hesitation to erode those modest gains. Depending on what
happens next, the clashes outside the Republican National Convention in
St. Paul indicated either that anarchists have regained the initiative
in the streets, or simply that they were the last rats to leave the
sinking ship of the anti-war movement. Either momentum will fizzle as ad
hoc networks drift apart, or additional efforts will shift anarchists to
the forefront of radical struggles now that the former liberal
opposition occupies the highest seats of power.
A word is necessary on what it takes to maintain healthy networks, since
anarchists in the United States have had so little success with this.
Networks only persist when they offer something concrete and desirable
to the participants. Were there an anarchist federation that could
provide its members with free health care, this country would not lack
for anarchists. The networks that developed in the buildup to the
convention protests flourished because they offered the opportunity to
participate in something exciting and historic; they are unlikely to
endure unless people find other ways to use them to circulate useful
resources. Otherwise, as has happened countless times already, most
people will drop out in search of more productive uses of their time,
leaving only the most tiresome individuals to play at bureaucracy as an
end in itself. Some tentative attempts are unfolding to make use of the
networks that linger in the wake of the conventions; if they don’t take
off, anarchists will have to start all over again next time a nationwide
mobilization is called for.
So what are anarchists to do, at the opening of the era heralded by
Obama’s victory? First, we should maintain explicitly anarchist
organizing. This doesn’t mean refusing to work with non-anarchists, but
establishing our own projects and organizing bodies, so we won’t be
stuck reacting to others’ initiatives or lose ourselves in authoritarian
structures that absorb our efforts without bringing real liberation any
closer. The efforts of the RNC Welcoming Committee provide an excellent
example of this, in stark contrast to the absence of any serious
anarchist initiatives at the Republican National Convention of 2004. Now
that the Democrats hold power in Washington, D.C., it should be much
easier to distinguish ourselves and our positions than it was when we
were lumped in with the liberals under Bush.
And how can we organize popular resistance, when seems that everyone
loves Obama? With the economy in shambles and global warming finally
acknowledged as reality, the answers to this question should be obvious
enough. Capitalism hasn’t gone anywhere—on the contrary, its negative
effects are only more and more apparent to all. Rather than entrenching
ourselves on the losing side of the pro-or-anti-Obama debate, we should
sidestep that trap to pose new questions. Here is one example of how
this could play out concretely. The past two Presidential inaugurations
have featured spirited liberal and anarchist protests questioning the
legitimacy of the new ruler; this time, rather than simply repeating
that equation with significantly diminished prospects of success, it
would be strategic for an anarchist mobilization to focus on economic
issues and economic targets, plenty of which can be found in Washington,
D.C. As of this writing, a vague call to action for the inauguration has
circulated, but it remains to be seen whether anything more concrete
will materialize.
Above all, to repeat this once more, we cannot afford to withdraw into
the shadows as we did after September 11, 2001; a world sliding swiftly
into catastrophe cannot afford this either. But to urge anarchists to
maintain confrontational organizing is not to endorse any and all action
for its own sake; on the contrary, it is essential that we pick our
battles carefully. The disaster of capitalism presents us with an
endless number of fires to put out, and running around attempting to do
so with no strategy can only exhaust us pointlessly. As our numbers and
resources are currently extremely limited, we should start with the
objectives that will best enable us to extend our networks and
capabilities. Once we’ve done so, we’ll be better equipped to put an end
to mountaintop removal, thwart the racist deportations carried out by
ICE, and so on.
We leave it up to you, dear readers, to sort out what this looks like in
practice—though here’s a hint.
This year, with one exception, anarchist actions around the election
were fairly isolated and predictable. There were the usual scattered
acts of vandalism, presumably limited to small in-groups, and principled
refusals to participate in the electoral spectacle, which attract an
even narrower demographic; only one effort stood out as subversively
combining public and clandestine elements.
The morning following election day, consumers around the country woke up
to find that the newspapers in the dispensers on their streets, and in
some cases even in their very driveways, had been provided with a
spurious front page courtesy of local pranksters. This occurred in at
least twenty cities, including Washington, D.C., New York City,
Lawrence, Milwaukee, Duluth, New Orleans, and Chicago, not to mention
several cities in Iowa, California, and North Carolina. One paper
estimated that 1000 copies of their publication alone had been affected.
Presumably, one or two groups came up with this idea, then solicited the
participation of others around the country. Because it involved
comparatively low risk on the street level, it offered a perfect
opportunity for newer groups to build up experience in an activity they
wouldn’t necessarily have had the resources to pull off alone and to
invite new people to participate. This is exactly the sort of format
that can enable a network to increase its numbers and capabilities. On
top of all this, the action gave visibility to dissent precisely when
Obama’s triumph was obscuring it.
This action demonstrated the proper way to make use of the networks that
remain after the convention protests. Had one group simply called for
actions targeting corporate media, surely very little would have
happened. The point of a network is to save organizers the trouble of
duplicating groundwork, and to increase the scope of what can be
achieved with the same tactics so it is possible to escalate conflict
without increasing individual risk. Further efforts to utilize these
networks need not take the same form, but they must follow the same
basic principle; otherwise, the groups that compose the networks will
inevitably return to the isolation of focusing exclusively on local
projects without outside support.