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Title: Beyond Voting Author: Chris Crass Date: September 14, 2004 Language: en Topics: voting, anti-voting, anarchist organization, Left Electoralism, Elections, strategy Source: Retrieved on 12th October 2020 from http://www.coloursofresistance.org/508/beyond-voting-anarchist-organizing-electoral-politics-and-developing-strategy-for-liberation/
Presidential elections are often the terrain on which radicals and
anarchists debate the merits of electoral politics. This election season
is no different. Social movements around the world and in the United
States are declaring Bushâs defeat at the ballot box a top priority. As
radicals, we have consistently opposed the policies of the Bush
administration and have mobilized our opposition repeatedly to the wars
on Afghanistan and Iraq. We know that the Democratic Party shares the
majority of the Republican Partyâs platform. Both candidates represent
ruling class worldviews and institutions of domination. What do we do?
There are many discussions about how to vote out the Bush
administration.[1] I want to urge us to step back and talk about
electoral politics and larger questions of strategy. For anarchists,
voting and electoral politics spark intense debate because they bring
fundamental questions to the surface. How do we believe revolutionary
transformation happens? How do we build movement? Where does power come
from? How do we act in the world? Does our organizing matter? From there
we ask more specific questions. How do we as radical organizers, left
activists and anarchists relate to elections and electoral politics in
general? Are the elections an opportunity for strategic intervention or
a waste of time? At the heart of all of these debates is the question of
strategy.
Questions of strategy are always on my mind. Where are we going and how
are we going to get there? I want to reflect on my personal relationship
to electoral politics as an anarchist, because I think the presidential
elections often get us debating tactics when really we need to think
about strategy. The essay is based in my experience, because the most
useful anarchist theory and strategy is often embedded in our practice.
It is not a coincidence that the most widely read and cited anarchist
text in the US is an autobiography called Living My Life by Emma
Goldman.
Often I am not even aware of the assumptions and commitments embedded in
my practice. I think we need to examine our practice so we can be clear
about what our theory and strategy is in order to engage it and develop
it. Our theory and strategy is embedded in our practice because we
believe that the means lead to the ends, that how we engage in struggle
is pre-figurative of the society that we want to live in. For
anarchists, direct action is not just a tactic. Direct action is an
expression of a deeper understanding of revolutionary transformation in
which we take back our power and remake the world. Through direct
struggle confronting institutions of injustice, we develop new
understandings of ourselves and the world. These understandings help us
build communities of empowerment, equality and mutual aid. Through
communities of resistance we work to bring down systems of oppression in
all their forms. By working to implement our visions of the future
society into our everyday lives and in our counter institutions, we seek
to build the new world in the shell of the old.
I have often heard the argument that you cannot be an anarchist if you
vote or participate in electoral politics. Voting is a tactic. As a
tactic I know it is connected to core values about power and decision
making, but if weâre to develop meaningful strategy all of our tactics
need to be evaluated and updated where need be. Iâd like to make a
distinction about core beliefs and tactics or actions that express core
beliefs. For me, anarchism is fundamentally based in a belief in the
capacity of people to share power with each other and through
relationships, families, organizations, communities and institutions
build societies based on having power with people rather then over
people. Power with people forms the base of societies organized on
principles of self-determination, cooperation and justice. Many of our
tactics have been useful in expressing our core beliefs, but overall we
are still far from being a meaningful challenge to the ruling order of
domination and exploitation. I want to think about our tactics,
strategies and theories not only in terms of how they express our core
beliefs, but how they help move us to living our core beliefs. We are
largely successful practicing this in groups and communities of dozens.
Our tactics, strategies and theories need to deal with societies of
millions.
Anarchist analysis of the state has made important contributions to
revolutionary theory, particularly in the mid-1800âs through the early
1900âs.[2] But our theory has remained rooted in the past and today it
is often one dimensional and based in a deep mystification of how power
actually operates. While proclaiming âsmash the stateâ, our analysis
leaves little room to figure out how to actually make that happen.
Voting and elections will not achieve revolutionary change. But this is
not the point as no isolated tactic or campaign will. When our thinking
about action is an all or nothing framework of whether this will smash
the state or not it often translates into isolation: building
countercultures, striking out once in a while and hoping the state will
leaves us alone. These countercultures are mostly young, white and
middle class. This narrow analysis is unable to explain the complex
experiences or meet the needs of most people in society. This is why
many refer to anarchist scenes in the US, not anarchist movements, and
why these scenes are often referred to as activist ghettos.
In practice, hundreds of self-identified anarchists around the country
are already engaged with electoral politics in a variety of ways. I know
that thousands of anarchists and anti-authoritarians around the country
vote. Even more engage and struggle with the state on issues of welfare,
housing, tenantsâ rights, immigration, childcare, healthcare, prisoner
rights, the death penalty, disability rights, education, reproductive
freedom, queer rights, civil rights, taxing corporations, affirmative
action, the environment, worker rights, US foreign policy and regulating
corporate power. But our analysis of this work is rarely discussed in
print and is still largely absent from what is considered anarchist
theory.[3] If our theory is unable to help us understand and engage the
reality of the work we are already doing, then it becomes a barrier to
integrating the concrete details of our work into a strategy for
revolutionary change.
We need an engaged praxis of theory, action and reflection. We need
theory to help us understand the world and inform our strategy. We also
need to reflect on our actual practices and the complexities of reality
and update our theory.[4] Historically, anarchists have been heavy on
action and light on theory. For US anarchists today, life in the heart
of empire creates urgency to end injustices committed in our name. This
often leads to feeling frantic, and the need to act often outweighs
study and strategic planning. We frequently feel like weâre just banging
our heads against a wall. When we operate with enormous long-term goals
of revolution and liberation without short-term goals to guide us and
help us evaluate success, then our culture promotes turnover and
burnout. People coming and going is not the issue, people leaving
feeling hopeless and jaded is the problem. Additionally, those of us who
stay often develop an underlying mentality that only the toughest and
brightest can do this work. This mentality can become a dangerous mix of
frustration with most people and an unconscious vanguardist sense that
we alone are the ones who will make ârevolutionâ. Iâm interested in
strategies that are complex enough to understand mass participation and
grounded enough to remember that we are indeed all capable of
self-governance. [5]
Gabriel Sayegh, a white queer anti-prison organizer who has taught me
much about thinking strategically explained it this way: âIf âweâ could
more cohesively understand and continue to develop our theory about
strategy, âweâ would be stronger and more effective agents for
revolutionary change in this country, because âweâ could work towards
our vision(s) step by step, and do that within a framework and belief
that âweâ can actually win, and make real the world(s) beating deep in
our hearts.â
Developing strategy is about setting short-term and long-term goals and
creating plans to reach them. Strategy is seeing how accomplishing
short-term goals helps build our capacities as individuals and
organizations in order to be in a better position to work for our
long-term goals. Strategy is most useful when based in an engaged praxis
of theory, action and reflection.[6] This way it stays grounded in
reality, encourages evaluation of outcomes to increase effectiveness and
in good case scenarios means being pro-active and visionary rather then
reactive and confined to the framework of systems of oppression.
Electoral politics has been only a small part of my overall work, but
Iâm putting energy into this discussion because I think electoral
politics in particular and reform oriented work in general opens up some
of the big questions about anarchist strategy. Since 1994, I have voted
in over a dozen elections on the local, state and federal level. I have
actively participated in electoral campaigns on city and state level
ballot initiatives/propositions. I have participated in over 20
community organizing reform oriented campaigns that involved fights at
city hall. I have worked to both get rid of candidates and put
candidates into office. To be clear, I do not believe that we should
unconditionally do electoral work. I believe that we need to be
strategic about when and how to be involved. All of the electoral
struggles that I have participated in have been community-based
struggles with leadership from radical/left organizations and
individuals that I felt affinity with. I do electoral work not in spite
of my anarchist politics, but because Iâm an anarchist committed to
building broad movements for social, economic, racial and environmental
justice.
One of the most significant aspects of shutting down the WTO in Seattle
in 1999 was that anarchist organizing efforts throughout the â90s
converged and played a leading role in a mass movement. And during those
days of confrontation we believed in ourselves and our power to make
change. We looked around and saw ourselves as part of something much
larger then our scenes and for many of us, for the first time, we felt
confident enough to see ourselves as comrades with tens of thousands of
other left, radical, progressive people on the streets. We also found a
new kind of respect: a respect that expressed itself most clearly when
Elizabeth âBetitaâ Martinez wrote âWhere Was the Color in Seattleâ and
called out racism in the mostly white direct action, mostly anarchist
movement.[7] I say respect because the essay was truly a gift to the
movement and has had an enormously positive impact. I also say respect
because the message of the essay to me was: There is much work for us to
do together and white activists need to challenge our privilege and
develop our analysis and practice so we can all respect each other and
work together to build a new world.
I want to emphasize the importance of feeling confident enough to think
about vision and strategy. I think the left and radicals in particular
have been so beaten down, that we often spend more time fighting each
other then actually thinking we can win and what winning would look
like. One of the ways that I have seen this confidence manifest is the
high level of commitment that thousands of white activists around the
country have shown engaging the critiques Martinez put forward. This
engagement requires reflection, asking hard questions, willingness to
step back and listen, learning from history and developing changes in
your personal, organizational and movement theory, strategy and
practice.
Throughout the â90s and particularly after Seattle 1999, anarchism has
grown in both numbers and influence. What is particularly exciting is
the gradual development of a more multigenerational, multiracial,
multigendered, multicultural and multiclass anarchist movement. As
Anarchist People of Color conferences take place around the country, as
immigrant women of color step up their leadership in organizations, as
working class anarchists and transgendered/genderqueer people write
theory, as parents, children and grandparents help shape activist
culture, and as women continue to lead the way, our politics and
practice expand. They expand because our politics and practices are an
expression of the lives, analysis and visions that we hold and the
histories that we bring. Our politics and practices will deepen as they
grow to include a vision of collective liberation that genuinely
includes all of us and strategies holistic enough to get us there.[8]
Collective liberation refers to the struggles against all systems of
oppression with the goal of liberation for all people. With a
recognition of the ways that people are simultaneously oppressed and
privileged by multiple systems of oppression, the possibility of
solidarity between privileged and oppressed people of particular systems
of oppression against institutions of power is viewed as strategic. This
means exploring the roles of privileged people organizing other
privileged people (i.e. men organizing other men, heterosexuals
organizing other heterosexuals) to act in solidarity and build with
movements of oppressed people to transform power relationships between
them in the course of struggling against ruling class power. The
leadership of oppressed people in this process is of critical importance
along with the development of accountable,
anti-oppression/pro-collective liberation leadership of the
privileged.[9] From anti-racist struggle of white people joined in the
struggle with people of color against white supremacy to men challenging
sexism joined with women, transgender/genderqueer people to end
patriarchy, heterosexism and the gender binary system, to people in the
US fighting imperialism in solidarity with social movements through the
world to end US Empire and build self-determination. From this analysis,
people in positions of privilege are not acting in solidarity merely
because itâs the right thing to do. Rather, it is through collective
work against these systems that we liberate our collective humanity from
the overarching framework of oppressed/privileged/oppressor.
The next two sections are an overview of my experience with anarchist
organizing and electoral politics. In my reflections I try to highlight
the strategic thinking that guided my actions. Ultimately, I believe at
this point in history we need a fusion of anarchist direct action
organizing, collective liberation politics and left/radical community
organizing is key to developing the kind of movement strategy we need.
I became an anarchist in 1989. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the
Soviet Union, the centrality of socialism and Marxism on the left was in
decline. I embraced anarchist politics and believed that we were a new
generation ready to make a new path.[10] I looked to anarchist classics
written by Bakunin, Kropotkin and Malatesta for political theory and to
the anarchists of Haymarket, Albert and Lucy Parsons in particular, as
well as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman and the anarchists of Spain
for political grounding, lessons on practice and overall
inspiration.[11]
In high school, a group of us started up the United Anarchist Front in
the suburbs of Southern California. and we connected to others through
zines and newspapers from around the country. We found the clearest
expression of our politics and identity in the newspapers Profane
Existence and Love and Rage. Profane Existence popularized activism
through news and examples of what other young radicals were doing around
the world.[12] Love and Rage had an explicit focus on feminism, queer
activism, struggles of people of color and indigenous people around the
world and in the US, and developing an anarchist analysis of the world
today and strategies for movement building.[13] Anarchist punk bands
like Conflict, Crass and Chumbawamba were the soundtrack to our
resistance, educating us and giving us energy as they gave voice to our
anger and passion. We threw our energies into building a youth-based,
punk-influenced resistance counterculture.
When elections came around, I used to love to put on my âIf voting
changed anything it would be illegalâ button. I wore it eagerly
anticipating debate, hoping someone would ask, âWhat does that mean?â
Voting is the illusion of choice between two masters who serve the
interests of capital at the expense of the majority of humanity and the
earth. âBut voting is our voice in how society operates.â Voting is the
lie of democratic participation in your own subjugation. Our voice is
expressed everyday when we resist injustice and build alternatives based
in our commitment to mutual aid, cooperation and real decision-making
power over our lives. And then the statement that I was just waiting
for: âIf you donât vote, then you have no right to complain about what
the government does.â Your vote reinforces the power of an unjust system
that robs us of our power and dignity and then to add insult to injury,
you give it the appearance of consent through your participation in the
electoral process.
I saw these debates as opportunity to win the anarchist position and
hopefully convert others. My general orientation focused on the need to
build an explicitly anarchist movement to fight capitalism and the
state. The questions of âhow revolutionary transformation happensâ or
âhow we move from this society to the society we wantâ were not on my
mind. Not because I dismissed the questions, but because I wasnât at a
point of knowing how or why to ask them. Like the anarchists and
radicals of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that I
studied and admired, I believed in my heart that revolution was coming,
that it was inevitable, and that we needed to get more and more people
ready for it. I grew up a white, middle class, male, with loving and
supportive parents and access to healthcare, resourced public school,
healthy food and excellent housing. My anarchism was sparked and guided
by my working class best friend who grew up with his over-worked,
under-supported single mom. He could articulate a long list of what was
wrong with capitalism and the need for a society that treated people
with dignity and respect.
Our strategy, as expressed by what we ended up doing as opposed to an
articulated plan, was to get as many people into anarchism, fight back
with other anarchists in what ever way we could (which primarily meant
propaganda) and build loving community with our friends along the way.
We were coming from a belief that basically people just needed to wake
up, that people were brainwashed into submission and that once they knew
the truth, the people of the world would get off their knees and the
system would automatically come crashing down.
The Gulf War in 1991 had a profound impact on us. We found ourselves in
the streets with thousands and for the first time it began to click that
what we were up against was not just an isolated elite with power and
wealth, but a complex system of inter-locking institutions like the
media, military.[14] In following years I was challenged on my own
sexism and racism by comrades and close friends. It has been a
challenging and profound process of coming to understand that society is
composed of complex relationships shaped by white supremacy, patriarchy
and other systems of oppression.[15] This helped me to put capitalism
and the state into a broader framework and history. It was critical to
my development to believe that power was not just out there, but that I
experience and participate in it. Now I had to figure out how the
experience shaped me and what my participation meant. It was becoming
clear that revolution was far more complicated and far from imminent. We
needed to get better organized.
In the â90s, around the country, anarchists were strengthening or
creating housing collectives, worker co-ops, social centers, infoshops,
micro-powered radio stations and other alternative institutions.
Anarchists who had utilized affinity groups, consensus decision making,
spokescouncils and creative direct action in the anti-nuke movement of
the 80âs helped bring these organizational forms and action strategies
into the newer movements.[16] Anarchists built organizations like Food
Not Bombs, Lesbian Avengers, Industrial Workers of the World, Earth
First!, Anti-Racist Action, Riot Grrrl, Anarchist Black Cross and
hundreds of local collectives running projects including womenâs health,
needle exchange, literature distribution, community gardens, queer youth
outreach, bicycle, book and tool libraries, and tenant and prisoner
support.[17]
Anarchists continued putting out hundreds of zines and newspapers and
were among the first to turn the internet into an important
communication tool. Anarchists were heavily involved in solidarity work
for Mumia Abu-Jamal and political prisoners, indigenous struggles in the
western hemisphere and the Zapatistas in particular. Through conferences
and gatherings like Sister Subverter and Earth First! Round River
Rendezvous, we came together to share experiences, learn skills and
build our relationships with one another. In 1996, Active Resistance in
Chicago took it to a new level and ran a week of workshops focused
explicitly on community organizing, workplace organizing and direct
action activism that lead up to protests at the Democratic National
Convention.
Throughout this time period, I spent most of my time working with other
anarchists to build a large, effective, well networked, anarchist
movement that was capable of taking action, providing community services
and building alternative institutions. I moved to San Francisco and
immersed myself in Food Not Bombs. Our general strategy was to develop
alternative institutions based on cooperation and mutual aid. They would
help provide support for communities of resistances that could strike at
systems of oppression through direct action, mobilizations (rallies and
marches), civil disobedience. Cultural and social events and general
education work would bring people into the movement an d build support
for our activities.
As the movement was growing in size, more of the anarchists I worked
with named women of color feminism, queer theory and activism, and
liberation struggles in communities of color as their political
influences and sources of inspiration. In addition to anarchist
classics, influences included contemporary radical intellectuals, poets
and political novelists such as bell hooks, Marge Piercy, Adrienne Rich,
Howard Zinn, Edward Said, Barbara Smith, Noam Chomsky, Malcolm X, Gloria
AnzaldĂșa, Audre Lorde, Ursula K. LeGuin, Angela Davis and Alice Walker.
In addition to fighting systems of oppression in the world, a growing
commitment was developing to fight the impacts of systems of oppression
on our own lives and in our organizing. This commitment was building
through the struggle primarily of women, queers, working class people
and people of color to openly discuss issues of race, class, gender,
sexuality and age in our organizations and projects. Molly Tovâs widely
distributed âMessage To Anarchist Men and then some,â and the anonymous
âWhat It Is To Be A Girl In An Anarchist Boys Clubâ among dozens of
other writings by women, called out sexism in the movement.[18] Former
Civil Rights organizer and Black Panther Lorenzo Komboa Ervinâs
influential book âAnarchism and the Black Revolutionâ challenged white
privilege and put the question of leadership from oppressed communities,
particularly communities of color, into movement discussion.[19]
Through working in collectives and reading movement history,
revolutionary theory, and current analysis in the movement, I began to
understand revolutionary transformation as a process that combines
ideas, action and reflection. Through struggle in society we transform
ourselves as individuals in the process. It requires organizations and
projects based in anarchist politics that can help agitate for
revolutionary change and offer alternatives people can join. The base of
power for revolutionary change is everyday people who will rise up
against some last straw in a multitude of injustices and when they do,
we will be there to join in and support their initiative. Through
struggles and victories, and the relationships and communities developed
in the process, people develop a sense of empowerment. The
anti-hierarchical, egalitarian or horizontal organizing models of
anarchism facilitate as many people as possible sharing leadership
roles, power and decision making. Through these experiences we learn to
share power and develop a stronger base of active resistance to continue
the struggle when this particular surge or uprising calms.
The empowered imaginations and passions of everyday people develop
affinity with radical ideas and some of them join revolutionary
organizations. These organizations are a base for continued collective
action and help form communities of support with other left/radical
formations. Through these activities our visions of what is possible and
the concrete details of the new society will advance alongside our own
capacities to make social change. This continues to reflect a large part
of my thinking. However, I knew this was not enough. Throughout the 90âs
I was committed to primarily working with other anarchists.
Nevertheless, I worked in coalitions and alliances with a broad range of
left/radical activists. Looking back at my experience growing up in
California, right-wing ballot measures and the struggles to defeat them
serve as important markers in my development.
California is one of the most powerful states in the US. Outside of the
slave economy based in the South, capitalists in California were a
leading force in combining white supremacy and capitalism. California
was colonized by the US government in the 1840âs in a war against
Mexico. Over 100,000 people were crossed by the US border in the
process. The US war helped to fulfill the empire building plan of
Manifest Destiny. California is now the 5^(th) largest economy in the
world and the most populous state in the US.
Over the past 150 years, capitalists have fought for and won key
anti-immigration policies in California. Capitalists pitted white
workers against even more underpaid, overworked Chinese workers. White
labor unions â using a strategy of protecting white workersâ rights only
â organized to pass the Chinese Exclusion Act. Passed in 1882, it was
the first significant law restricting immigration in the US. It became
the basis for later attacks on immigrant communities. Chinese people
were denied citizenship and the rights of citizenship until 1943. A
similar cycle took place later with Japanese workers, particularly when
Japanese workers organized unions and carried out successful strikes. In
1924, the US Congress passed legislation to build border patrols on the
US/Mexico border. Immigration policy and border patrols expressing the
logic of capitalism and white supremacy imposed the construct âillegalâ
to hundreds of thousands, and eventually millions, of people already
exploited as workers. Colonized indigenous land and exploited immigrant
labor was the base from which the California economy was built.
This is the history that I was born into in Anaheim, California in 1973.
I went to school in the multiracial, majority white, public schools. In
1986, California became the 8^(th) State in the US to declare English as
the official language under the rallying cry, âEnglish Onlyâ (28 states
have similar laws as of 2004). I remember in elementary school thinking
any brown skinned person who couldnât speak English was inferior. My
grandfather and other relatives regularly spoke of âthose lazy, good for
nothinâ Mexicans stealing our tax dollarsâ. Even as an activist in high
school who often complained about apathy amongst other students, I never
made the connection to the Latinos/as who were calling out racism on
campus, because the critiques they raised about language and culture
were totally outside what I considered relevant issues.
The Rodney King Verdict and mass uprising in Los Angeles had a profound
influence on me.[20] With the encouragement and support of friends of
color, race become more and more central to my analysis. At Fullerton
College in Orange County I quickly got involved with a multiracial,
Chicano/a led, coalition fighting against statewide tuition increases.
The Coalition made connections between the enormously expanding prison
budget and the slashed education budget, and argued that college must
serve working class students and students of color. The coalition was
widely supported by students of color and white students. Then the ads
began to appear in school newspapers around Southern California: âYour
fees are going up because illegal aliens are taking advantage of our tax
dollars.â This was followed several months later with Proposition 187,
also known as Save Our State (SOS), a ballot measure for the 1994
election which was to prohibit undocumented immigrants from having
access to public healthcare, education or any social service. The
official wording on the ballot described itself as âthe first giant
stride in ultimately ending the illegal alien invasion.â
Over the preceding few months I had been building tight political bonds
and friendships with Latina/o organizers, in particular David Rojas who
was an organizing mentor for me. David played a leading role in forming
and guiding the coalition. He spent many hours talking politics, helping
me develop an understanding of white supremacy and colonialism.[21] When
the ads hit and it was clear that this was part of growing
anti-immigrant campaign with enormous support in white communities, it
took everything to a level I had never known before. I had read about
the roundups of anarchists, of the Red Scaresâ persecution of radicals
and I claimed it all as my history. But Prop 187 was an attack on a
whole category of people based on race and language, regardless of any
chosen political identity. This was an attack on entire families,
communities and generations â and it was both deeply historic and
institutional. This was an effort to permanently and systematically deny
basic human rights of healthcare and education to oppressed and
exploited communities. As David and I continued working side by side, I
could feel for the first time the way that history was written on our
skin. He and I agreed in our analysis and stood together in our
organizing, but we experienced the anti-immigrant racist climate in such
dramatically different ways because of who we were. I felt the fear of
violent reprisal for being associated with him, he felt it because it
was designed for him, his family and community.
Marching in the streets with hundreds and thousands against Prop 187 was
a challenge to my whole understanding of voting. This was not about
voting for a master, nor was this a movement of people deceived by the
illusion of choice. This was a movement of youth, parents, grandparents,
workers, farmers, students, teachers and young children in the arms of
their parents moving in the streets saying: âWe are fully humanâ, âWe
stand together in solidarity with other oppressed people to say no to
this system that is killing our communitiesâ. It was the first time that
I felt like I wasnât rejecting my community, but fighting in solidarity
with a community of millions for self-determination. It was the first
time that I had participated in a multigenerational community that spoke
to a clear memory and history of resistance against oppression and a
legacy of struggle for liberation.
There was no question in my mind that we needed to defeat this measure
and that voting was a tactic to use because this manifestation of state
oppression was being fought for in the electoral arena. Itâs important
to note that elections are widely interpreted as the clearest
expressions of what broad numbers of people believe politically. While
radicals are quick to note that the majority of people donât vote, the
pre-election corporate media spins and the actual poll results have an
enormous impact on the broader political climate.[22] For example, if
Prop 187 was going to pass, the difference between it passing by 51% or
60% is huge. In a real way, votes represent belief systems and political
commitment. The right has been extremely effective at arguing the âwill
of the votersâ to advance their agenda. If Prop 187 wins by 10 or more
percentage points then it signals a base of support for even more
rightwing measures and candidates. It also sets a tone for what
corporations and politicians think the y can get away with and build
support for. If 70% vote for Prop 187 it decreases the fear the Border
Patrol has about killing immigrants. It also signals to capitalists a
lack of support for immigrants to organize unions and fight for dignity.
The right-wing has understood that increasing anti-immigrant sentiment
by 2 or 3 percentage points year after year ends not just in huge
victory for them 10 years down the line, but steadily increases a
political climate that favors profit for some people over the lives of
most people.[23]
This is why Rahula Janowski, a mother, a member of the Heads Up
Collective, and a long time anarchist, believes that voting is a form of
harm reduction. âFor me, voting isnât the path to my ideal future
society. I vote because I feel a sense of responsibility to act in the
real world around me. When rich neo-liberals running for office are
building their power scapegoating poor and homeless people, I think we
need to take action. Iâve participated in local elections for candidates
not because I thought theyâd make things a lot better, but because I
wanted to stop things from getting much worse in the short term.â
Plans to achieve short-term goals with an overarching plan to achieve
long-term goals are the basis for strategy. It is not the vote in and of
itself that is the goal, but moving people to the belief system and
political commitment represented by the vote. The work of moving people
to particular positions, mobilizing support for particular positions and
turning people out on election day presents a clear structure to do mass
political education and outreach with a clear next step that every
individual is given. In many cases, to turn my back on electoral
politics would be turning my back on the most pressing struggles of the
day.
Jeff Giaquinto a San Francisco Food Not Bombs member of many years
expresses this more bluntly, âElectoral politics suck. We frequently
lose. Even when we win, people in the government are quick to water down
or turn over our victories. I do it because the material impact of state
policy is enormous and the vote does influence the political reality of
what politicians believe they can get away with, both good and bad.
Often itâs about stopping policy from getting worse so we can have more
space to organize for something better.â
What is critical to understand is that weâre not just fighting for
votes, but for left/radical politics. If you can build a majority that
favors both worker rights and immigrant rights, then Prop 187 not only
loses, but there is far more power to build immigrant labor unions with
broad community support. At this point, rather then argue with someone
against voting when they are likely looking for some way to make their
opinions heard, I encourage people to express their opinions through
voting and then tried to connect there own desire to impact the world to
broader political commitments like activism and community struggles. My
goal is no longer to win an argument in those conversations. My goal is
to build movements that win.
Prop 187 passed with 59% of the vote. The struggle against it galvanized
many young people of color, particularly Chicanas/os to fight back even
harder. This was just one more attack on their communities as well as
one more opportunity to strengthen collective power to survive and
deepen the struggle.[24]
Over the next six years the rightwing scored an impressive array of
victories at the ballot box. Using propositions they attacked
affirmative action, bilingual education âEnglish Onlyâ, youth of color
and queer marriage. In all of these struggles community and activist
organizations fought back. I marched in the streets with thousands of
other people, as did many other anarchists. In these struggles I met
very few people who had the illusion that this was the primary site of
resistance. Overwhelmingly, I met people who were involved in a wide
range of activities and projects in their communities. Many of them had
clear analysis that these electoral fights were part of a larger
struggle. To ask them why they were in these fights missed the point
that oppressed communities are under attack and do not always get to
choose which issues to prioritize. The logic is clear: if popular right
wing forces are mobilizing mostly white voters to deny your community
basic services, make it easier to lock your kids up, and outlaw your
language in the classroom, then the matter is far more then just a vote
or one election. Yet even as many anarchists understood this and
participated in these struggles, the dominant message remained
âAnarchists do not vote, do not engage in electoral politics.â Given
that the majority of anarchists are white and come from the white
communities that are voting against communities of color, the dismissal
of electoral politics becomes even more problematic.
I remember talking with a progressive/left, white, queer schoolteacher
in San Francisco. She said that she had a really hard time trusting me
because I was an anarchist. She said, âI agree with a lot of what I
understand anarchism to be, but I donât trust anarchists. Every time
powerful forces come after oppressed communities with all of these
propositions, all the anarchists I talk with say they donât believe in
legitimizing the power of the state because they wonât get their hands
dirty in electoral politics.â
âDonât you understand that the state has real power over peopleâs lives?
This is not a game that you get to choose to play in or not. While you
might have the privilege to stand there âmore radical then thouâ, most
of us are fighting for our lives. Being âabove it allâ is not a choice.
Then you complain about the cops arresting you at a civil disobedience
and call on my solidarity? I provide that solidarity because I hope one
day youâll all wake up to what weâre really up against.â
While this was one of the most direct critiques Iâve heard about
anarchists and voting, Iâve seen many express similar sentiments. I
agree that voting can have the effect of legitimizing the state. I agree
that questioning representative democracy in a capitalist society and
questioning the role of voting in social change have all been positive
contributions to revolutionary thought. However, I believe that our
politics of non-engagement in so many crucial struggles involving the
state, electoral politics among them, have in the end done more to
de-legitimize anarchists than to de-legitimize the power of the state.
Furthermore, I have worked with community-based struggles that have both
turned out the vote and attacked the legitimacy of the state. I know
that we are smart enough and creative enough to vote, participate in
electoral politics when it is strategic and advance a radical systemic
analysis. Beyond that, I also believe that white radicals have enormous
potential to move from rebel outsiders to radical leaders in the kinds
of white communities many of us grew up in.
I learned a lot from working in community-based electoral struggles. The
orientation of the people I was learning from was generally based in
radical community organizing models. From this orientation, broadly
speaking, these electoral battles are part of long-term struggle against
oppression and for self-determination and liberation. We can utilize
these fights to engage in mass education, argue for our positions, and
build the power of oppressed communities to fight back and develop
alliances with other oppressed communities.
Through internal political education, skills building and reflection on
our work we can develop the analysis and capacity of activists and
organizers. And in every situation, we must set our own short-term goals
of what victory in the campaign is so that we can be constantly moving
forward with our long-term goals, even as we fight these attacks and
even if we lose them.[25]
In his groundbreaking essay âActive Revolutionâ, James Mumm explores the
fusion between anarchist politics and community organizing. In
discussing strategy he emphasizes the difference between activism and
organizing.
âActivismâs power is derived first from its ability to affect change on
issues and secondly on the potential force for change embodied in
organized people. Organizing uses power differently â by first building
an organization. For organizers, issues are a means to an end (the
development of peoplesâ capacity to affect change). Organizersâ use of
power with others to alter the relations of power over others inherent
in government or capitalist corporations forces such authoritarian
groups into a debilitating contradiction. Opening such contradictions
creates room for change. Authoritarian institutions may well react with
violence to preserve power over others, or these contradictions may
result in real social change. Liberation and revolution take place as
relationships change from authoritarian to egalitarian.â
In short, the goal of activism is to win issues and the goal of
organizing is to develop peopleâs capacity to effect change. Mummâs
writings on these topics are key.[26]
My orientation doing community-based electoral work has been to help
make connections between anarchists and these struggles. Anarchists can
learn a lot from working with community organizing models and I believe
we have valuable organizing experience and analysis to bring to the
table as well.[27]
The most educational and inspiring experience Iâve had working on a
campaign that included electoral politics was during the height of
gentrification in the Mission District of San Francisco. Enormous
amounts of capital were being invested in dot-com startups that led to a
dramatic rise in evictions of long time Mission District residents,
mostly working class and people of color. It also led to enormous rent
increases. As a white middle class, alternative youth, I participated in
the early cycle of gentrification. I moved into this predominantly
working class, Latino/a neighborhood. Just being there at all made it
more appealing to other white people to move in. While I went to the
radical countercultural spaces run by and for activists and artists,
this opened the way to more expensive stores catering to apolitical
young people who came after me.
Gentrification is part of capitalism and white supremacy generally
shapes the process by which it happens. I felt a sense of responsibility
to engage in and support resistance efforts led by working class people
and people of color in the neighborhood. Questioning my personal role in
the process of gentrification was important, and I found that I
understood my role more clearly through participation in the
anti-gentrification struggle.
In 2000, with landlords, developers, and rich capitalists celebrating
and profiting from the dislocation of working families, communities of
color and low-income tenants, the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition
emerged. MAC was a collaboration between many of the most dynamic
community organizations in the Mission fighting to build worker and
tenant power, and fighting for environmental, racial and economic
justice.
MAC was a multiracial, majority Latino/a, majority working class,
left/radical led coalition. MAC used a multi-faceted campaign strategy
that used direct action, electoral politics, community mobilizations,
political education. The campaign had an immediate goal of halting
gentrification and explicitly combined that with a long-term goal of
popular control by communities over the decisions impacting them.[28]
Clare Bayard, a long-time Food Not Bombs member at that time, anarchist
organizer and member of Anti-Racism for Global Justice, has been key to
my own thinking and participation in electoral politics. She explains
her experience with MAC:
âMAC speak-outs, neighborhood forums, and community planning process
meetings were the first spaces Iâd seen that represented real
self-determination in action on a community level, focused on
housing/zoning (which, in real ways, is about neighborhood control). The
community-based organizations in leadership built structures to
intentionally bring together families, tenants, people facing eviction,
for concrete political education and action. Direct actions including
occupations and lockdowns targeted not only city hall, but also the
planning department, landlords and real estate agencies specializing in
evictions, illegal dot-com offices, and tenant evictions. MAC utilized
city elections to focus and build larger campaigns around shifting
control from city hall to a neighborhood level, a political goal I held
in theory but had never seen anyone even realistically attempt. While
mobilizing around legislation on the ballot, MAC also supported a slate
of progressive candidates for the Board of Supervisors. For me, it was
easier at that time to get behind fights for housing propositions than
to be involved in a candidacy. But through my involvement in the
coalition, I saw how work around a candidate could be successfully
framed entirely around issues, making the vote a referendum both on city
politics and about which residents of San Francisco matter; that working
class communities and communities of color have a voice and have
political power in this city. The timeline and built-in structures
around electoral campaigns provided a space for a much more progressive
line to be expressed then I had imagined possible. The politically
experienced leadership in MAC didnât suffer from the illusions that
everything would be solved by electing particular people, just as they
knew it would take more than just the education piece in order to
successfully mobilize a neighborhood in its defense. After the
elections, in which we registered notable successes, MAC held a rally to
both celebrate our victories and also to remind the newly elected
supervisors about who they would need to be accountable to.â
Anarchists were involved in leadership and played active roles in MAC.
Iâve often thought that the role of anarchists in coalitions is to
support the most radical politics and argue for democratic decision
making structures. There have been times when this is true, mostly when
working in coalitions dominated by sectarian left organizations.
However, with MAC and in many of the community-based struggles that I
have worked in, I was learning lessons in organizing.
Some anarchists said that it was disappointing that there was not an
explicitly anarchist anti-gentrification formation. I think being
involved with MAC was the best move politically and strategically. I
think it was monumental to have anarchists participate in, learn from
and support the leadership of left/radical Latina/o and working class
based community groups. I also think that there is an important void to
be filled by pro-community organizing, non-sectarian, pro-movement
building anarchists with anti-racist/anti-oppression politics to form
organizations that can be part of a coalition effort like MAC. I think
that when broader left/radical forces come together there is an enormous
opportunity for us to share and learn politics and organizing that can
take all of our work to the next level.
Iâm an anarchist who has always believed that there is much to learn
from many political traditions and perspectives. As I work to build
broader movement, I remain an anarchist because I think we have made and
continue to make important contributions in developing effective,
holistic strategy. Nisha Anand, who works at San Francisco Women Against
Rape, is also committed to broader left movement building. She explains,
âI believe the successful collective models anarchists have developed
can and should be applied to a larger context and with diverse
communities. In order for this to work, we as anarchists must first
develop long-term strategies that build relationships and trust. Meeting
people where theyâre at and working on issues that have real impact in
communities we want to work with is a key way to begin building such
relationships. Initially, our work may include broad coalition
organizing, support and solidarity work, and electoral mobilizations.â
Meeting people âwhere theyâre atâ is key to why I think electoral
politics can at times be both necessary and strategic. In the case of
fighting gentrification with MAC, I think it was necessary because this
fight and many other fights must be fought and to stand on the sidelines
makes one irrelevant. Necessary because this fight, like others, was
about peopleâs basic human rights to live and raise children in their
neighborhood. Necessary because not fighting it means we are in a far
weaker position to fight anything else. Strategic because this was a
fight that was affecting broad numbers of people and spoke to core
issues/values of what kind of community/society we want to live i n.
Strategic because through popular struggles new possibilities open up,
spaces to practice radical organizing and learn crucial lessons.
Strategic because relationships of respect, trust and accountability are
built much more quickly in the course of day-to-day struggle. Strategic
because relationships with a broader range of left/radical people can
help form stronger alliances based on respect, solidarity and affinity.
I want to be clear that electoral politics is but a small part of a much
larger strategy. Anarchist tenant organizer Ingrid Chapman underlines
this point, âWhen organizing around propositions we must look past the
elections, because the reality of the system is that the wealthy
rightwing has a clear advantage, and hard-fought progressive laws can be
âand often areâoverturned or tremendously weakened. We must always be
thinking about how and what we are building for post-election day. Not
just getting folk out to vote, but where does that community power go
after the election? How can this campaign build long lasting
relationships, build skills and build a base of people who are empowered
and organized to continue the fight for justice â win or lose? And when
we win or lose, what tactics can we use outside the electoral system and
formal politics to empower folk and keep fighting? Because one of our
major struggles is fighting against disempowerment all around us.â
So, what are we going to do about this presidential election?
The focus of my argument about electoral politics has been elections on
the local and state level. Getting the Bush administration out of the
White House is not my primary goal, but nevertheless, it is a goal.
Gabriel Sayegh has contributed an important essay âTear down the prison,
get out the vote: an antiracist argument for votingâ which presents a
strong argument to white radicals to vote against Bush.
He writes: âIf white activists continue along the line of âthereâs no
different between the candidates so I wonât voteâ then we miss the very
important ways that the candidates do differ, and how those differences
can be leveraged in an effort to build a stronger movement. While Bush
and Kerry are certain to serve many of the same corporate masters, there
are everyday material realities which, however small they may seem to
upper and middle class white people, are indeed enormously significant
to those who arenât white or arenât middle/upper class. For instance,
Bushâs first act in offices was to place a global gag rule on
reproductive rights and abortion clinics around the world, effectively
undermining the right to family planning services to women around the
globe. And who are those women? Poor women of color.â
âThat doesnât mean the Democrats are the answer to Bush or the
Republicans. It means ânot so simplyâ that white activists need to be
politically savvy enough to understand how those little, narrow nuances
that separate the candidates and political parties are not so little and
narrow to everyone. For millions of poor peopleâmost of them people of
colorâ that dimeâs worth of difference between Republican and Democrat
can mean life or death.â
How can we use these differences to weaken both partyâs positions and
strengthen ours? For example, the imperialism of the Bush administration
favors unilateralism and military force and this is generally opposed by
Democrats who under the Clinton administration preferred the imperialism
of international trade agreements, diplomacy and more structural state
violence like sanctions. How can we move the slogans from focusing on a
person to a system: from âAnyone but Bushâ to âEveryone Against Empireâ.
If we can bring an anti-imperialist/anti-empire politics into the
growing frustration with the US war on Iraq, it can open doors to
broader politic engagement against the imperialist agenda of both
parties.
Itâs also important to focus on how we can build our organizations in
this election fight so we are in a better position to move forward with
our goals, regardless of who is president. Iâm confident we can use the
anti-Bush campaign to build our movement. Sayeghâs essay offers concrete
strategic suggestions for action, like anarchists talking with people
who canât vote (prisoners, people with felonies or undocumented
immigrants) and offering to vote for them. Sayeghâs essay joins a larger
discussion on electoral strategy already initiated by the book, âHow to
Get Stupid White Men Out of Office: the anti-politics, unboring guide to
powerâ. Edited by Adrienne Maree Brown and William Upski Wimsatt, it is
a compilation of stories about radical activists engaging with electoral
politics with a long-tern strategic focus on movement building. They
started the League of Pissed Off Voters at Indyvoter.org. Punkvoter.com
is another project organizing left/radical/alternative younger people to
defeat Bush and get active. Righttovote.org is organizing to end
disenfranchisement of people convicted with felonies. The organizing is
happening. Developing strategy doesnât mean figuring out how weâre all
going to do the same work with the same goals. Strategy can help us see
the ways that a multitude of different groups, projects, campaigns and
communities can strengthen and advance all of our work.
Itâs important that we approach this election just as any other
struggle; develop goals for yourself and/or with the groups you work
with so that you set your own terms for what success is. My primary goal
continues to be the development of a broad-based, radical/left,
anti-racist, feminist, anti-capitalist movement led by people of color,
women, queer, transgendered/genderqueer and working class people. I
believe that the combination of collective liberation politics,
community-based organizing strategies of building power, and direct
action strategies of expressing and sharing power will help us create a
fusion of radical analysis and practice to get us beyond the question of
who weâre voting for and get on with building the worlds that live in
our hearts.
Much love to the editorial crew on this essay: Nisha Anand, Clare
Bayard, Dan Berger, Ingrid Chapman, Chris Dixon, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz,
Jeff Giaquinto, Rahula Janowski, Sharon Martinas, Gabriel Sayegh and
Josh Warren-White.
âââââââââââââââââââââââââââ
[1] See How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office edited by Adrienne
Maree Brown and Wlliam Upski Wimsatt. Also check out
http://www.Indyvoter.org.
[2] Emma Goldman and Lucy Parsons made important arguments about voting
and the state during the Womenâs Suffragist movement. They argued
against claims that voting would be the basis for womenâs equality,
citing that the vote had not freed men from the inequality and
exploitation of capitalism. See Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma
Goldman and http://www.lucyparsonsproject.org.
[3] Anarchist analysis on reform campaigns and electoral politics that
were important to my thinking include: âFirst Pity then Punishmentâ by
Reb H. in Love and Rage Vol 8, N2 March/April 1997; âWorking Poor Demand
Living Wage: the Elusive Fight for Survival Under Capitalismâ by Jason
Winston in Love and Rage Vol8, N4 August/Sept 1997. The Living Wage
campaign was particularly influential because it was an a campaign led
by anarchists with an explicit commitment to revolutionary movement
building. âFight Against Welfare Cuts Hits the UNâ by Laura Schere and
Suzy Subways in Love and Rage Vol8, N4.
[4] Three important projects dedicated to developing anarchist theory
that Iâm inspired by are: the Institute for Anarchist Studies, the New
Formulation: an anti-authoritarian review of books, and book publisher
and distributor AK Press.
[5] My understanding of strategy and organizing from this framework is
heavily influenced by my study of Ella Baker. My essay, âLooking to the
Light of Freedomâ focuses on her ideas on participatory democracy and
group-centered leadership.
[6] Paulo Freire discusses the importance of praxis in his book Pedagogy
of the Oppressed.
[7] This essay is available here. Additionally, the book Reluctant
Reformers: Racism and Social Reform Movements in the United States by
Robert Allen is a useful exploration of how white privilege has
undermined movements historically. This provides useful historical
context to situate the Global Justice movement and the efforts to
challenge white supremacy and white privilege by anti-racist people of
color and white people.
[8] Websites representing aspects of the trends that Iâm describing are
Deadletters, Colours of Resistance, Anarchist People of Colour, and Baby
Bloc.
[9] Women of color feminism has been core to my thinking about
collective liberation politics. The four books which have articulated
these politics most clearly to me are: Black Feminist Thought:
Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment by Patricia
Hill Collins; The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender and
Freedom by Barbara Smith; Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by
Gloria AnzaldĂșa; and Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell
hooks.
[10] I do think itâs important to track the way rightwing anti-communism
in the US has influenced anti-communism amongst anarchists. As my friend
Jeff Giaquinto points out, to be called a communist in the US has
generally meant that you support the rights of workers and believe in
equality for people of color, particularly in regards to African
Americans. I strongly encourage study of Marx and the Marxist tradition
starting with The Marx-Engels Reader edited by Robert C. Tucker. And for
everyone who has had negative experiences with sectarian left groups to
read Max Elbaumâs book Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals turn to
Lenin, Mao and Che.
[11] The Political Philosophy of Bakunin edited by G.P. Maximoff and
Selected Writings on Anarchism and Revolution by Peter Kropotkin edited
by Martin A. Miller were both very instructive. Malatesta: Life and
Ideas has been critical to my thinking about organizing and anarchism. I
highly encourage reading The Haymarket Tragedy by Paul Avrich.
Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution by Jose Peirats along with Free
Women of Spain: Anarchism and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women
by Martha A. Ackelsburg were important. A good general overview is
Anarchism by Daniel Guerin.
[12] An anthology of articles and essays from 1989â1993 was collected
into the book Profane Existence: Making Punk a Threat Again. These are
key texts on US anarchism in the early to mid â90s.
[13] An anthology of essays from Love and Rage in the later years,
documents from the internal debates when the Federation ended, and the
critical summation of Love and Rage, âAfter Winter Must Come Spring.â A
New World in Our Hearts edited by Roy San Filippo.
[14] One of the primary editors of Profane Existence, Dan, has
explained, âIt took the Gulf War to stop us from just reporting the news
to get us off our asses and make some. âŠsince then we have maintained
the direct connection, turning our words on paper into direct action
that affect the world around us.â
[15] Two essays that explore this further are:â âForging a Movement on
Shifting Groundâ: reflections on anti-racism as a catalyst for global
justice organizingâ and âGoing To Places That Scare Me: Personal
Reflections On Challenging Male Supremacy.â
[16] An important history of anarchism and direct action leading into
the â90s is Barbara Epsteinâs Political Protest & Cultural Revolution:
Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s.
[17] To put this into perspective, there were 12 Food Not Bombs groups
in 1992 and over 250 groups formed around the world by the end of the
â90s, with the majority of them in the US. See http://fnbnews.org.
[18] These writings and others are available here.
[19] Lorenzo Komboa Ervinâs and many other writings by anarchists of
color are available here.
[20] I finished reading W.E.B. DuBois The Souls of Black Folk the day
the verdict was announced. It, along with The Autobiography of Malcolm
X, was critical to read. In developing a deeper understanding of the
Black Liberation struggle throughout US history, Vincent Hardingâs There
is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom was very helpful.
[21] âTowards Anti-Racist Politics and Practice: a racial
autobiography.â
[22] Anarchists and radicals who believe voting is meaningless
frequently express depression because so many people voted a particular
way. At the very least the way people vote seems to have a meaningful
impact on how we see the world around us.
[23] Sara Diamondâs book Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and
Political Power in the United States is very useful.
[24] De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored
Century by Elizabeth âBetitaâ Martinez has several essays that focus on
alliance building, youth leadership and movement building during these
political struggles.
[25] Two books that cover a solid grassroots organizing framework:
Sweatshop Warriors: Immigrant Women Workers Take on the Global Economy
by Miriam Ching Yoon Louie and the MidWest Academy Manual for Activists
Organizing for Social Change. Sweatshop Warriors gives an understanding
of organizing and movement building and Organizing for Social Change is
a how-to manual.
[26] âActive Revolutionâ by James Mumm.
[27] The influence of my study of the Civil Rights movement in general,
and the community organizing models of the Student Non-Violent
Coordinating Committee and Ella Baker in particular, has been
monumental. I strongly encourage people to read (I suggest in this order
for flow): Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King and the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference by David Garrow; In Struggle: SNCC and
the Black Awakening of the 1960s by Clayborne Carson; Iâve Got the Light
of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom
Struggle; Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and
Torchbearers 1941â1965 edited by Vicki L. Crawford, Jacqueline Anne
Rouse, and Barbara Woods. Ms. Baker is a role model in fusion politics
and practice whom I look to for guidance and inspiration.
[28] Two useful documents from that time period and struggle: Anarchist
and community activist Tom Wetzelâs essay âA Year in the Life of the
Anti-Displacement Movementâ does a good job of documenting the
anti-gentrification organizing happening; Whispered Media, a collective
of video activists coming out of Earth First! and the global justice
movement, produced the documentary BOOM: the Sound of Eviction about
this struggle.