Reading on Anarcho-Purism for Occupy

Let me be absolutely clear -- I am happy to work with anarchists and I used to be one. I do not even view the consensus model or informal leadership as core parts of anarchist thought, but rather something embraced and pushed by a purist section of anarchists.

That being said, the following reading is extremely helpful for understanding the limitations of anarcho-purist organizing methods which are inhibiting Occupy Philly, and calmly explaining these shortcomings to others.

"The Limits of Consensus" (the most immediately relevant)

http://socialistworker.org/2011/10/10/the-limits-of-consensus

"The Tyranny of Structurelessness" (excerpts)

http://www.isreview.org/issues/19/Jo_Freeman.shtml

On a positive note, I met a member of the group "Bring the Ruckus" in the Radical Caucus, and I think a semi-anarchist group embracing the concept of a cadre organization is a clear sign that anarcho-purism is not the only form of anarchism. If libertarian socialists organize diplomatically, we can have positive collaboration with anarchists in ways which fulfill and do not compromise our own ideas. The About page of Bring the Ruckus: http://bringtheruckus.org/?q=about

Why I Supported Switching Camps

I supported switching camps for a few simple reasons.

Is it true that the reasons being given by the Establishment for Occupy Philly to move are kind of BS? Yes, absolutely true.

Is it true that the large amounts of public dollars going toward the skating rink construction project should probably be going toward, oh, helping the homeless, funding education, literally ANYTHING else? Yes, true.

It is also questionable how much job creation this project will create, and probably true that we could create more jobs for less money.

BUT, I SUPPORTED MOVING BECAUSE we need to appear that we are on the side of the unions beyond any conceivable doubt, beyond any media distortion. We have to remember that we are a broad movement of the 99%, and if we start focusing on our little campsite to the exclusion of the mass movement, we are truly lost.

All of the above points are true, but if we refuse to move from a park where union construction is about to take place, it is far too easy for the media to distort that. We can whine and cry that it's not fair that the media will distort our movement, but it will, and we have to know how to strategically operate at their level. The problem is not just the media, but the fact that the flow of information to rank-and-file union members about Occupy happens through the union leadership, which is more prone to conservatism and alliances with the Establishment than the union rank-and-file.

And also because switching spaces would have had virtually no cost on the movement.

I'm going to call a spade a spade. Most of the time I support the Radical Caucus, but in this case, it seems they decided to forgo nuance and instead acted as a Purist Caucus. It seems like everyone at Occupy wants to be a rebel, but doesn't necessarily have a sophisticated view of what that means, so when given a choice between a "Radical" option and a "Reasonable Solution," there was naturally a herd reaction to go with the first choice.

I also have issues with the consensus process which forced the decision about the move to go on until midnight, during which the decision was clearly left to the purism-biased hardcore elite, rather than the working population that has to wake up early the next morning.

However, this is for clarification. We have other important tasks ahead of us, rendering a continued focus on this debate less productive than it used to be.

Occupy: From Encampment to Coalition

A brainstorming document/proposal for the future direction of Occupy Philly. The working title is the 99% Coalition though there are certainly other possibilities. Feel free to write or call me with ideas, or especially if you want to help make it happen.

The goal here is not to start a brand new group, but to turn Occupy from an encampment into a new group. Starting a new group from scratch completely misses the point -- the point is to give a practical next step for Occupy, not to start a coalition for the sake of it.

Demands:

• A massive federal job creation program
• Tax the rich, heavily
• Universal healthcare
• Cancel student debt
• Free higher education for all
• This list can get longer, and probably should-and-will during our first meetings

Principles:

• We strive to be a mass movement fighting for the income group called the 99%, carrying on the spirit of Occupy in the form of an organization, with rowdy open-air meetings, democratic participation, mass marches, and occasional direct action.
• We believe in the redistribution of wealth, that we are in a class struggle, and that ordinary people should fight back.
• We believe in making it easy for the 99% to participate because this is our/their movement.
• We believe that some kind of overall systemic change is necessary, but each individual member is free to have different specific opinions about what this means.

Reasons why Occupy should support the 99C:

• We need a way for Occupy to more easily include the 99%
• We need backup plans in case we lose our space
• Endless camping imposes high costs on participants, and during cold months becomes a health hazard
• The clear purposes of the 99C help the public understand our meaning

Reasons why people outside Occupy should take Occupy seriously:

• Occupy brings together many people suffering from the recession but who lack unions or organizations
• Occupy is indisputably the force changing American politics right now
• Therefore, even if the movement has problems, you should work with it, not separately
• The purpose of the 99C is to bridge the gap between Occupy and people like you

HOW WOULD WE MAKE THIS HAPPEN?

• First, by gathering a small cluster of supporters
• handing out leaflets at Occupy or sending emails around its online networks
• talking to various radical organizations, coalitions, and Occupy working groups/caucuses and getting them to sign on to this proposal
• having outdoor meetings/speeches on city sidewalks calling for a regroupment of the movement

WHAT WOULD THE TRANSITION LOOK LIKE?

• Most of the structures of Occupy should live on
• The General Assemblies would be replaced with a weekly General Meeting
• Direct democracy and rowdy outdoor meetings can and should continue
• The caucuses and working groups can continue
• People can continue putting the same amount of time into if they want, by organizing and performing the continual soapbox orating on street corners, and by partaking in working groups and caucuses which must necessarily meet separately from the GA/GM
• If this is successful, we drag the whole Occupy scene into this organization, and do so with the approval of the Occupy GA

Dear Occupy critic: quit moaning and lead like a badass

It is true that Occupy Philly has a giant pile of problems, and many of them are not external problems imposed by circumstances (plenty of those too), but internal problems due to ideological and organizational shortcomings. However, whenever I hear people belly-aching about these issues without a bold ambition to take them on, I feel further from a solution than I do even when I encounter the movement’s weaknesses. It’s just depressing, really. It’s helpless sectarian whining.

Grow the fuck up, formulate a plan to fix the problems, and make it happen. Get out there at Occupy with your ideas. Get a clipboard, look for people who agree, sign them up, stay in touch with them. Start a working group or caucus. Hold a teach-in. Announce your thoughts at the end of a GA. Pass out leaflets explaining your viewpoint. Build support. Be open to alliances with groups or people who already support or half-support what you’re thinking. Bring your crew to a GA and have a fighting chance. JUST DO IT.

And call me if you want help. See my proposal for transitioning the encampment into an organization (the “99% Coalition) and tell me if you like it.

Wali “Diop” Rahman: Solid Revolutionary, but Low Election Results

I was thrilled to see a genuine young angry black man run for office as opposed to the polished Establishment African-Americans like Obama, who are afraid to utilize their historically-oppressed race as a PR tool for resonating with mass anger. (Nutter is even worse, invoking a Bill Cosby-esque chastisement of his own race.) This isn’t to say that blacks should be obligated to be militant, but I’m not gonna lie, it’s really awesome when they are.

It also gave me a chance to call out mechanical radicals. Some were too “principled” to indulge in elections or too fixated on Diop’s political flaws (short version, a bit of Stalinism and black nationalism), failing to realize that the crux of the matter was that a militant black and revolutionary marxist was running for mayor. I was happy to see the people capable of thinking on their feet recognize this man as an inspiring voice for our side.

That being said, I was a little crestfallen to see that his poll results were only 3.57% of the vote. With the nation seized by a movement saying “We Are the 99%,” you would think a candidate who speaks to rebellion against the system would be a little more popular.

Do not misinterpret me as viewing the Diop campaign as a mistake or a waste. However, the low turnout result confirms my critique of most election campaigns. (I definitely was not hoping to have my critique confirmed in this case.) Election campaigns do not happen in an abstract space where all candidates are compared equally by the voting public. They have a bias toward the group with the most powerful social base or organizing core. In a capitalist society, the mainstream parties can use corporate-donated money to hire their own artificial campaigning machine. We populists must construct our own power bloc out of organized political groups, communities friendly to us, and unions open to our ideas. Even this is somewhat futile so long as the rich can easily counter our painstakingly-constructed coalitions with a campaign instantly manufactured out of paid employees, and a profusion of advertising spending we will never be able to match.

I also must point out that Diop could have gained a wider resonance if his campaign focused more on class, rather than exclusively on race. Race is crucial, of course, especially in a city which is 40% black and 40% white (2010 Census data) – in other words, Philadelphia has a working class which is split down the middle, with half brutally oppressed by the justice system and disproportionately crammed into prisons, and with each side of the race line too often distrusting the other. If you’re not talking about race in Philly, you’re not addressing reality. But if you’re not also talking about class, then you’re still not addressing it.

It’s true that Diop made occasional overtures to how his policies would benefit lower-income whites, but they were only occasional. To sum it up, even though he is both a militant black and revolutionary socialist, the public was probably only aware that he is a militant black. He campaigned as a champion of the oppressed, but his definition of the oppressed did not seem to include working whites except as an afterthought. At a time when people are chanting “We Are the 99%” (obviously a multi-racial category!), this approach is badly out of touch. Unfortunately, this approach is only a reflection of his group UHURU and its backer the African People’s Socialist Party, who believe in an anti-capitalist movement led exclusively by blacks.

This wasn’t significant enough to keep me from advocating people vote for Diop, but it is simply not a valid method for developing the brewing class revolt in a country which is 70% white. And appealing to that brewing class revolt, rather than appealing only to race issues, could have made Diop’s campaign more popular.

All that being said, election campaigns are worth undertaking, in order to make a ruckus and put our ideas out there in wider society. The point is, however, that even these election campaigns will be stronger if we focus on what our general mode of organizing should be: building up a network of groups around various issues and purposes but with a similar political outlook, held together by a radical octopus in the center with a tentacle in each.

This is not inconceivable – Diop belongs to an organization with various extensions and alliances. If these groups were bigger, his election results would have been stronger too.

Build the octopus, build its network. Then we can truly make a big splash in elections, and ultimately circumvent the whole process by replacing the existing state with a network of democratic, employee-seized workplaces.

ABOUT THIS SITE

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS SITE?

Many leftists dream of a day when we will establish a successful revolutionary mass party. An even larger group dream of The Day when popular forces achieve a decisive victory over the existing system, and the party-builders merely believe that organizations are the method for accomplishing that.

You’d think that would be the beginning – first you build the organization, and then the consolidated forces fight for a new society. However the truth is, successfully building a mass party is almost an endgame stage. If you actually build a well-functioning revolutionary faction in society, the rest is almost as simple as to keep pushing forward with what you’ve been doing. The question torturing us, then, is not what we do when we already have such a faction, but how we build one in the first place?

The purpose of this website is to brainstorm different techniques for leftists to emerge from being a series of ineffectual, isolated individuals and groups, to forming something bigger. I am not just talking about getting all the socialist groups together, either (though now might be the time for that), but consolidating all the new emerging rebels whose banner is the slogan “We Are the 99%.” This website declares NOW the time to construct a revolutionary alliance in an aggressive, expansionist, large-scale approach which, after patient organizing, ultimately results in an insurrectionary working majority takeover in Philadelphia, as an example and ally to other cities in revolt.

This site will even go so far as to follow the various local movements and upcoming events, and give concrete pointers about which ones are the best opportunities for welding together the people’s army we desire.

This site will focus at the local level of Philadelphia. However, we do so with the intention that Philadelphia shall be an experimental grounds, paving the way forward at the national and local levels.

This city led the first American Revolution. So shall it lead the next.

SO WHO DOES THIS SITE REPRESENT? WHAT IS IT?

Is this an organization? Not exactly. While I seek collaboration and other contributors, this is mainly a personal website with me, Matt Hoke, calling the shots. I am a member of the International Socialist Organization. That being said, I consider myself more informed by the ISO’s guidelines than rigidly enslaved to its routines. I am an organic organizer. I believe that it is the duty of all leftists to be “micro-Lenins” – to look at their local situation, to organically assess the forces, opportunities, and limitations around them; to creatively imagine the way forward, to outline a practical plan to back up their vision, using tactics freshly invented and tailored to the situation rather than mechanically repeating what has always been done and lagging behind the spontaneous movements of the masses.

It’s one thing to say the above. To actually live it, however, is an experience which continually re-shatters all of your assumptions. Any sense of security you may have had in your perfect ideas will be broken again and again by the test of real events. The emotional trauma of this should not be written off as inconsequential to our larger goals – it is like the psychological death and rebirth signified by the Tarot cards Death, the Tower, and the Hanged Man (learntarot.org). You can’t succeed in the larger goal without being able to handle the personal experience of it.

To really live this vision of navigating the chaos of politics in order to build a mass revolutionary faction requires a boldness, courage, and fearlessness which most of the unfortunate souls will simply never experience. You have to stand in front of entire crowds, in the face of their irrational disapproval, patiently explaining your provocative ideas. You have to be able to freely imagine a plan by yourself, to believe in it and in yourself, even when you are entirely alone in this conviction. You have to be willing to tell your own organization that it is missing the mark – and at the same time, you have to be diplomatic enough about it that the conversation is focused on fixing the problem, rather than breaking down into counterproductive bickering.

Frankly, you have to live like Christ. You have to live as if you have nothing to lose because you have already consecrated your life to the telling of truth in disregard of all consequences. This sounds like a huge sacrifice until you realize that everything else is bullshit, that satisfying yourself in a stable little life of personal/consumerist wishes is impossible in this system anyway, that everything existing deserves to perish, and you are only freeing yourself of the last obstacles to a passionately meaningful life. Really it is no sacrifice at all.

WHAT SHOULD WE DO IN THE HERE-AND-NOW?

The immediate reason I started this site: I believe that most anarchist cliques and socialist organizations, my own included, have failed to understand the significance of Occupy Wall Street.

Many socialist organizations insist on channeling the movement toward specific demands in order to give it a sharp concrete power of pressuring and discrediting the powers that be. Purist anarchists argue that Occupy represents a totally new society, a new revolution, and that to embrace demands would be to compromise its revolutionary nature.

The truth is that both are necessary. The anarchists are missing the point that you can have clear demands for non-revolutionary changes, without sacrificing your revolutionary sincerity, and that such a tactic can even be a strong tool for moving society to the brink.

The socialists are missing the point that Occupy is not simply about society wanting some reforms, nor even about a general desire for class warfare (important!), but that Occupy is permeated by people who want a literal revolution – literally, a movement culminating in an insurrection which smashes the existing state. Ironically, socialists (or at least, my kind) want the same exact thing, but have either not acknowledged that this aspiration is widespread at Occupy, or don’t know what to do about it.

We are accustomed to not pushing our ideas too hard so that we can work with wider coalitions, without them being constantly bombarded by revolutionary rhetoric they are only marginally interested in at best. Ironically, we have never been faced with so many people wanting the revolution that we ourselves want. We are not prepared to be direct enough. Obviously, we should shake ourselves, realize the situation, and catch up.

AS A RESULT, THIS WEBSITE ADVOCATES A CONSIDERABLE SHIFT IN SOCIALIST TACTICS, SUCH AS:

• Holding joint public meetings co-sponsored by all socialist groups in the city

• Forming a united team of socialists and others within Occupy Philly to move it in a revolutionary-and-realistic direction (emphasizing class analysis, majority rule over consensus, embracing demands while not forsaking revolutionary hopes)
• The direct explanation of the science of revolution, and Leninist organizing philosophy, to a wide audience rather than saving it for small study groups
• Embracing, and internalizing into our own groups, Occupy's tactics of rowdy outdoor street meetings and ambitious, large-scale, confrontational events and actions
• Saturating the entire city with agitational-educational speakers on sidewalks, covering every area, not by ourselves, but recruiting Occupy to take part
• Generally taking charge in these times of upheaval instead of letting them pass us by, with the audacity to play a central role instead of a marginal one

Also see my proposal to transition the Occupy Philly encampment into an organization with the same style and purpose (working title: the “99% Coalition”).