“The world as it is, is not the world as it has to be!”

note: also see Matthew Smucker’s “The Story of the Righteous Few“

The purpose of this piece is simple: either your main goal is to be perceived as a righteous individual or you want to help build a righteous movement that will eventually achieve power in society… you can’t have both. I’ve seen countless young revolutionaries (including myself) hold hard line positions, jump down people’s throats who disagree, and defend their positions to the bitter end, as if the loss of  an argument means the invalidation of the revolutionary’s personal identity. It is an instance of politics tied to personal (radical) identity. Arguments lost or people unmoved represent a blow to our identity as a radical.

Successful organizers, on the other hand, understand that people radicalize in a variety of ways. Just when someone seems to be shifting left on a position, they might revert to their previous position (or even a more reactionary one). People shift their positions at different paces too. Some people radicalize quickly, while others radicalize slowly. Some people are “natural radicals” in that they value critical thinking which leads them to progressive answers, while others by virtue of their socialization must be pressed issue-by-issue, until the big picture is clear in their minds and they abandon past views. One thing is certain of all these leftward shifters: getting yelled at, berated, called out, or attacked will not speed their politicalization. In many cases, this halts it (sometimes permanently).

It is logical that revolutionaries, young revolutionaries in particular, feel a deep emotional connection with their analysis of society. We’ve taken the red pill. We’ve seen the bigger picture. We’ve connected all the dots. It is vital, however, that we elevate the need to win over the need to constantly win arguments and be perceived as being “right”. Our very struggle makes us righteous. Our positions make us correct. But righteousness doesn’t necessitate victory in every argument; it necessitates victory over the systems of exploitation and oppression which make us all less than human. The latter is important, the former is essentially a means to an end.

This doesn’t mean that having a correct analysis of a given issue isn’t important or that we should retreat from the centrality of principled politics in order to maintain unity on every issue. One issue that comes to mind is Palestine. I know of some radicals who believe the issue to “too alienating” to organize around. Not only is this the pinnacle of unprincipled politics, but it is also strategically bankrupt. When we retreat from political analysis, we make it harder to make the connections with those we recruit, and, as a result, possibly slow their radicalization. With Palestine in particular, not only is such a retreat unprincipled, it is also strategically idiotic. A victory of the Palestinians against US-Israeli imperialism and genocide will be an enormous victory for humanity, providing inspiration to all those who fight against our rotten system. This is one of the main reasons why the Israeli and US governments refuse to allow the existence of a Palestinian state. Like Vietnam, Palestine represents the “threat of the good example”. If Palestine is able to extract itself from the imperialist system, like Venezuela for example, then other countries will ask “why can’t we?” This domino effect of national liberation and socialist movements, both of which are aimed at weakening US hegemony, is one of the greatest fears of US elites. From their position, better to wipe the Palestinians off the map, than provide the tiniest bit of inspiration to liberation movements.

What I’m arguing isn’t how much we organize or don’t organize around a particular issue - that’s another debate. I’m saying that the more controversial an issue (and as a result, the more we’re likely to look like lunatics if we start screaming), the more calm, cool, and collected we need to appear. We need to present principled arguments in language that people resistant to our arguments can understand and relate to. While some people radicalize quickly, we’re making a long-term investment by keeping our calm around issues they disagree with. In terms of winning power around the world, what matters most is the populations eventual allegiance to the progressive movement, not their immediate attainment of perfect analysis.

So I ask you: do you want to be right? or do you want to win?

I haven’t had the chance to sit down and do some real blogging in so long. So here are some updates…

I wanted to blog about some movies I’ve seen recently, but haven’t yet had the chance. In particular: Valkyrie, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Che (I haven’t gotten a chance to see Milk yet). In case I don’t get around to blogging about them, I’d definitely recommend all of them, Valkyrie and Che in particular.

Che is a 4 hour film (it will be a two-part film when its in theaters again this year), that follows his life, first with the victorious guerilla war in Cuba, and then with the unsuccessful guerilla war in Bolivia. I saw it in a gigantic theater in New York City in December with a few hundred other people. Very powerful film!

And as I’m a sucker for love films, especially ones staring Gaspard Ulliel professing his love for another man, Paris, je t’aime (”Paris, I love you”, 2006) was quite good as well.

I’m currently reading Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections from an Angry White Male by Time Wise, and The German Revolution: 1917-1923 by Pierre Broué. I plan on doing a thorough review of the latter, but that will take me a couple of months, as its almost 1,000 pages long, and will take me a fair amount of time to do it justice. So far I’d definitely recommend it to others interested in the fascinating history of the German Revolution, and the failures that laid the groundwork for the Nazi takeover of Germany. I’ll undoubtedly be reading his The Revolution and the Civil War in Spain: 1934-1939 soon after I’m done with this one.

I’ve been reading a bunch by Darwin as well, and tons of stuff on materialism, biology, and complementary holism. I’ve already received several messages from people who can’t seem to find the usefulness of Darwin as he relates to politics. Marketeers quote Darwin to apologize for horrible atrocities and that means he’s off limits? Strange reasoning. Not going to stop me. Perhaps my words aren’t yet precise enough. If that’s the case, hopefully that will improve (evolve?) with practice.

Finally I don’t have the emotional energy to write much about it now, but my heart goes out to the Palestinians, and all those who are struggling with them. The crimes of the US-backed Israeli government must be halted as soon as possible. We much work to bring about peace by forcing our government to divest from the Israeli state and pressure it into a genuine peace process.

Social revolutionaries would be wise to learn from the most thoroughly tested system of praxis that has ever existed: biological evolution by means of natural selection.

The most advanced segments of the revolutionary movement - in the U.S., this is largely the non-communist, and non-anarchist (revolutionary) Left (admittedly a very small segment) - should take a hint from the several billion year old process of natural-selection-based, evolutionary-development of life on Earth: in particular that those forces which cannot compete for power, become irrelevant or, to be more blunt, die out. These new advanced-guard leaders, who hail from a sort of third camp of visionaries, strategists, and organization builders, must begin to synthesize the best of the past, and move forward with a bold new evolutionary development in program, message, vision, and organization.

A suggestion to relevant revolutionaries: watch an introductory film to evolutionary biology, read some Darwin, or get your hands on a genetics book. Read metaphorically, the demand for innovation in our movement could not be clearer; the need for bold new solutions and a comprehensive break from the past could not be more urgent.

I find it quite disheartening how quickly the “Left” manages to bring people in, alienate them enough with its complete incompetence, and have them running for the door. There is a particular pattern among some of the smartest young people that should be noted. Many young people are attracted to socialist groups, and then, after experiencing them, turn to anarchist groups for better answers. An similar group of young people are attracted to anarchist groups, and then, after experiencing them, leave and turn to socialist groups. Many end up quitting the Left all together after these experiences. Whether they started with the anarchists (whom at face value seem more democratic) or with the socialists (whom at face value seem more organized and disciplined), many either become overly dogmatic in order to justify their participation in ineffective groups or quit the Left all together.

The people who actually participated in both ideological groups should be commended for going through that synthesis (however unsophisticated or unintentional) all on their own. Some leave anarchist groups in search of discipline and organization; others leave socialist groups in search of empowerment and democracy. In the end, few find either, and as a result, leave the movement all together.

And who can blame them? With no third revolutionary camp in the United States- one which is empowering and democratic as well as disciplined and organized - such a journey could lead anyone to believe the creation of a highly-organized, highly-disciplined, thoroughly-empowering, pro-democracy movement is sadly just an impossibility. After much attempts at committing  themselves to revolution, many resign themselves to carving out a decent human existence in an rotten world.

A new left will undoubtedly rise from the ashes of the old, but that doesn’t make it any less saddening that the components of a new revolutionary Left just aren’t here yet.

Suppose what one cared about most was reforms. Suppose even that one called one’s self a reformist, embracing the term much the way someone who seeks total human emancipation from this rotten system might call themselves a revolutionary. Suppose that the main goal of all of our struggles were to win reforms, to make life more tolerable, to save just a few lives, if saving all were not possible. If that were one’s vision, one’s program, and one’s aim. What would be one’s most effective strategy.

Ironically, the failure of social democracy rests in an inherent flaw in its ideological outlook. To win the type of reforms that would matter: real universal healthcare, an end to war (Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine; a withdrawal of military bases), universal higher education, etc… one must be a revolutionary. If one is only a social democrat, then one cannot possibly pose enough of a threat to win such strong reforms. This is true for at least two major reasons…

1. Reforms are won through raising the social costs for elites so much, that continuing unjust policies would do more harm for their wealth and power than continuing them would. During the Vietnam war, when professionals and rich people turned against the war they held a press conference, as they thought they were so important of people. What was their reason for turning against the war? Was it because millions were dying and they could no longer morally support the war? Nope. Was it because the U.S. was spending billions of dollars while people suffered at home for lack of social welfare programs? Of course not. The reason given was that we were “losing the next generation”. By that they meant that our streets were in turmoil. Our campuses were being turned upside down. Our military was in revolt. Youth in American were no longer just “antiwar”: they were anti-capitalist; they were feminists; they were anti-racists; they were queer liberationists; they saw their work as in solidarity with revolutions in Vietnam, Cuba, Africa, and elsewhere. By “losing the next generation” they meant that a revolutionary movement so powerful as to threaten the entire elite power structure in of the world capitalist system was rising and gaining in roads in all areas of society. They turned against the Vietnam war because youth were REVOLUTIONARIES, not merely because they demanded reforms or social democracy.

2. People aren’t idiots. They won’t join a movement that seeks to merely reform the status quo - or at least they won’t stay in one for long. People in this country, especially members of our generation, have zero faith in politicians, corporate America, or any of the values or institutions of our nation. They are cynical and reasonably disillusioned about everything they see around them. They want a comprehensive, positive, and hopeful vision of the future. They want to know what life beyond our authoritarian world could look like. Only revolutionaries, armed with a positive vision of a world beyond capitalism, patriarchy, heterosexism, white supremacy, political authoritarianism, and ecological devastation can possibly motivate the youth of this generation to act in large enough numbers and for such an extended period of time so as to get us the long-lasting reforms that are needed. You want to motivate people? Become a revolutionary. You can win your reforms and much more too!

Social democracy has failed over and over again. Those are just a few of the many reasons to call yourself a revolutionary and win others to the movement for total human liberation. So, my question is, if you’d like the entire world, why demand just the table scraps?

Whatever path leads a person to become committed to human liberation, that person ends up going through various transformations: they change their ideas, they change their practices, they change the way they approach the world. These transformations are undoubtedly one of the most difficult tasks of becoming a revolutionary. Amilcar Cabral once wisely said that “this battle against ourselves, this struggle against our own weaknesses … is the most difficult of all.”

Disciplining one’s mind - committing one’s self to critical thinking, logic, thoughtful reflection, summation of experiences, criticism and self-criticism, materialism, and rationality - is certainly at the top of this difficult internal struggle against ourselves and our own weaknesses. When people begin to radicalize, many of them have a point where they quickly reject many of society’s institutions, norms, and practices. The speed of this rejection, without a sophisticated Left which would explain to new adherents what it means to be a revolutionary who is committed to struggling for the long-haul and eventually winning, often leads many of these new revolutionaries to begin to act in ways which doesn’t help build our movement.

What we need are thoughtful revolutionaries. When we are faced with a question, we should answer it after actually thinking about it ourselves. The point of reading literature isn’t to memorize some line to parrot to those who ask us questions, but to push our ability to critically think about questions forward - in short, to make ourselves into more effective critical thinkers. Noam Chomsky rightly said that all students should take a course in intellectual self-defense. A more modest demand would be for revolutionary movements to take the equivilent of such a course. What we need more than anything right now are people who are willing to abandon the dogma (and especially the language!) of past revolutionaries and their movements. Our study of history must be rooted in our current reality. We can learn much from the past, but nothing can replace careful and critical analysis of our current political moment and the opportunities (and challenges) we are faced with.

Those whom I’ve come to respect the most in my life are those who actually think about questions that are poised to them, instead of giving some cookie-cutter, pre-fab answer. This includes my mentors, of whom I am deeply blessed, and friends, of which I have many. I’m convinced that when we all begin to stregthen our intellectual self-defenses, we’ll start coming up with better and more effective ways to move our movement forward.

My political entry into the left (and by this I mean the real left, beyond the Democratic Party) came a little more than twenty years ago in New Orleans, when, as a college student I became involved in the fight against U.S. intervention in Central America. In particular, the groups of which I was a part sought to end military aid to the death squad governments in El Salvador and Guatemala, and to block support for the contra thugs our nation was arming in Nicaragua, who by that time had already killed about 30,000 civilians in their war with the nominally socialist Sandinista government.

It was the first place where I came into contact with folks who defined themselves as radicals (I had grown up in Nashville, after all, where at that time, even finding “out” liberals was sometimes a challenge), and where I got to experience all the fascinating permutations of Marxism that the left had to offer. In addition to unaffiliated socialists (which I considered myself to be at the time), there were Trotskyites, old-line Leninists, Maoists, and even some bizarre Stalinists in the bunch. Excluding from consideration those among this number who turned out to be FBI spies, there were still plenty of real and interesting ideologues who had valuable insights to offer, even for those of us who didn’t swallow their particular party line.

But despite being interesting, these folks also managed, at least for me, to demonstrate one of the key problems with the left in the U.S. Namely, for the sake of ideological purity few within the professional left expressed any joy about life, or any emotion whatsoever that wasn’t rooted in negativity. They were like the political equivalent of quaaludes: guaranteed to bring you down from whatever partly optimistic place you might find yourself from time to time.

This was never so evident as the day I hopped into a car with one of the Stalinoids (a member of something called the Albanian Liberation League, which viewed the brutal regime of Enver Hoxha as a worker’s paradise), and headed downtown for a rally to protest Contra aid. Once in the car, I asked about the music playing from his stereo. What was it? I wanted to know. He quickly explained that it was Albanian folk music, and the only music he listened to. I made some joke about how strange it was to be living in one of the greatest musical towns on Earth and yet to restrict oneself to a single genre of music (especially that favored by Albanian sheepherders), to which my revolutionary friend responded with a grunt and a scowl. Of course, because Comrade Stalin never much liked jazz.

The humorlessness of the far left–to which I remain connected ideologically if not organizationally–has always struck me as one of its greatest weaknesses. People like to laugh, they like to smile, they like to be joyful, and an awful lot of hardened leftists seem almost utterly incapable of doing any of these things. It’s as if they have all taken a pledge that there should be no laughter until the revolution, or some such shit. No positivity, no hope, no happiness so long as people are still poor and exploited and being murdered by cops, and victimized by United States militarism, or performing as wage slaves for global capital, or eating meat, or driving cars. And they wonder why the left is so weak?

Now, in the wake of Barack Obama’s victory these barbiturate leftists are back in full effect, lecturing the rest of us about how naive we are for having any confidence whatsoever in him, or for voting at all, since “the Democrats and Republicans are all the same,” and he supports FISA and the war with Afghanistan, and all kinds of other messed up policies just like many on the right. Those of us who find any significance in the election of a man of color in a nation founded on white supremacy are fools who “drank the kool-aid,” unlike they, whose clear-headed radical consciousness leads them to recognize the superior morality of Ralph Nader, or the pure “scientific wisdom of chairman Bob Avakian,” or the intellectual profundity of their favorite graffiti bomb: “If voting changed anything it would be illegal.” Yeah, and if body piercings and anarchy tats changed anything, they would be too, and then what would some folks do to be “different?” (Note: there is nothing wrong with either type of adornment, but getting either or both doesn’t make you a revolutionary, any more than voting, that’s all I’m saying).

These are people who think being agitators is about pissing people off more than reaching out to them. So they pull out their “Buck Fush” signs at their repetitively irrelevant antiwar demonstrations, or their posters with W sporting a Hitler mustache, because that tends to work so well at convincing folks to oppose the slaughter in Iraq. But effectiveness isn’t what matters to them. What matters to them is raging against the machine for the sake of rage itself. Their message is simple: everything sucks, the earth is doomed, all cops are brutal, all soldiers are baby-killers, all people who work for corporations are evil, blah, blah, blah, right on down the line. It’s as if much of the left has become co-dependent with despondency, addicted to its own isolation, and enamored of its moral purity and unwillingness to work with mere liberals. In the name of ideological asceticism, they spurn the hard work of movement building and inspiring others to join the struggle, snicker at those foolish enough to not understand or appreciate their superior philosophical constructs, and then act shocked when their movements and groups accomplish exactly nothing. But honestly, who wants to join a movement filled with people who look down on you as a sucker?

If we on the left want those liberals to join the struggle for social justice and liberation, we’re going to have to meet people where they are, not where Bakunin would want them to be. For those who can’t get excited about Obama, so be it, but at least realize that there are millions of people who, for whatever reason, are; people who are mobilized and active, and that energy is looking for an outlet. Odds are, that outlet won’t be the Obama administration, since few of them will actually land jobs with it. So that leaves activist formations, community groups and grass-roots struggles. That leaves, in short, us. Just as young people inspired by the center-right JFK candidacy in 1960 ultimately moved well beyond him on their way to the left and made up many of the most committed and effective activists of the 60s and early 70s, so too can such growth occur now among the Obama faithful. But not if we write them off.

At some point, the left will have to relinquish its love affair with marginalization. We’ll have to stop behaving like those people who have a favorite band they love, and even damn near worship, until that day when the band actually begins to sell a lot of records and gain a measure of popularity, at which point they now suck and have obviously sold out: the idea being that if people like you, you must not be doing anything important, and that obscurity is the true measure of integrity. Deconstructing the psychological issues at the root of such a pose is well above my pay grade, but I’m sure would prove fascinating.

The simple fact is, people are inspired by Obama not because they view him as especially progressive per se (except in relation to some of the more retrograde policies of the current president, and in relation to where they feel, rightly, McCain/Palin would have led us), but because most folks respond to optimism, however ill-defined it may be. This is what the Reaganites understood, and for that matter it’s what Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement knew too. It wasn’t anger and pessimism that broke the back of formal apartheid in the south, but rather, hope, and a belief in the fundamental decency of people to make a change if confronted by the yawning chasm between their professed national ideals and the bleak national reality.

In other words, what the 60s freedom struggle took for granted, but which the cynical barbiturate left refuses to concede, is the basic goodness of the people of this nation, and the ability of the nation, for all of its faults (and they are legion) to change. Look at pictures of the freedom riders in 1961, or the volunteers during Freedom Summer of 1964 and notice the dramatic difference between them and some of the seething radicals of today–whose radicalism is almost entirely about style and image more than actual analysis and movement building. In the case of the former, even as they stared down mobs intent on injuring or killing them, and even as they knew they might be murdered, they smiled, they laughed, they sang, they found joy. In the case of the latter, one most often notices an almost permanent scowl, a dour and depressing affect devoid of happiness, unable to appreciate life until the state is smashed altogether and everyone is subsisting on a diet of wheatgrass, bean curd and tempeh.

Hell, maybe I’m just missing the strategic value of calling people “useful idiots,” or likening them to members of a cult, the way some leftists have done recently with regard to Obama supporters. Or maybe it’s just that being a father, I have to temper my contempt for this system and its managers with hope. After all, as a dad (for me at least), it’s hard to look at my children every day and think, “Gee, it sucks that the world is so screwed up, and will probably end in a few years from resource exploitation…Oh well, I sure hope my daughters have a great day at school!”

Fatherhood hasn’t made me any less radical in my analysis or desire to see change. In fact, if anything, it has made me more so. I am as angry now as I’ve ever been about injustice, because I can see how it affects these children I helped to create, and for whom I am now responsible. But anger and cynicism do not make good dance partners. Anger without hope, without a certain faith in the capacity of we the people to change our world is a sickness unto death. It is consuming, like a flesh-eating disease, and whose first victim is human compassion. While I would never counsel too much confidence in far-right types to join the struggle for justice–and there, I think skepticism is well-warranted–if we can’t conjure at least a little optimism for the ability of liberals and Democrats to come along for the ride and to do the work, then what is the point? Under such a weighty and pessimistic load as this, life simply becomes unbearable. And if there is one thing we cannot afford to do now–especially now–it is to give up the will to live and to fight, another day.

November 10, 2008

As reprinted in Dave Dellinger’s autobiography, From Yale to Jail: The Life of a Moral Dissenter, the editorial, titled “Declaration of War,” written in 1945 after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the fire bombing of Tokyo and other Japanese cities, read:

“The atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki destroyed whatever claims the United States may have had to being either “democratic” or a “peace-loving” nation. Without any semblance of a democratic decision—without even advance notice of what was taking place—the American people waked up one morning to discover that the United States government had committed one of the worst atrocities in history.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were atomized at a time when the Japanese were suing desperately for peace. The American leaders were acting with almost inconceivable treachery by denying that they had received requests for peace, rumors of which had been trickling through censorship for months.

The atom bombs were exploded on congested cities filled with civilians. There was not even the slightest military justification, because the military outcome of the war had been decided months earlier. The only reason that the fighting was still going on was the refusal of American authorities to discontinue a war which postponed the inevitable economic collapse at home,* and was profitable to their pocketbooks, their military and political prestige, their race hatred, and their desires for imperialist expansion.

The “way of life” that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and is reported to have roasted alive up to a million people in Tokyo in a single night) is international and dominates every nation of the world. But we live in the United States, so our struggle is here. With this “way of life” (”death” would be more appropriate) there can be no truce nor quarter. The prejudices of patriotism, the pressures of our friends, and the fear of unpopularity, imprisonment or death should not hold us back any longer. It must be total war against the infamous economic, political and social system which is dominant in this country. The American system has been destroying human life in peace and in war, at home and abroad, for decades. Now it has produced the crowning infamy of atom bombing. Besides these brutal facts, the tidbits of democracy mean nothing. Henceforth, no decent citizen owes one scrap of allegiance (if he ever did) to American law, American custom or American institutions.

There is a tendency to think that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an excess that can be attributed to a few militarists and politicians at the top. That is the easy way out. It enables us to express our horror at the more obvious atrocities of our civilization while remaining “respectable” supporters of the institutions which make them inevitable. But obliteration bombing by blockbusters, incendiaries and atom bombs was a logical part of the brutal warfare that had been carried on for nearly four years with the patriotic support of American political, religious, scientific, business and labor institutions. The sudden murder of 300,000 Japanese is consistent with the ethics of a society which is bringing up millions of its own children in city slums. The lives of 300,000 “enemies” are distant and theoretical to business and labor leaders who find excuses for enjoying $15,000 incomes (and $150,000 incomes) while hiring workers for less than $1,500. Workers who passively accept starvation wages, periodic employment and relief checks, at the order of private owners and civic authorities, will also accept orders to put on a uniform and mutilate their fellow men.

No, the evil of our civilization cannot be combated by campaigns which oppose militarism and conscription but leave the American economic and social system intact. The fight against military conscription cannot be separated from the fight against the economic conscription involved in private ownership of the country’s factories, railroads and natural resources. The fight against the swift destruction of human life which takes place in modern warfare cannot be separated from the slow debilitation of the human personality which takes place in the families of the rich, the unemployed and the poor. The enemy is every institution which denies full social and economic equality to anyone. The enemy is personal indifference to the consequences of acts performed by the institutions of which we are a part.

There is no solution short of all-out war. But there must be one major difference between our war and the war that has just ended. The war against the Axis was fought as a military campaign against people, with the destructive fury, violent hatred regimentation and dishonesty of military warfare. The combatants were conscripts rather than free men. Every day that war went on they were compelled to act in contradiction to the ideals which motivated many of them. Therefore, “victory” was predestined to be a hollow farce, putting an end to killing that never should have been begun, but entrenching white imperialism as the tyrant of the Pacific, and contributing unemployment, slums, and the class hatred to the United States. The American people won half the world and lost their souls.

The war for total brotherhood must be a nonviolent war carried out by methods worthy of the ideals we seek to serve. The acts we perform must be the responsible acts of free men, not the irresponsible acts of conscripts under orders. We must fight against institutions but not against people.

There must be strikes, sabotage and seizure of public property now being held by private owners. There must be civil disobedience of laws which are contrary to human welfare. But there must be also an uncompromising practice of treating everyone, including the worst of our opponents, with all the respect and decency that he merits as a fellow human being. We can expect to face tear gas, clubs and bullets. But we must refuse to hate, punish or kill in return. We must respect the owners, policemen, conservatives and strike-breakers for what they are—potentially decent people who have been conditioned by a sick society into playing anti-social roles, the basic inhumanity of which they do not understand.

This is a diseased world in which it is impossible for anyone to be fully human. One way or another, everyone who lives in the modern world is sick or maladjusted. Slick businessmen and bosses, parasitical coupon clippers, socially blind lawyers, scientists and clergymen are as much victims of “a world they never made” as are the rough and irresponsible elements of America’s great slums. The only way we can begin to break the vicious cycle of blindness, hatred and inequality is to combine an uncompromising war upon evil institutions with an unbending kindness and love of every individual—including the individuals who defend existing institutions.

This is total war. But it is a war in which our allegiance transcends nationalities and classes. Every act we perform today must reflect the kind of human relationships we are fighting to establish tomorrow.

*I was wrong on this one. The collapse didn’t come until much later than I had anticipated. “

A few articles of interest…

Van Jones, “Why They Win & Why We Lose” (Summer 1999)
The title is self-explanatory. The Right doesn’t keep winning because they have more guns and media than we do, though that’s part of it. They largely keep winning because the Left doesn’t have a winning strategy or attitude. Van touches on just some basic ways of thinking that plagues the Left and which we must overcome in order to win.

Zack Exley, “The New Organizers, Part 1: What’s Really Behind Obama’s Ground Game” (Oct. 8, 2008)
Obama’s campaign is a fricken machine! And the Left should be learning from it. If we are interested in building a new popular organizations, some of which include an electoral arm, the Obama campaign is a model we can learn from for being innovative and reaching out to new audiences.

George Lakoff, “Don’t Think of a Maverick! Could the Obama Campaign Be Improved?” (Sept. 11, 2008)
We need to be message warriors! Learn from George Lakoff as he points out where Obama, as a case study, is succeeding in winning hearts and minds - and also where he is failing (and why).

Matt Stoller, “Obama’s Consolidation of the Party” (May 7, 2008)
Unless something major happens that propels McCain to a comeback victory, Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States. What does that mean for the Left? Matt Stoller outlines how Obama has consolidated power within the Democratic Party, effectively creating a new tendency with him in charge. He’ll have the power to make policy, a fundraising base that will force Democratic candidates for House and Senate to come to him if they want to win, and all branches of Government behind him. Where will this help progressive forces in the U.S.? Where will it set us back?

My friend Jonathan McIntosh has produced a new video, perhaps his finest work I’ve seen to date, remixing the presidential debates with clips from “So You Think You Can Dance?”

The remix is called “So You Think You Can Be President?” I recommend it to everyone who wants a real critique (not to mention eight minutes of laughs) of Obama and McCain’s frighteningly similar positions on energy issues and increasing attacks against the Afghan people. Check it out!

Barack Obama is the first Democrat that’s figured out that a winning Democratic Party strategy needs to make use of the solid progressive majority that exists in almost every state in the Union. This includes the South.

Since the Reagan electoral victories of the 1980’s, Democratic candidates have used one of two strategies in their attempt to regain control of political power in the United States. Candidates like Bill Clinton successfully won the White House by moving to the right on issues such trade policies, dismantling social programs, and the economy. Candidates like Al Gore and John Kerry attempted to take the White House by winning in “blue states”, trying to flip “swing states”, and largely ignoring most of the rest of the country. Bill Clinton had to move to the right on economic and foreign policy issues. And in the most blunt and straightforward indictment of the Gore/Kerry electoral strategy, one analyst rightly said: “Democrats just don’t seem to be able to count.”

Even though the majority of the South identify as Democrats, their own party refuses to court their vote. In fact, has Bob Moser routinely points out, in order to win Southern Democrats, the Democratic Party would have to move left on economic issues, not right as many coastal Democrats often assume. In the Southland in particular, but also across the entire country, lies the opportunity for tremendous growth of the political Left.

The ideology of the Democratic Party has consistently prevented it from moving to the left on a wide range of issues. The Party is a center-right to moderate grouping with some slightly liberal leaders (though mostly on only a few issues each). It is thoroughly pro-capitalist and is organized is such a way so as to prevent any challengers from coming to power within the party.

The ideological commitments of the Party prevent it from building power in the central way a progressive political party can: by moving politically to the left and actually relating to people on the issues that matter to them.

The Left can gain tremendous ground by capitalizing on this fundamental weakness of the Democratic Party. In the coming decades, if Democratic strategists learn anything from the Obama campaign and the shifting demographics of the American Southland (especially the Southwest), they will begin to attempt to compete in so called “red states”. If a progressive political party actually started building power in the South, it could force the Democrats to move to the left on certain economic and military issues or risk being permanently irrelevant. Like all dilemma situations, this could lead to two positive outcomes for the Left: the Democrats could actually improve their positions (a win) OR a new progressive party or political bloc could gain ground and adherents in a new geographic location (which could happen either way, and also a win).

As revolutionaries serious about winning the struggle for political power in this country, we can learn a lot about what the Left would need to do in order to compete in the South by reading Bob Moser’s new book Blue Dixie: Awaking the South’s Democratic Majority. Much of the same advice Moser tells Democrats can be applied by progressive organizers interested in organizing a left alternative.

The stagnation of the American Left can be ended if we actually begin to map out our nation, region by region, state by state, community by community, figuring out where we can gain ground, on what issues, and how. When we start to think how we can strategically build a new world, we’ll actually start to get there. It seems simple enough, but its worth repeating often.

Friday I posted about the movie Saw, while waiting on a bench for my theatre to empty. I was waiting to see the movie Quarantine. All the trailers I had seen for it presented it as a horror/suspense movie about a building that is quarantined due to some outbreak happening inside, which the Government later covered up.

While I was at Hofstra University for the debates this past Wednesday, I was in the audience for the Brian Lehrer Show. One of the guests on the show was talking about his book, which focused on paranoia and conspiracies, and how the occurrence of both greatly increases in the U.S. as totalitarian in the U.S. increases. If this is true, I think its very possible that that’s what this film is catering to.

Quarantine ended up being an extremely strange movie. It was filmed similar to the Blair Witch Project, but in this case it was through the lens of a reporter and cameraman who were following around two firefighters. There’s a 10 minute introduction where they are just doing interviews around the firehouse. They then receive a call and go to the building where the main story begins.

They enter the building, go up a few flights of stairs, and slowly enter the apartment where the incident is occurring in. The apartment is dark (the entire building seems to be only dimly lit). Since it is filmed to appear as if the only surviving record is the cameraman’s video, the film is somewhat shaky.

Inside the apartment, there is a woman, in the dark, who isn’t speaking at all. She’s standing in the dark with her hands hanging at her side. After a few minutes of the police and firemen trying to talk to her, and her not responding, the woman lunges as one of them, biting one of their necks. They quickly leave the apartment, running downstairs.

By the time they get to the bottom floor, the front door is locked. As they try to leave, authorities on a megaphone tell them not to panic and that people will be in to let them out soon. All the doors are locked. Some windows are soon guarded by soldiers with machine guns and snipers. Inside, the characters are attacked one by one - by infected humans and dogs.

A veterinarian suspects that its some form of rabies. But he doesn’t understand how people are becoming infected so quickly or how it is making them so violent. He ominously adds that there is no cure for rabies: its 100% fatal once you are infected.

The police officer notifies them that the CDC is coming, and that everyone will be able to leave soon. Everyone in the building just needs to get a blood test to make sure they aren’t infected. The veterinarian doesn’t understand how this is possible. The only way to test for rabies is a brain sample.

Eventually agents from the CDC come. They are dressed in white hazmat suits. They go into the backroom where some of the infected victims are unconscious. They lock everyone else out while they do their tests. The reporter and camera man enter into the next room in order to look through a hole in the wall. They see the CDC agent drilling into one of the victims’ heads to get a brain sample.

Soon after one of the CDC agents tells the remaining characters that they followed the infection from a dog at a local veterinarian whose owner lived in their building. That is the only explanation the Government gives throughout the entire movie.

The film has zero conflict resolution. Everyone dies - everyone. You never find out what the disease / virus / bacteria is. The Government isn’t held responsible for locking everyone in the building, nor are you introduced to any Government agents at the end who explain what happened. Once the reporter, cameraman, and firefighters enter the building, they (and you watching on their camera), never leave. You are locked in by the Government with the infection inside.

The film reminded me a lot about the U.S. Government’s “war on terrorism”. You have an intangible enemy which is never seen, never explained, and never caught. You have a government which will do literally anything to supress the “threat” (all of which they are never held accountable for). You have a government which provides little, if any, explaination for their actions or what’s going on in the world. And while you have an intense distrust of authority, you are instead lead to a feelings of paranoia and helplessness.

It wasn’t a particularly good movie. It was a good for a few jumps and screams, though I wouldn’t recommend the movie, except if you really enjoy human suffering, or perhaps if you want to make the connections to what’s going on in our world.

Posted by mobile phone:
I’m sitting in my local movie theater waiting to see a movie. Beside me is a ten foot wide, eight foot tall advertisement for the movie “Saw V”. A good friend often points out that in order to live in our perverted society, we must block out most of the suffering and day-to-day “normalcy” of life. It is only when something shakes us from our hypnoctic slumber do we begin to see how perverted the world we live in really is. I don’t often notice most of the horrible things that are considered “normal” in our society - I’ve learned to block most of them out.

The Saw series is different. I get sick to my stomach every time I see an ad for the new film or hear a reference to it. A month and a half ago a schoolmate of mine, Kevin, was brutally murdered in Chelsea, NY. His unremorseful killer watched the movie Saw before leaving Kevin’s apartment.

That’s how fucked up our system is. It fucks us all up, feeds us perverted propaganda, pushed us all over the edge, and then does’t provide us with the healthcare we need to keep us all sane members of society. And it takes a death - or some other powerful shift in consciousness - to see how every aspect of our institutions and social relations is designed to maintain the death system.