“Direct action gets the goods”

The person who wrote this definitely could have meant “social power gets the goods”. But they just as easily could have thought that the use of direct action, the tactic itself, is the essense of what makes an action effective. Those who think that direct action is what brings about victories are often confused, annoyed, or frustrated when it fails to do so. It is important to move beyond simplistic slogans like this, and especially dogma around everything from direct action and voting, to issues of state power and reform struggles. Without breaking through these simplistic concepts, we will be ill-equipped to maximize our chances of success and effectively analyze our failures and setbacks.

Most good organizers who use direct action as a tactic would agree that greater numbers and higher consciousness among participants will increase the likelihood of success. But unless a correct understanding of the nature of power is central to their “conceptual toolbox”, they are less likely to convey the correct lessons to those they lead, or are more likely to convey them in a language which is misinterpreted by newer members. If the central slogan they use is “direct action gets the goods”, and they have an implicit understanding that direct action works best with large numbers and with a high level of political unity, then they can be effective leaders. Unfortunately, their use of the term often gives newer members with an incoherent and/or poorly synthesized perspective on organizing, power, and action. Effective organizers would do well to say precisely what they mean: organizing that builds evermore social power is what “gets the goods”, and direct action is often an extremely useful tactic in the context of an well-planned strategy. We should not elevate tactics to the level of strategy nor should we misattribute causal attributes (i.e. incorrectly attributing to the success of a campaign to direct action, compared to correctly attributing the success of a campaign to the organized social power of progressives who used direct action as part of an effective and well-planned strategy).

As more youth organizers correctly grasp the nature of power and strategy, our movement will flurish in ways previously unseen.

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.

Without any doubt my favorite quotation from Karl Marx comes from The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon. He writes:

“The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living, and just when they seem to be revolutionizing themselves and things, in creating something entirely new, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service and borrow from the names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present the new scene of world history in this time honored disguise and borrowed language…. The social revolution of the nineteenth century cannot draw its poetry from the past but only from the future.”

Such eloquent wisdom is unfortunately seldom taken to heart by his disciples. The statement is equally true today: the social revolution of the twenty-first century cannot draw its poetry from the past but only from the future. The theories, strategies, ideas, and methods of the past need to be critically analyzed and, where flawed, revolutionized and not merely amended. A vision of a democratic society must be central to our message to add inspiration to our programmatic demands.

In order to win the war, those who seek victory must organize to build a new revolutionary left in the United States. The tasks of such a Left will be widespread and will require much debate, but some of these tasks can be easily summarized. There certainly might be other things, but a new revolutionary left will necessarily include among its focuses:

Humanism: learning from oppression that exist within past social movements, a new revolutionary left in the United States will seek to fundamentally transform the defining institutions and ideas in the realms of economics, kinship, culture, and politics. It will take each of these areas equally seriously, knowing that victory is impossible without a holistic and comprehensive revolutionary transformation of society.

Vision & Hope: understanding that our generation is overwhelmed with feelings of hopelessness, a new revolutionary left will formulate, discuss, debate, and refine, a vision of what a participatory society could look like, outlining the core defining institutions and social relations of what a participatory economy, feminist kinship relations, egalitarian inter-community relations, participatory democracy, international solidarity, and environmental justice will look like. It will bring this message of hope and positive alternatives to every community in America.

Organizing: actually making the change we want to see, a new revolutionary left is made of organizers, not merely activists, the latter being those who take action while the former being those who organize ever greater numbers of people to take action with increasing commitment and effectiveness. Such a Left understands that change can only occur if progressive forces are intellectually, institutionally, and politically ready to lead humanity to liberation.

Strategy: seeking maximum effectiveness, a new revolutionary left will study the art of strategy, learning from successful progressive social movements as well as from military, business, and rightwing strategy. It will train a generation of critical thinkers and thoughtful strategists.

Study: not wanting to replicate past mistakes and seeking to learn from past lessons, a new revolutionary left will be articulate, well-educated, and committed to on-going study, both of historical and current events. It will build programs of internal education for existing members and programs of external education to break down the dominant ideology.

Critical Thinking: loathing dogma, a new revolutionary left will train itself in the art of intellectual self-defense, emphasizing critical thinking, logic, reason, critical self-reflection and collective reflection, and summation of experiences. Instead of following old formulas and strategies, it will analyze the current situation and formulate appropriate strategies and methods relevant to the present day.

Numbers: in order to maximize participatory democracy and ensure eventual victory, a new revolutionary left will seek to build both a growing core of revolutionary organizers and a vibrant majoritarian progressive coalition aimed at breaking the rightwing domination of society. It understands that in order to win a new world, we will need tens of millions of people on our side committed to transforming society.

Raising Social Costs: understanding that hierarchical institutions are built upon the consent of the governed, a new revolutionary left will create dilemma situations whereby elites must choose: give into our demands or lose legitimacy and, as a result, aid in the growth of the Left. It will raise the social costs that elites must pay to carry out unjust policies, forcing them to give into our demands or pay infinitely more than they had expected.

Counter-Hegemony: since it has its fingers on the pulse of the nation, a new revolutionary left will seek to do everything in its power to break through the dominant culture and ideology. It shall seek to build a counter-hegemony, taking serious the task of education, cultural revolution, and revolutionary leadership.

Liberatory Practices: with its commitment to actively combat internal movement oppression, a new revolutionary left will develop thoroughly liberatory practices which develop and elevate the leadership of every individual in the movement, combating past oppressive norms of sexism, racism, heterosexism/homophobia/transphobia, class inequality, and authoritarianism. A new left will seek to embody the seeds of the future in present to the highest degree possible.

Effective Communication: embracing the power of language, a new revolutionary left will carefully craft its message so as to communicate effectively and precisely to the constituencies we want to win over. It will understand that our actions, words, slogans, and attitudes all convey a message to the public and that these messages are vital to our success.

Democracy and Participation: because it can’t win by using undemocratic means, a new revolutionary left will maximize democracy and participation within all of its organizations. It will understand that democracy and participation are dependent on access to knowledge, equal distribution of empowering work, and liberatory practices which level the playing field in a world which thrives on vast inequality. It will involve an ever growing number of people and, eventually, being to build new institutions based on democratic values, especially workers’, neighborhood, and kinship assemblies which will be the nuclei of the new society.

Leadership: following its commitment to democracy, a new revolutionary left will understand the responsibility of leaders to pass on their knowledge, skills, and lessons to an ever expanding core of revolutionary leaders. It will be a left that trains thousands of new leaders each year, preparing them for the challenges they will face as political organizers.

Relevancy: being in tune to the concerns, hopes and aspirations of large numbers of people, a new revolutionary left will orient its efforts towards being relevant to diverse communities who don’t yet identify as progressive, left, or revolutionary. It will build its program based on what the majority of the population cares about, what will most strengthen, expand, and prepare the movement for future gains, and what will make the most tangible difference in people’s lives.

Beloved Community: because it knows it can be better than the world outside, a new revolutionary left will be a warm, welcoming, and empowering Left. It will seek to embody all of our values to the highest degree possible. It will empower its members to grow. It will take seriously our internalized oppression and the need for each of us to heal the wounds inflicted upon us by the authoritarian society, by racism, by sexism, by homophobia, by gender binary, by alienation from work, by exploitation and oppression, and by detachment from our natural world. It will be a Left of love, of hope, and of compassion.

These are just a few tasks. When learning from the past, its useful to practice STORM’s principle of “take the best, leave all the rest.” We should take the best of theory, strategy, vision, and organizing methods, while leaving all the irrelevant stuff behind. In analyzing our own efforts, we should not merely seek to tweak what needs revolutionizing.

(Part Four coming soon…)

First. I have two papers that were just published. The first is a chapter in a new book called Real Utopia: Participatory Society for the 21st Century, edited by Chris Spannos. The anthology covers dozens of topics about visions for the future, revolutionary politics, and strategy to win a new world. Whether its what will replace capitalism, authoritarian government, racism, sexism, or ecological destruction, or what a transition to a good society would look like, Real Utopia is THE book to check out! My friend Pat Korte and I have a chapter in the book about theory, strategy, and the role of youth in a revolutionary movement. Pick up a copy today!

Second. After two years of organizing and building the new Students for a Democratic Society, my friend Joshua Kahn Russell and I have a paper in the new issue of Upping the Anti - a radical Canadian political journal. It took us a quarter of a year of thinking, reflecting, brainstorming, writing, and editing to finish it. Its a pretty good reflection on our first two years of organizing in SDS. A great read for youth organizers building national revolutionary organizations. Check it out!

Third. My brother Chris interviewed me on global warming, the war in Iraq, capitalist economics, and clean, green, and just alternatives. Also talked about is environmental activism and the Energy Action Coalition’s exciting 2008 campaign: PowerVote.org. You can listen to the audio here, or read the interview transcript:

Chris Kelly: What are you trying to do?

Brian Kelly: I want an end to poverty. I want an end to war. I want an ecologically sustainable society. I want a world where women and gender and sexual minorities aren’t looked down upon, exploited, or treated as second class citizens. I want to end racism in our society - I think people of color and immigrants will only be free when they are given full control over their economic, political, and social destinies. I want an economy and political system that is based on democracy, cooperation, and justice - instead of competition, greed, and tyranny.

I work every day to build organizations which are part of a growing, broad movement for human justice and emancipation. Specifically, I work with for an organization called the Student Environmental Action Coalition, and also for Students for a Democratic Society.

CK: How can we go about getting rid of dirty energy?

BK: We need green job programs which lift people out of poverty, and push them towards prosperity. We need to stop building coal plants and supermax prisons, and start building schools, parks, public transportation systems, and wind farms. We need to find ways for every American citizen to have a democratic say in how this clean economy is going to be built, and the building of a just economy needs to lift up those who most need lifting.

To be clear, we need to stop using fossil fuels. Coal, oil, gas, and nuclear energy have all got to go. The age of dirty energy is over. Humanity must quickly embrace solar, wind, geothermal, and hydrogen power sources. Clean, green and just energy sources are America’s future. We need to embrace the future and become world leaders in clean energy.

CK: What measures are necessary?

BK: Achieving the aims of real social justice will ultimately require dismantling many of the current institutions in society which maintain injustice and exploitation. This means that people need to take control of their workplaces, communities, and local governments.

Like the freedom fighters of the civil rights movement, women’s rights movement, labor movement, and environmental movement, our winning strategy will have to utilize a wide range of tactics. Education, protests, organizing meetings, films, books, news articles, new institutions, reform campaigns, and civil disobedience will all help us win a sustainable world. The key is to use methods which leverage the power of ordinary people fighting for changes in their lives. The key is to build popular power.

CK: How much will getting rid of dirty energy cost?

BK: How much will it cost if we don’t get rid of dirty energy? Imagine what our world will look like if superhurricanes like Katrina and Rita are happening multiple times a year. Imagine increased droughts and more forest fires. Imagine colder winters and hotter summers. In the past we’ve talked about species going extinct. Well, those species are part of ecosystems - imagine those ecosystems going extinct. Imagine billions of people becoming refugees - yes billions with a B. Imagine resource wars - like the current oil war in Iraq. How much will all of that cost?

Yes, it is true that transitioning to a green economy will cost billions of dollars. But we’ve spent $3 trillion dollars on an illegal occupation of Iraq. A few billion dollar investment in not only our survival - which should motivate anyone - but our economic and social prosperity! Who can argue with that?

CK: How many people must be educated for change to occur?

BK: Millions. Every American needs to know the benefits of green jobs, clean energy, and economic democracy. We need millions of youth climate leaders to join the green movement and organize for change.

CK: How long will it take to get rid of dirty energy?

BK: It’s going to take a lot. Young people need to step up. Al Gore put it well: “we need another hero generation”. We need a generation like the generation that fought the Nazis and fascism in Europe. We need a generation like those who fought Jim Crow segregation and racism in the 50’s and 60’s. We need a generation like the courageous Americans who brought an end to the Vietnam War. Americans need to demand accountability and bold action from their elected representatives, vote dirty politicians out of office, and take action against the corporations and politicians which are driving global warming. We need new ways of organizing our workplaces, communities, and government. Democracy and solidarity should replace competition and political tyranny. We need to take America into the future.

CK: In your opinion, if something doesn’t happen with pollution will there be a next generation?

BK: Writing in Science magazine, NASA’s top climatologist Jim Hansen, said the following: “if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.”

In a recent article, Bill McKibben, who’s a scholar at Middlebury College, called “350″ the most important number that has ever existed. I’d have to agree with him. If humanity doesn’t take immediate, bold action, the systems on Earth which sustains life will slowly start to change, be disrupted, and die.

The ocean levels are going to rise, flooding most coastal areas. Most coastal cities, and places like Florida will all be under water. This will cause roughly 2 billion people to become refugees throughout the world. Weather patterns will become erratic and more intense. Storms and hurricanes will become more dangerous, more often. What you saw in New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina will become common place.

Resource wars like the current oil war in Iraq will become increasingly necessary, as elites scramble for maintain their drive for profits and power. Other resources, like food and water, will become increasingly scarce. Wars for water will undoubtedly break out across the world.

Species will die out and go extinct at ever faster rates. Many ecosystems will die. Food shortages will occur more frequent. As habitats are destroyed, so will be possible cures for diseases, food sources, and many irreplaceable resources and natural wonders.

All this will radically alter the notion of being “alive” on Earth. If greenhouse gas emissions aren’t halted, there is a very good possibility that we are at risk of mass human, animal, and plant die-offs. Without a clean energy revolution, the survival of humanity on Earth is at risk.

CK: Wouldn’t it be effective for an oil company to invest in an alternative energy?

BK: It’s become quite fashionable for businesses to “go green” or run advertisements about how their company is promoting sustainability. Well - the world is still warming at ever faster rates. We call this green washing. Like white washing, but for the environment, green washing involves making the smallest of policy changes - or no changes at all -, advertising that your company is environmentally friendly, all while still practicing dirty, unsustainable, and unjust practices.

For years oil companies and dirty corporations have dragged their feet on environmental justice issues - it’s time that ordinary people benefit from the growing green economy. We need to cap greenhouse gas emissions, collect money from the polluters for the damage they’ve done, and invest in vulnerable communities who most need the green jobs that are being created.

CK: Moving on, was the war in Iraq necessary?

BK: Iraq had no connection to the horrific attacks on September 11th, 2001. Iraq posed no threat to the security of United States. Iraq neither had nor was developing chemical, nuclear, or biological weapons. Yet a government with a horrific record of human rights abuses and aggressive wars, a country which is actively developing and maintaining the world largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, and the only country which has ever used nuclear weapons against unarmed civilian populations - the U.S. government - had the nerve not only to lie about these matters, but to launch an invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation which ended up killing millions of Iraqi civilians and turning millions more into refugees.

No, the Iraq wasn’t a necessity by any means. It was a war of choice, built upon a foundation of lies and fabricated evidence, with the intent of helping to increase the wealth of U.S. defense contractors and oil corporations.

CK: How has this impacted the world? The U.S.?

BK: Over a million and a half Iraqis and more than 4,000 American soldiers have been killed. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been wounded, as have tens of thousands of American soldiers. Several million Iraqis are now refugees.

While the U.S. economy is staggering, it is reported that the war will end up costing well over $3 trillion. This is money which could have been used to build a green economy, provide universal healthcare for all, rebuild our schools, provide millions of new jobs, strengthen social security and unemployment benefits, especially for veterans, the poor, and the elderly, and much, much more. The bipartisan war is a crime against the American people and humanity. Those that started it are criminals. If we are to move towards real peace, they must be brought to justice.

CK: Do you think if we pull out now we will be leaving Iraq unstable and terrorists will take over?

BK: Iraq is already unstable. It was the American Occupation that made it that way. Like all imperial occupations, those that are occupied nearly almost always resist. Suppose you live in New York City. Some country says you are stockpiling weapons of mass destruction - which you aren’t. You raise objections. You claim they are lying. You bring your concerns to the United Nations. But the tyrannical leaders of that country, despite the protest of millions of its citizens, and millions of other people through the world - being an illegal bombing campaign against New York City. They bomb the bridges. They bomb the power plants. They bomb the water filtration centers. They bomb major roads. They bomb apartment buildings. They call this shock and awe. They say that anyone who dressed or speaks like a New Yorker is a ‘terrorist’, a ‘traitor’, the “enemy’. President Push, of the United Stakes of Generica, his party and even their quote/unquote “political opposition“, declare a war without limits, and institute harsh new methods of repression.

People you’ve known all your life. Your teachers. Your neighbors. Your friends. Your family members. Local shopkeepers. Your hairdresser. Your girlfriend. Your mother. Your brother. Your sister. Your grandmother. They start being killed. One day it might be a bomb from your enemy’s bomber. The next day it might be a stray bullet from one of the occupier’s guns. Or they might just disappear - being taken to some secret prison camp, or to a more infamous one in Cuba. They might be tortured. They might be raped. They might be murdered.

But the central question is: would you fight back?

And more importantly: is there any justification at all for calling someone who fights a foreign aggressor, whatever their means, a “terrorist”?

For me at least, these people are freedom fighters - just like the American soldiers in Iraq Veterans Against the War who are speaking out against this illegal occupation, many even refusing to serve in an illegal war - refusing to break their oath to defend the United States Constitution.

Yes Iraq will be unstable for quite a long time after we leave. But we have no right to occupy a foreign country. It violated every international law of war and peace. It is a crime against humanity and against peace. We are committing the worst of war crimes in Iraq. The Nazis were hung at Nuremburg for the same exact crimes: waging wars of aggression.

If we were really interested in helping Iraq rebuild their country, we’d leave immediately, let them democratically decide what to do with own country, pay reparations for all Iraqis and other people who were harmed by this war, and turn the people who stated this war - both Republicans and Democrats - over to the International Criminal Court to be tried for High Crimes and Misdemeanors - namely crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.

CK: Is this war still being fought for the same reasons as it was five years ago?

BK: Absolutely. It is being waged today, as it was the day it was declared in March of 2003, in the name of American corporations seeking control over the resources of Iraq and profits from the waging of war more generally. It has been and will always be: a war of the rich, upon the poor - poor American soldiers, poor Americans at home without social services, and poor Iraqi citizens suffering death, agony, poverty, and homelessness.

The official reasons coming out of the White House, Congress, and lobbyists of war corporations have changed, sure. But the reasons why elites promoted and continue to promote the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan remain the same: control of resources and maintenance of American power.

CK: What is wrong with corporations or capitalism in general?

BK: This is hard to answer in a short period of time, but, simply put, capitalism is a thug’s economy. Al Capone - the infamous murder and American gangster - used to say, ‘capitalism is the best of all economic systems: you can get what you can take’. Under market capitalism, roughly 1% of the population controls about 50% of the wealth. This is the owning class - they own the businesses and the corporations. They are the superrich. They are the masters of the universe. They sail on yachts, fly in jet planes, and drive fancy cars - while half the world’s population - nearly three billion people - live on less than two dollars a day.

Under these economic owners, these is another class of people - roughly 20% of the population - who manage and coordinate the economy, and have jobs which are relatively empowering and rewarding. They compete with both the owners and the workers who they manage. They tend to monopolize all of the empowering jobs at work, while workers do only shit work for less pay.

The bottom 80% of the population are ordinary working people. This bottom 80% holds just 6% of wealth in our country. They have no control over their work. They must submit to managers and owners at work or else face joblessness, homelessness, hunger, and poverty. They have no other option but to submit to the will of others. This is what politicians and corporate CEO’s call the “freedom”.

Instead of lifting people out of poverty, equalizing the distribution of wealth, democratizing our workplaces, and empowering all people at their jobs, capitalism does the opposite: it increases the gap between the superwealthy and the superpoor, it squashed democracy wherever it surfaces, and ensures that ordinary working people have no access to work that will make them feel good about themselves. Quote/unquote “free markets” promote competition between businesses who care nothing for each other, consumers, their workers, or society as a whole. They have one goal: maximizing profit and power. So long as they don’t lose power when they do something, they will do literally anything to maximize profit.

Since we are talking about global warming, it’s useful to talk about green house gas emissions. Corporations have absolutely no incentive to cut their global warming emissions or pollute less. In fact, if a corporation were to do so, they often go out of business. The only way a company can compete is by cutting costs. A common way for them to cut costs is to pass off the costs to others: consumers who have to deal with shitty products and higher prices, or the entire population who will suffer when the ocean levels seriously start to rise. Markets have no democratic planning behind them - they are based on chaos and greed. We can do better. Americans can democratically plan our economic futures, without markets based on greed or undemocratic workplaces. Economic justice and democracy is possible.

CK: How come people are blind to these reasons?

BK: I think most people see all the problems around them - they just think that either there’s no alternative, or that there’s nothing they can do about it. Luckily for our world, there are plenty of alternatives and plenty of ways to help build a better world.

Take Venezuela for example. The U.S. government and corporate media demonize Venezuela and President Hugo Chavez. Why is that? Well, the U.S. government operates on the principle that any progressive government, social movement, or leader must be stopped. They must be demonized, defamed, or assassinated. In fact, a good indication on where you should look if you are interested in seeing alternatives to the problems we have in America, are often the countries that the U.S. government demonizes or attacks.

President Chavez is bringing his country in a direction of liberation. Imagine this: your leader tells you that if you are poor and don’t own your home, go around your neighborhood and talk to 300 families around you. Get them all to form a council or local government. In this government, you will make all local decisions directly. The federal government won’t interfere. If you do this, the federal government will buy your homes - which you don’t currently own - and give them to you, free of charge. In other words, you start to make all the decisions which affect your lives collectively, not just about political decisions. This is what’s going on in Venezuela. They are moving away from reliance on corporations and capitalism, and towards an economic and political democracy which is directly run by the people, which will eventually replace all of the corporations and even the federal government. That’s why the U.S. demonizes Chavez and the Venezuelan government.

CK: How can we change this since no corporation is going to just give up?

BK: All institutions exist only because people let them exist. All policies occur only because people let them occur. If people say “we don’t want these dirty energy policies”; if they say “we don’t want corporations running our lives”; if they build a mass, highly organized movement to fight for reforms and eventually democratize the economy, then there is nothing that corporations will be able do to stop them. The key is to get millions of people organized for change. We need to make our demands and actions bold. We can’t just fight for friendlier capitalism, we have to revolutionize the economy, political system, and cultural and family relationships. The whole system needs to change. And people need to take action to do that.

If young people want to get involved this year, a major campaign they can join is Power Vote. Here’s what Power Vote is about:

“We are building a youth voter bloc 1 million strong to demand bold federal climate legislation, a moratorium on coal and other dirty energy, and to create millions of good, green jobs. Youth will start by signing our Power Vote pledge and then get plugged into the incredible youth climate movement sweeping the nation. We will not only elect people who support our position, but will hold them accountable to it.

Throughout the Fall, we will be elevating climate and clean, just energy as a national issue. Every time a candidate makes a public (and sometimes private) appearance we’ll be there with green hard hats on and no coal signs waving. Every time a bill is up or a council member is compromising our future, we’ll be there. You’ll see us at the conventions, at coal plants and oil refineries, and on major coordinated days of action. And you will see us at the polls. We will be impossible to ignore.

And all the while, we will be building the power and numbers of the youth climate movement. We’ll have more people fighting for campus clean energy policies, to break our addiction to oil, to get dirty (energy) money out of politics, and to stop dirty energy expansion dead in it’s tracks. On November 4, our work doesn’t end but ramps up to ensure that promises our kept in the first 100 days of new administration and that all our amazing new youth climate leaders have a clear plan for creating real, lasting change in their communities.”

It’s a unique opportunity for young people to be part of a growing generation of climate heroes who are working to save our planet and humanity. All young people should join up and fight back!

CK: Thank you.

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Chris Kelly is an 18 year old high school student in New York. He plans to attend school for film and media in the fall.

Brian Kelly is a 21 year old, revolutionary youth organizer, currently based out of New York, U.S.A. He studies how language, social networks, and communication affect political strategy, vision, and organizing. For the past two years, he has been an organizer with Students for a Democratic Society, and is also on the national council of the Student Environmental Action Coalition - both in the United States - addressing the War in Iraq, the environmental crisis, and youth and student rights and power. He runs a political strategy website - Diary of a Walking Butterfly (www.walkingbutterfly.org) - where he writes on topics of political strategy, social vision, youth organizing, social change, and how language and communication affect each of those topics. You can contact him at brian@walkingbutterfly.com or through AIM/GTalk at butterflywalking@gmail.om.

We are trying to win a new economy, a new realm of daily life and love, a new culture, a new polity, a new ecology, a new internationalism, all without hierarchies that condemn some people to subordination. We reject roles unsuited for humanity - the role of the owner, boss, manager; the role of the patriarch, misogynist, homophobe; the role of the racist, religious bigot, fundamentalist; the role of the denier, decrier, decider, dictator; the role of polluter of air, sea, and land; the role of bombardier, cultural commissar, empire expander. Gone with all of that.

We are pursuing this better world that will leave behind these horribly oppressive aspects by seeking improvements in people’s lives right now, from the washed out streets in New Orleans to the porn strewn back alleys in Chicago, from the black lunged mines in West Virginia to the dignity destroying commercialism of billboards and TV, from rural poverty to urban blight, from self-imposed diets seeking false beauty to society-imposed diets imposing criminal starvation, from the flesh houses of Los Angeles and its glam and glitter to the cardboard homes under bridges in Philadelphia, from the miles of AA meetings to the miles of local bars, from the capacity crushing horrors imposed on eighty percent of our school’s students to the elite Ivy farms spewing out scholars who lack sense and humanity, from the modern slave houses called prisons to the court houses that function like auction houses, from elections that are bought and sold by rich corporate executives investing in their preferred paths of domination to acres and acres of misguided commodity production remorselessly destroying our weather and water, from the endless skyways of half empty hotels to the endless alley ways of homeless children, mothers, and fathers.

We seek more income for the poor, more power for the weak, more status for the forlorn, more social ties for the lonely, more responsibility for all our crying souls. We seek equitable material well being, self managing influence, and mutual fulfillment of all kinds. We seek, as well, to ensure that our demands today not only partly redress the suffering caused by the world we now inhabit but also move us toward a better future in which worldly and spiritual benefits of society reach a high level and then persist due to the intrinsic logic of our new institutions rather than only when we win against harsh opposition.

And why we are doing all this? We are doing it tirelessly, steadfastly, and vigorously, for the memory of revolutionaries and visionaries and humanists from history past, for people all around us now, and for history’s and humanity’s future.

We are trying to win a new economy in which there are no classes. No one in the better world we seek will own workplaces, resources, or other people’s ability to do work. There will be no owners of Walmarts or Microsofts. There will be no private profits. There will be no wage slaves, working under the dictates of others. Further, no one will monopolize empowering conditions at work, as doctors, lawyers, engineers, and managers so typically do now, and on that account rule over those left only menial and obedient tasks. No one will earn inequitably whether from property, power, or output. No one will have more say over decisions than the fair share that we all are entitled to in accord with how much we are affected. There will be no top and no bottom of who decides what for whom. There will be no order giver and no order taker about production, allocation, or consumption. There will be no class responsible for decisions while another class is suppressed and responsible only to obey. We will all be elevated to use our fullest capacities and express our fullest desires, rather than most of us learning only to endure boredom and to obey orders showered down on us by the anointed masters of all that occurs. Our new economy will be classless, at last. Out with the old boss - and out with any new boss, too. We will enjoy a participatory economy, operating as one part of a participatory society.

But our project is not just about economics - we are not economistic. We realize that life is not working and consuming alone. For example, we are trying to win a new polity too, that will incorporate the will of all citizens in legislation, that will adjudicate disputes to produce justice, that will respond to violations to attain rehabilitation and liberation rather than vengeance and retribution. Our new polity will have citizens of diverse age, belief, experience, and knowledge, but will not have rulers and ruled. We are not merely seeking new Presidents and Senators because we understand that our political problem is government by a few - not simply the oddities of any particular few who happen to be prowling around the White House and Senate at any particular moment. We won’t have political choices mediated by dollar bills but by the will of informed citizens, each with equal rights and comparable means. We will have in our new society’s new polity, participatory democracy and self management. We won’t have information conveyed by agents of corporate power. We will have education, communication, and popular participation that together prepare all citizens to be full participants in social life and decision making. We will build and responsibly contribute to assemblies that express our informed desires for legislation allowing us to self manage our political and social life. We will build media that conveys expert information so we can function wisely. We will adopt decision methods that apportion influence over outcomes to those affected in proportion as they are affected so that we collectively self manage our conditions and projects. We might well call all this participatory politics, one more part of our new participatory society.

Beyond economy and polity, however, we are trying as well to win a new realm of sexuality, nurturance, socialization, and daily life. Do the roots of sexism reside in nuclear marriage as we know it? Do they stem from a gender division of labor that is women mothering and men fathering rather than both parenting? Is sexism born in a disparity in who does caretaking work and who doesn’t? Are there other roots of sexism, other structures that continually toss misogyny up into our lives, reproducing its contours year in and year out, and thereby subverting our potentials for sharing and caring? Whatever the roots of patriarchy are, whatever produces and reproduces sexism, it will all be transcended in a new world. Sexism will be only a memory in the new world we will win and celebrate. Will we need communal living arrangements, new modes of parenting, new ways of apportioning the labors of life, all even beyond the obvious need for fair and free access for women to all positions in society? If we do, then that’s the feminism we must and will achieve in our new participatory society. If something more or other is needed, then that too will be done. We will have participatory kinship, participatory living, in our new participatory society, nothing less is acceptable.

We are trying to win a new culture, as well, that celebrates cultural diversity while defending each community’s every participant. Our preferred new society will include social structures and relations that welcome spirituality and religious sentiment even as our new approaches escape the strictures of fundamentalism of all kinds and respect atheism as well. In our new society, we will all still celebrate, communicate, identify, and forge ways of seeing and understanding ourselves and our communities - but we will do it with mutual respect, taking pleasure not only in our own solutions but in admiring, learning from, and enjoying the rich variety of other people’s solutions too. We will choose our cultural communities freely, move among them as we choose, and refine and enrich our ties to them over the course of our lives. Racism, religious bigotry, ethnocentrism, and all kinds of self identification based on or presupposing the inferiority and subordination of others will have become a thing of the past, and our ways of constructing our communities and the institutions we adopt in our new cultural relations will have to respect, abide, and propel that outcome. New cultural institutions, that is, will guard the rights and norms of all communities, but particularly of the smaller in disputes with the larger. The name for all this might be multiculturalism or perhaps intercommunalism, another leg for our new participatory society to stand on.

We seek a greener world too, but not just sustainability. We are not content with the idea that the best we can do is to avoid suicide, which is what sustainability literally mandates. Rather, in our participatory society not only will our culture and daily life respect our natural environment, but our legislation will freely and effectively protect it and our economy will properly discern its interconnections and their value. Likewise, even beyond our own shores, we seek a community of countries that goes beyond being at peace to attain a condition of mutual benefit. We will have war no more - of course - but we will not dispense with global ties. On the contrary, we will enrich and extend global ties so that countries freely share their lessons and virtues, protect one another from harm, and exchange not according to competitive norms that ensure that trade benefits accrue mostly to whoever is richer and more powerful, but instead exchange in a way that always reduces disparities in wealth and power. In the time-honored tradition of our predecessors, we can call this internationalism, but it is ultimately just participatory societies participating in cooperative solidarity with one another.

But how do we win all this, that’s the question, isn’t it? We know we must. We know we will. But how? Of course, we only know some things about this massive question - the rest will be revealed only in the clash and jangle of struggles and constructions as we pursue the road forward. But, even now, there are some insights we can commit to, as we develop and share more.

In our future there will be participatory self management via worker and consumer councils in the economy, via people’s assemblies in the polity, and via new personal and collective arrangements in culture and in kinship as well. We can’t grow that kind of future participation using movements that are harshly hierarchical. No more of that. We can’t attain equitable remuneration, self management, classlessness, women and men in partnership, sexual liberation, political participation, wide dispersal of information, cultural intercommunalism, a wise relation to nature, and internationalism, if we use movement vehicles that incorporate the ills of the present. No more of that. We can’t have racism, sexism, or classism in our movements. No more, no more.

We will win a better world by winning sequences of improvements in people’s lives within existing society which also win our movements ever more consciousness, ever more commitment, and ever more infrastructure of struggle, until they are powerful and wise enough to win not solely modest elixirs for pain, but also the infrastructure of full freedom and liberation.

We can’t create a society of sharing souls by having fragmented, alienated movements. We can’t generate responsibility and initiative with movements that denigrate and debilitate. We can’t sustain participation with movements that are as oppressive as society at large - indeed we can’t win with these flaw in our movements since winning entails a movement of perhaps a hundred million involved participant leaders. Without movements that give their participants better lives than they would have outside, more friends, more love, more dignity, more empowerment, more knowledge, more confidence, we can’t win. So we must create such movements.

We can’t use anti democratic means to produce democratic results. We can’t use anti egalitarian norms to produce equitable distribution. We can’t use authoritarian culture and conceptions to produce participation. We can’t maintain soul wrecking values much less elitist and egocentric behaviors to produce intercommunalism.

We need to have our eyes on the real prize which is to enlarge membership, enlarge consciousness, enlarge commitment, and enlarge infrastructure, all consistent with our long term aims and not solely our short run priorities and tactics.

We do it for workers on the line, bored, tired, impoverished, and robbed of their creative days. No more Maggie’s Farm for us, instead classlessness.

We do it for women door-opened, pinched, decultured, feminized, impoverished, beaten, raped, advertised, psychologized, ball and chained. No more hustle and no more Hustler for us, instead Feminism.

We do it for Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, Asians…nameless, robbed of dignity and means, legally lynched, harassed, low paid, running, jailed. No more plantations in the midst of plenty for us, instead Intercommunalism.

We do it for the drunks and addicts, the worn out and the never lively, for the old and ill who should be long lived and wise, for the forgotten, the dispossessed, the lonely.

For the young, schooled and unschooled, enduring boredom, sniffing glue, stealing sex and losing love, trying to escape or trying to find a way in, whether they exist under a massive thumb or are trying to grow a massive thumb with which to hold down others.

We do it for those on welfare or off it, looking into the mall or looking out from it, employed or unemployed, alone or crowded beyond sanity, hiding their sex or flaunting it, angry, sad, or mad.

We do it for all those who feel less than they could feel, for all those who have been made less than they could be in this rich land, the United States - and -

We do it for the Colombian, Paraguayan, Guatemalan, Haitian, South African, Congolese, Liberian, Sudanese, Iraqi, Iranian, Palestinian, Pakistani, Indian, Thai, Malaysian, and Chinese exploited, robbed, starved, cheated, tortured, ambushed, kidnapped, and death-squadded.

We do it for all the world’s citizens suffering the brutality and indignity of electric shocks and murdered relatives, suffering secret or public bombs, suffering Guantanamos and Abu Ghriabs, suffering poverty and even starvation, suffering the military boot and the cultural stamp.

We do it for the empire’s citizens, proud but beleaguered, and also for the empire’s enemies, our forebears:

We do it for the strikers, the saboteurs, the feminists and anarchists, the Marxists and nationalists, for those with no ideology but liberty, and for those who had too much ideology as well.

We do it for the memory of Che and the Cuban freedom fighters - we will be “guided by great feelings of love.”

We do it for the memory of Amilcar Cabral and the liberation of Africa - we will “tell no lies and claim no easy victories.”

We do it for the memory of Rosa Luxembourg and the revolutionaries of Europe - we will move, and therein we will notice and break our chains.

We do it for the memory of Alexandra Kollantai and Russians in revolt - we will not only create direct means of popular rule, we will preserve, revere, and utilize them.

We do it for Emma Goldman and the anarchists in struggle - we will dance on our way to, on our arrival at, and in celebration of our new world.

We do it for Simone de Beauvoir and feminists everywhere - we will accept no biological, psychological, or economic fate deterring women in our future.

We do it for Ho and the Vietnamese, the Vietnamese who yesterday taught us all, and who will have their day too, around the corner, over the hill, when we win the world we all desire.

We do it for r Martin Luther King Jr. - his mountain is our mountain, his vision looking into uncharted mists will become our daily pleasure, surrounding us during each breath of our lives. We will win for Martin too.

We do it for Fannie Lou Hamer and the Civil Righters, for Dave Dellinger and the new leftists, for Fred Hampton and the Panthers, for Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers, for Lolita Lebron and the Puerto Rican nationalists, for Leonard Peltier and the fighters in AIM, and for all the fine souls who resisted and died in the past and who nonetheless live on.

We do it for the young who dodged the draft. For the young who went to war and disrupted. For the young who went and died - or lived. For the Vietnam Veterans against war, and especially for the Iraq Veterans against war.

We do it for the French in the streets of May and the Italians in Autumn, for the Mexicans in the summer, and the Czechs and Chinese, for the Nicaraugans, the El Salvadorans, the Haitians, the Bolivians, and the Venezuelans. For the ANC and landless peasants movement. For the anti globalization veterans of Seattle and Prague. For the camepasinos in Brazil and the piqueteros in Argentina, for the Zapatistas in Mexico and for movements all over Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas - for the millions who opposed the Iraq War before it began and the many millions more who oppose it now.

We do it for everyone who has fought, fights, or will fight for a better wage, a better home, more dignity, more respect, a better life, a better world than they were, are, or are going to be bequeathed.

And at the same time, necessarily:

We do it against the Rockefellers, the Waltons and Buffets, the Somozas and Pinochets, the CIAs and FBIs, and the Bushs, Clintons, and Kissengers all.

We do it against the doctors coerced by their positions to deal in dollars but not in dignity, against the landlords, the corporate lawyers, and the politicians with their eyes closed to injustice or wallowing in its waste.

We do it against the owners, administrators, bosses, rapists and racists, those on top and those who aspire only to be on top, against all the dealers of bad hands, against the stacked decks.

We do it against the social ties and unties that breed the pain and all who grow ugly by benefiting from its continuance, one step above those suffering below.

We do it against the intellectuals who keep information as it if were their little toy, who enshrine their ignorance under false halos and who hide it behind big words, who justify barbarism or technically dissect it as their interests require, never shedding a tear, never raising a fist.

We do it against the media liars, the news pimps, the career thinkers with brains the size of cornflakes, the academics - left and right - who propagate propaganda to preserve this system or some other, and yes, we do it against the academics who call themselves socialists and always do nothing, the ones who succeed but don’t stay angry, the ones who don’t really care.

And finally, we will make this new world for our parents, our friends, our children, our children’s children, and for ourselves too.

To succeed, we must all soon agree on at least the essential core aspects of what a better world can and will embody.

To succeed, we must flexibly agree on what it will require to make it so, what skills must be learned, what tasks accomplished, what obstacles overcome, and to succeed, we must act, and act, and act, and refine our awareness as we learn from our actions.

Let us not mince words. Let us not call ourselves less than we are. The name for all this is revolution.

The name for those who believe in it, who aspire to it, who devote themselves to it, is revolutionary.

Till when there will be fewer acquaintances and many more friends and lovers, we must be revolutionary, we must be revolutionary, we must be revolutionary - to win our new world.