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.

=====

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.

Hey There!

Whether this if the first time you’ve come to my site, or you’ve been here a few times before, I’d love to hear your feedback, see where people are reading my site from, learn from what you’re doing in movements, political organizing, activism, the academy, work and more.

Do you like the site? What could make it better? What would you like to hear more about? What isn’t clear enough? What could I clarify? Do you know of any resources that I might want to read or might help improve the content of my site?

I’d especially love to start communicating with more people (seriously). Post a comment on this page (even if you view if months from when I’m writing this), or send me an e-mail at brian (at) walkingbutterfly (dot) com. Lemme know where you’re from (city/state/country), what you for for a living/school/political organizing, and what you think of the site!

Can’t wait to hear from you!

Brian Kelly

brian (at) walkingbutterfly (dot) com

Two SDS members - Beth Slutzky and Christa Hendrickson - were interviewed on The Joy of Resistance: Multicultural Feminist Radio on WBAI (an independent radio station in NYC) this morning at 11am. You can listen to it online here! When listening, you can find their interview (its 19 minutes out of the 1 hour show) by going to minute 13:20. It ends at minute 32:32.

Dear SDS Family,

Recently at the National Convention, we passed a vision statement committing ourselves and the organization to, among other things, what we called “long haul struggle” or “organizing for the long haul”. By taking on this commitment we are saying, organizationally, that we understand the level of dedication and long-term, patient (yet urgent) work it will take to lead us on the path to victory. If we are serious about this commitment and about winning, this is a discussion that should begin at all levels of the organization: “What will it take to build a community of loving support and what will it take to organize for the long haul?” In other words: “What will it take to build a community that can support us in our work, make us feel loved and supported? What will it take to build a community which prevents burnout and makes our organizations, selves, identities, friendships, comradeships, relationships, partnerships, and political alliances stronger and more effective?”

I have been organizing with SDS since it re-formed in 2006. I am inspired everyday by the level of passion I see in my friends all around the country; their commitment, their militancy, the quality of their politics, and the seriousness of their work. My political work with Pace SDS has been a huge part in my entrance into college life, my move towards more individual freedom, and the development of a group of friends who have been more supportive than anyone else ever in my life.

I have also learned and grown as an organizer a tremendous amount. I started dealing more intimately with personal issues of privilege, power, and oppression. Awakening as a radical never seems to end. It seems like it’s a never ending process of learning– with each step bringing new emotions, growth, and progress. Sometimes it’s scary and sometimes it’s frustrating—though it always seems rewarding. Over the last year and a half, one of the biggest things I’ve learned is the value of listening—of really trying to understand where people are coming from and why they are coming from there. I’ve noticed things that inspire me—like how groups of people can work together in ways I never imagined possible. I’ve also noticed many things that scare me.

One of these things is the negative elements within the culture of SDS. The elements within it that act as a pull that lurks in the darkness, ready to draw us away from activism forever if we have a breakdown, or become cynical, or say “fuck the movement”. What I am talking about are the elements that lead to burnout, nonsupportive movements, and alienation within the left itself.

How can we make a movement that is more fun to be in than the rest of society? What would it take to really have our movement and our organizations, foster our friendships, relationships, and partnerships, instead of destroying them and driving us apart? What must we do to be able to call ourselves “comrades”— with it really meaning something… instead of it being just another empty word?

I have been thinking about all of this a lot lately. Truthfully, I think making our movement more supportive starts with the small things. Like beginning to understand the level of work it takes to pull off a national convention, or a national action camp, or a major protest, or a political campaign; not just the big glamorous stuff, but also the nitty-gritty work: the phone calls behind the scenes, the endless political conversations, the web work, the thousands upon thousands of e-mails written, the event setup and on-the-ground preparation. All of the things that has, thus far, fallen onto the shoulders of a large group of committed folks; the same committed group of folks who have unfortunately had to endure constant ridicule and the pain of having their lives and political work constantly being put under a microscope. Why do some people talk shit about them behind their backs, denigrating them and their work- as if people who do work are somehow less worthy of respect than everyone else?

Whenever I see this, I am tempted to feel as if a lot of the lovey dovey, ‘let’s hug everyone and tell them we love them’ attitude of so many SDSers is just a farce. Often times, in claiming to want a loving and supportive community we often contradict that desire at the same time. Our actions don’t line up with our words. In short, we treat each other not with the level of respect I would think we would treat others who want an egalitarian society—a society of peace, justice, equality and self-management—but rather we treat each other like shit.

I’ll say it again.

We treat each other like shit.

We project all of the hatred, anger, and frustrations we have towards this god-awful society and the mindless zombies who run it onto each other.

Perhaps all of that is too harsh. But I fear, unfortunately, that for the most part I am right on with most of this.

And then there is this issue of “autonomy”. Again, I will be perhaps more blunt than I should be. Somewhere in the process of radicalization, individuals in our new left came to the strange conclusion that autonomy from the state, from management, and from the capitalists—from all of the bastards that we hate—should then be also transferred to the movement. In all the confusion, “autonomy” somehow began to mean “autonomy” from each other. We all started to bicker about how we were oppressing each other; about how imperfect structures meant we couldn’t do any work at all. An unwritten policy began to surface- that individual and collective mistakes always have to be blamed on someone in order to distance ourselves (individually) from our collective bullshit. (Oh yeah… And of course, initiative should always be looked at as suspect!)

How can we possibly go through the process of being our new selves, before we deal with the process of becoming our new selves? It’s as if learning has no place, and individual fuck-ups mean those individuals need to be ridiculed, isolated, and torn down; all so we can isolate the “imperfect people” from the self-proclaimed turbo-activists.

How this thought process came to this conclusion is far beyond my ability to reason, but I do know that this is perhaps one of the most counterproductive ideas on the left today. It is a huge part of the “treating each other like shit” phenomenon. It seems that this is one of the major sources of the “let’s put all of our great organizers under a microscope” culture of SDS. Most importantly, it is fundamentally opposed to our values of solidarity and collective responsibility.

We need a lot of people to win. A really, really, really, really lot of people. “Building SDS” isn’t an abstract concept. “Building SDS” occurs when we actually take risks and struggle for social change. None of us will ever be perfect. But the question that remains is: “Will our community be a loving, supportive one? Or will it be one that isolates us and alienates us just as much as society at large?”

That is the question.

All I know is that if we are to get anywhere, we have to stop bickering amongst ourselves and begin to really respect each other, support each other, and work with each other to build the new world we all long for.

In the spirit of offering solutions and models for moving us forward, I would like to highlight two SDS chapters that seem to be experimenting in the type of community building (mentorship, institutional memory, supportive friendships/comradeships/kinship/relationships) we all should strive for. Both Lancaster SDS and Rutgers New Brunswick SDS/Tent State have been practicing interesting models of interpersonal support, and community and network building that we can all learn from. Their models deserve careful study.

One final thing…

I am a revolutionary. I know a lot of SDSers hold radical or revolutionary beliefs. I know a lot of us really want to build a new world. I am pretty optimistic in that I think if we do our jobs right we can actually win such a world in the next few decades. So here is a final question I think is useful for us to keep in mind:

“Are the things you are doing today—your actions, your attitude, the way you relate to others, your relationships, your strategy— capable of sustaining your involvement and the involvement of those around you for the next 20 or 30 years?”

That is a question I think we should all seriously ponder. What we obviously need is a loving, supportive community capable of sustaining long-haul revolutionary organizing. Let’s begin an ongoing discussion about that—and let’s start winning.
Loving support, hope, and solidarity,

Brian Kelly
Pace University and NYC SDS
845-649-2146 | sdsradical@gmail.com
PS: We Will Win!