Tips for Radicals
To help you searching the blog, I use the following tags to categorise posts:
- theory - ways of structuring the world
- strategy - plans to achieve the theories
- tools - specific ways to (help) achieve the strategy
- tips - advice that could help you in your life and action
- examples and analysis of existing campaigns
For more info, see the about this blog page.
Please send in your own blog posts, links, comments, or article ideas either as a submission or an ask - always welcome.
"if you don't have a strategy, you're part of someone else's strategy."
– a. toffler
"What can we do today, so that tomorrow we can do what we are unable to do today?"
– Paulo Freire
I also run a more scatter-shot blog full of incoherent rants and tumblr arguments. Sorry about that.
An action map’s been made for the June 11 Carnival Against Capitalism, linked to the UK hosting the G8!
100 locations in the West End.
There’s an online version being made with more info and addresses – check for latest progress at mappingthecorporations.org/ and select “Mapping Capitalist London” in the sector menu.
Read Stop G8’s blog for background on the map and capitalist London.
The Earth Quaker Action Team had twice before attended the PNC Bank’s annual shareholder meeting, and each time we had obeyed their rules, using the time allotted to speak truth about mountaintop-removal coal mining.
This time, we made two decisive shifts. First, we would create our own Quaker-style business meeting and conduct it at the same time and place as PNC was trying to pursue its agenda. Second, we showed that we would henceforth hold individual PNC board members accountable until they begin to “bank like Appalachia matters.”
A slightly different take on the classic tactic of disrupting shareholder meetings.
Seems odd asking which side the heads of a company are on though… because they’re on their own side. That’s sorta their point.
NOTRE-DAME-DES-LANDES, France (AP) — They hurl sticks, stones and gasoline bombs. They have spent brutal winter months fortifying muddy encampments. And now they’re ready to ramp up their fight against the prime minister and his pet project — a massive new airport in western France.
an odd collaboration, but interesting that they’re still going so long after the police tried to move in. epic defence!
(via karxistemarlheureux)
I hate it when mainstream gay rights organizations whitewash, minimize or otherwise erase the “shocking” aspects of our oftentimes radical political past.
For example, a popular internet historical timeline of notable gay individuals and events in Oregon says this about Marie Equi:1907
Lesbian physician Marie Equi and Harriet Speckart, who had been living together notoriously, win second-prize for their float in the first Rose Festival.1911
Openly Lesbian physician Marie Equi presents a paper to the Multnomah County Medical Society regarding her treatment of a male patient who had gonorrhea of the throat.1915
Openly Lesbian Portland physician and social activist Marie Equi adopts a girl in Oregon.1918
Lesbian physician and social activist Marie Equi is convicted in Portland of sedition for opposing U.S. involvement in the First World War. During her trial, the prosecutor refers to her as a “degenerate.”From these admittedly truncated reports we get very little feel for who she was and what her life was actually like. The term “social activist” can mean just about anything, and comes off as sounding particularly tame if you ask me.
The truth of the matter is that Marie became famous early on in the The Dalles, Oregon by publicly beating a delinquent boss with a horse-whip: he had neglected to pay her “female companion” $100.
Marie would go on to become a prominent and able physician, offering abortions at a time when this procedure was hard to get and frequently dangerous.
When the predominantly immigrant women and men at the Oregon Packing Company fruit cannery went on strike in July 1913 she witnessed some particularly harsh police repression. In response to one pregnant striker being violently arrested while speaking from a soap-box, Marie made her way to the courthouse. She was determined to get in.
“Deputy Sheriff Downey tried to restrain the infuriated woman [Equi], She gave him a right arm swing in the jaw. Night Watchman Fifer, a meek little man, tried to remonstrate with Dr. Equi, but her ready fist caught him below the left eye… Gaining entrance, she persuaded the elevator man to take her up to the jail on the top floor, where she opened up her batteries of vituperation on Sheriff Word and his deputies. She raked them fore and aft… Mrs. O’Connor [the arrested woman] was not booked, but was allowed to depart from jail, escorted by Dr. Equi.” - The Oregonian 16 July 1913, p. 1, p. 3.
This event marked her break with the progressive party. “It was my experiences during that strike that made me a socialist…. Previous to that time I was a Progressive…. Any betterment of conditions must come about by direct action, in other words, militancy.” - New Bedford Evening Standard, 17 March 1914, p. 3.
Two days later, at a street meeting called in defiance of a prohibition on striking by the mayor, Equi was arrested; she stabbed the patrolman with a hatpin that the newspapers rumored was poisoned.
She would go on to become heavily associated with the anarcho-cyndicalist Industrial Workers of the World and was respected by many noted radicals. She was at various times identified as an anarchist and socialist (these terms were to some degree interchangeable at the time) and proudly wore the title given to her by her detractors: “Queen of the Bolsheviks”, perhaps with a bit of irony.
According to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (who she lived with 10 years), Equi gained her reputation “as the stormy petrel of the Northwest” and was “among the most feared and hated women in the Northwest because of her outspoken criticisms of politicians, industrialists and so-called civic leaders, and all who oppressed the poor.” Her dedication to these various causes also had the secondary effect of helping to legitimize homosexuality, and lesbianism in particular, amongst working-class radicals who in that time and place often held some pretty backwards ideas on the issues of gender and sexual orientation (not that a lot of them don’t still).
Now I by no means want to paint Marie Equi as something she was not. She was not perfect, she took plenty of positions and actions worth criticizing. For example, in order to oppose Republican pro-war president candidate Charles Evans Hughes (popular amongst rich white women for being pro-suffrage) she fell in with the pro-Wilson crowd as a “lesser evil.” Later, she got the weird idea that she should try to become a top leader in the Communist Party, USA (didn’t work out), and she probably ended up making and having a lot more money than she liked to admit.
Even so, her life was a fiery and complex one that deserves more than a bland nod to her having been in the Rose Parade, or to her having been “anti-war”. Those things are true, but need to be situated properly within the overall context of her life.
(I reposted this because I feel like she isn’t getting the respect she deserves)
[other quotes stolen from http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/nancy-krieger-queen-of-the-bolsheviks]
fuck yeah radical queers!
proper badass
Hope for the left has stemmed from many places in the past year. One that can’t go unmentioned is SYRIZA (an acronym of “Coalition of the Radical Left”).
The Syriza phenomenon has demonstrated that it is possible for a coalition of fairly disparate left forces to win mass support with a clear anti-austerity agenda and to win such support very rapidly.
The Syriza effect has also contributed a renewed sense of possibility among more radical left groupings. Many radicals used to working in small, relatively isolated groups are now convinced that reformists and revolutionaries can work together effectively in a common organisation which is characterised by democracy, pluralism and a culture in which it is accepted that not all political differences can, will or need to be resolved into a common ‘line’ in order for the coalition to operate successfully.
The closest UK organisation is probably Left Unity, though obviously it’s tiny by comparison. Interestingly, Anticapitalist Initiative (blogged about the other day) have pledged support for the group.
They’re flawed, as all groups are, but it’s still interesting to see how they operate.
** Some links **
Coalition of the Radical Left on Wikipedia. Also interesting that the biggest coalition member is a multi-tendency party - compartments within compartments!
The current conjuncture in Britain on the left: toward left unity and Left Unity: On broad fronts and new parties are two Left Unity posts mentioning Syriza.
The Chilean Student Movement lives: 150,000 people are currently marching throughout Santiago, Chile in the continued struggle against the privatization of the higher education system & the fight to provide quality, affordable education in lower income areas.
just. so.great.
A case study in organisation building: Anticapitalist Initiative
A recent example of the current drive for ‘left unity’ comes from the pro-organisation Anti-Capitalist Initiative.
In their words, the group aims to “overcome divisions between the socialist left and the new left movements by working together in a spirit of common activity and dialogue”.
Organising and working together - across differences in strategy or tactics - is one way to unite the left. Here’s some ideas drawn from the group about how to balance diversity with cohesion, and written with a radical libertarian angle.
** How to organise together **
Link with current struggles. As a recent article of theirs said, “the spirit dies without the struggle of the flesh”. Any organisation should clearly be linked in with current struggles, with members being genuine participants in other groups and movements - not just as a front!
Be democratic enough to let current issues guide the direction of the organisation e.g. in terms of strategies and tactics.
Be bottom-up: discussion and autonomy at local levels, with decisions made filtering up into national coordination. National coordination could be based on recallable delegates from local committees that serve short stints and do the organisational basics (e.g. running a website). It could take some other form… but it should probably exist.
Respect difference. Simple to say, often tough in practice.
Be as open as possible, making sure interested people (e.g. from other groups seeking to learn) can find out what happened in meetings, how decisions were reached, etc. Don’t hide the disagreements! They’re an important part of the process.
Have a plan for acting quickly if needs be! More for formal organisations: may be giving a steering committee more autonomy, may be a process for local groups to access websites to publish statements, whatever - but there should be a plan.
Don’t think your way of working is the only way of doing it. Seek solidarity with groups fighting for similar causes.
Don’t restrict disagreement. More for formal organisations: try to reach consensus where possible, and tolerate disagreement where not. Disagreement shouldn’t be restricted in any way, internally or externally to the organisation (obv)
Use the decision-making methods right for you. May be unanimous consensus, may be a consensus-oriented process with a vote used at the end, may be something else or a blend of different methods. Consensus isn’t the only option!
** More reading **
A new culture and a new approach - the type of organisation we need (ACI)
Learning not lecturing: why the left doesn’t have all the answers
A take on the ACI’s founding from a libertarian perspective, and a response from the ACI
Note: my actual experience of the ACI was one event, Up The Anti, at the end of 2012. IMHO, it was too much middle-aged white men arguing with each other, too many panel debates with speakers not really engaging with audience questions and instead just stating their views, wanky theorising, and not enough genuine non-elitist non-cliquey discussion - but I’m trying not to judge them just on that.
Photos from the National Demo Against Privatisation at Sussex University
- some call “Windows were smashed, documents burned, and police hemmed in by demonstrators” a lack of balance, but I think “good report of the day”!
Can’t see the big COMMUNISM banner in this photo though…
