Answers? Anyone?
Richard writes:
"People today think the system is corrupt. But they don't think that joining the marches of the present will have any effect on anything. A good number might have thought it would for those couple of demos in 2003 when there were a million people protesting the war worldwide, but they saw with their own eyes that these marches had no effect whatsoever on the actions of the U.S. and U.K. governments. People today do not believe in working within the system; in fact, most people don't do anything political "within the system"; a majority don't even vote. But they don't see how they could have any effect by doing anything "outside" the system, either, especially if being "outside the system" amounts to attending these lame marches, which follow a very old and boring script."
My feeling about the marches has been that while they have had no effect in changing the course of the war, since the politicians in charge can simply ignore them, and have done so, their usefulness was in reaching the members of the public who also oppose or question the war but who, especially when it first began, were not receiving any messages from the mainstream media that confirmed their doubts and questions about its justice or validity. The demonstrations served to say: "Your TV may not be telling you this, but a lot of us think this war is wrong, and that it's a tragic and deadly mistake."
But something like seventy percent of Americans now oppose the Iraq war, and the Bush presidency in general, and many are alarmed by many other issues, like global warming and environmental destruction, loss of civil liberties, lack of job security or access to affordable health care, and many more, but there is a collective malaise that leaves us wondering what any of us can do. We're left with the options of participation in tired demonstrations that have had no tangible effect, anxious hand-wringing, futile petition-signings, the writing of letters that will never be answered, either to politicians who couldn't care less, or to newspapers, where they are read by fellow hand-wringers who feel the same way as the writer but are themselves at a loss as to what to do, or resigned disgust. (I choose the latter.)
So what is there to do? Michael Albert writes (this was written in 2002):
"When we seek an end to a war, what are we doing? The answer is that we are trying to create conditions, via our organizing work, that say to elites -- if you continue pursuing the war you will pay a price higher than the benefits you are seeking to gain by the war. It is very simple. We are trying to raise social costs that compel elites to meet our demands....
"And raising social costs is ... trying to end a war by building a movement that says to elites if you pursue your war designed to defend and enlarge corporate and geo-political sway, then the ensuing movement will actually call into question corporate and geo-political circumstances so effectively as to make your pursuit counter productive.
"During the Vietnam War, when elite senators and CEOs and others changed their views, they never said I have discovered that the wanton slaughter of Indochinese is immoral. They never said I have grown unable to abide the loss of American lives, even. They said, our streets are in turmoil, we are losing the next generation (to radicalism), business as usual is disrupted and at risk...and so, I must now oppose the war."
Raising social costs is something that current tactics don't seem to be accomplishing. Even faced with overwhelming opposition, the Bush administration is continuing on its chosen course, because there is no compelling pressure forcing it to do otherwise.
I'm not knowledgeable enough about tactics to know what could work or how to go about implementing it. (And my own participation is pretty much out of the question because I'm too sick even to attend boring marches, let alone ones that might be lively enough to actually challenge the status quo.) But it frustrates me that for all the talk, articles, and books about what's wrong with the Bush agenda, and with the broader system, there seem to be scant offerings of possible solutions.
Part of the problem is the widespread fear and rejection of any sort of radicalism, socialism, or leftist ideas that has been so successfully ingrained into mainstream thinking, but without that theoretical underpinning it's impossible to talk about working toward justice and equality, it seems to me. Capitalism is inherently unjust and exploitative, and what little safeguards we have against its power to devour, even in American society, are, for the most part, examples of socialism: social security, Medicaid, Medicare, labor unions, progressive taxation....
Anarchism, in particular, offers solid, sensible ideas and strategies that can be implemented right now, and that can make real inroads, but its potential tends to get lost in grand talk among anarchists of "revolution" and "overthrowing the system." The system is not going to be overthrown anytime soon, nor is there any revolution about to happen, and I for one would not particularly welcome it if it were. (I certainly wouldn't want to see any more violence, which a revolution would presumably entail, even thought I understand the counterargument that the present system is plenty violent already, nor do I much want to live in a strictly anarchist society, where we would all be dependent on the goodwill of our fellow man and woman to engage in voluntary cooperation: I don't have that kind of faith in humans.)
But anarchists understand, first of all, that you can't nicely petition those in power to do the right thing -- especially when doing the right thing would go against the powerful's own self interests -- and expect results. Social change is brought about by grassroots movements that can garner enough strength to force those in power to act, which is what the Civil Rights movement was able to do. Personally, I find that perspective somewhat alarming, and I'm saying this strictly from a position of cowardice. During the Civil Rights era, there were many who suffered personal losses and grave consequences for their activism. It's not an easy sell.
But there's another solution offered by anarchism that is potentially effective and less scary, and that is the idea of building alternative institutions: things like free food distribution, such as Food Not Bombs, barter networks, like free stores and freecycling, alternative schools and day care, urban gardens, food co-ops, worker cooperatives, etc. (A related article is here.) The idea is to provide useful, practical services, offer alternatives to the capitalist system, and create a broader ideological framework that demonstrates that it's possible for people to be self-empowered, work cooperatively, and share resources and skills. These projects are often small and are sometimes seen as kind of hippieish and not very organized or effective. But that's only because there's a lack of faith in their potential and understanding of what purpose they serve, which limits participation. And anarchists themselves are frequently their own worst ambassadors, by appearing too insular and self-involved in their own scene and their own ideology, which is off-putting to outsiders. I don't care if alternative institutions are the pathways to building the revolution. Their usefulness is right now, including to people who don't want -- and don't care about creating -- an anarchist society.
A nice little not-necessarily-anarchist overview is here. Scroll down to "Alternative Institutions."
"People today think the system is corrupt. But they don't think that joining the marches of the present will have any effect on anything. A good number might have thought it would for those couple of demos in 2003 when there were a million people protesting the war worldwide, but they saw with their own eyes that these marches had no effect whatsoever on the actions of the U.S. and U.K. governments. People today do not believe in working within the system; in fact, most people don't do anything political "within the system"; a majority don't even vote. But they don't see how they could have any effect by doing anything "outside" the system, either, especially if being "outside the system" amounts to attending these lame marches, which follow a very old and boring script."
My feeling about the marches has been that while they have had no effect in changing the course of the war, since the politicians in charge can simply ignore them, and have done so, their usefulness was in reaching the members of the public who also oppose or question the war but who, especially when it first began, were not receiving any messages from the mainstream media that confirmed their doubts and questions about its justice or validity. The demonstrations served to say: "Your TV may not be telling you this, but a lot of us think this war is wrong, and that it's a tragic and deadly mistake."
But something like seventy percent of Americans now oppose the Iraq war, and the Bush presidency in general, and many are alarmed by many other issues, like global warming and environmental destruction, loss of civil liberties, lack of job security or access to affordable health care, and many more, but there is a collective malaise that leaves us wondering what any of us can do. We're left with the options of participation in tired demonstrations that have had no tangible effect, anxious hand-wringing, futile petition-signings, the writing of letters that will never be answered, either to politicians who couldn't care less, or to newspapers, where they are read by fellow hand-wringers who feel the same way as the writer but are themselves at a loss as to what to do, or resigned disgust. (I choose the latter.)
So what is there to do? Michael Albert writes (this was written in 2002):
"When we seek an end to a war, what are we doing? The answer is that we are trying to create conditions, via our organizing work, that say to elites -- if you continue pursuing the war you will pay a price higher than the benefits you are seeking to gain by the war. It is very simple. We are trying to raise social costs that compel elites to meet our demands....
"And raising social costs is ... trying to end a war by building a movement that says to elites if you pursue your war designed to defend and enlarge corporate and geo-political sway, then the ensuing movement will actually call into question corporate and geo-political circumstances so effectively as to make your pursuit counter productive.
"During the Vietnam War, when elite senators and CEOs and others changed their views, they never said I have discovered that the wanton slaughter of Indochinese is immoral. They never said I have grown unable to abide the loss of American lives, even. They said, our streets are in turmoil, we are losing the next generation (to radicalism), business as usual is disrupted and at risk...and so, I must now oppose the war."
Raising social costs is something that current tactics don't seem to be accomplishing. Even faced with overwhelming opposition, the Bush administration is continuing on its chosen course, because there is no compelling pressure forcing it to do otherwise.
I'm not knowledgeable enough about tactics to know what could work or how to go about implementing it. (And my own participation is pretty much out of the question because I'm too sick even to attend boring marches, let alone ones that might be lively enough to actually challenge the status quo.) But it frustrates me that for all the talk, articles, and books about what's wrong with the Bush agenda, and with the broader system, there seem to be scant offerings of possible solutions.
Part of the problem is the widespread fear and rejection of any sort of radicalism, socialism, or leftist ideas that has been so successfully ingrained into mainstream thinking, but without that theoretical underpinning it's impossible to talk about working toward justice and equality, it seems to me. Capitalism is inherently unjust and exploitative, and what little safeguards we have against its power to devour, even in American society, are, for the most part, examples of socialism: social security, Medicaid, Medicare, labor unions, progressive taxation....
Anarchism, in particular, offers solid, sensible ideas and strategies that can be implemented right now, and that can make real inroads, but its potential tends to get lost in grand talk among anarchists of "revolution" and "overthrowing the system." The system is not going to be overthrown anytime soon, nor is there any revolution about to happen, and I for one would not particularly welcome it if it were. (I certainly wouldn't want to see any more violence, which a revolution would presumably entail, even thought I understand the counterargument that the present system is plenty violent already, nor do I much want to live in a strictly anarchist society, where we would all be dependent on the goodwill of our fellow man and woman to engage in voluntary cooperation: I don't have that kind of faith in humans.)
But anarchists understand, first of all, that you can't nicely petition those in power to do the right thing -- especially when doing the right thing would go against the powerful's own self interests -- and expect results. Social change is brought about by grassroots movements that can garner enough strength to force those in power to act, which is what the Civil Rights movement was able to do. Personally, I find that perspective somewhat alarming, and I'm saying this strictly from a position of cowardice. During the Civil Rights era, there were many who suffered personal losses and grave consequences for their activism. It's not an easy sell.
But there's another solution offered by anarchism that is potentially effective and less scary, and that is the idea of building alternative institutions: things like free food distribution, such as Food Not Bombs, barter networks, like free stores and freecycling, alternative schools and day care, urban gardens, food co-ops, worker cooperatives, etc. (A related article is here.) The idea is to provide useful, practical services, offer alternatives to the capitalist system, and create a broader ideological framework that demonstrates that it's possible for people to be self-empowered, work cooperatively, and share resources and skills. These projects are often small and are sometimes seen as kind of hippieish and not very organized or effective. But that's only because there's a lack of faith in their potential and understanding of what purpose they serve, which limits participation. And anarchists themselves are frequently their own worst ambassadors, by appearing too insular and self-involved in their own scene and their own ideology, which is off-putting to outsiders. I don't care if alternative institutions are the pathways to building the revolution. Their usefulness is right now, including to people who don't want -- and don't care about creating -- an anarchist society.
A nice little not-necessarily-anarchist overview is here. Scroll down to "Alternative Institutions."
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