May Day Matters

Every since this occupy “movement” began, it has surprised me. Like a package I didn’t order appearing on my doorstep, gifting me some sweet little zines written by a near stranger I met long ago. And just when this occupy thing seems to stall or become tired—or as Take Back the Land’s Max Rameau put it so well recently, begins to feel like the film Groundhog Day—it surprises me yet again. Another package unexpectedly arrives, this time with hand-screened political posters from some anonymous friend.

May Day was one of those surprises.

Truth be told, though, the day itself was underwhelming.

Waking to Revolution

(From the forthcoming Paths toward Utopia: Graphic Explorations in Everyday Anarchism, picture-essays by Cindy Milstein [essays] and Erik Ruin [pictures], on PM Press)

My alarm & cell phone conspired that morning.

Both startled me from sleep at once.

“8 a.m.!” chimed my clock.

“Mubarak stepped down,” declared a text message.

 

I nearly always get up at eight, here in San Francisco.

But I’ve never woken to a revolution before.

Lexicon Pamphlet Series: Downloadable PDFs!

The Lexicon pamphlet series, a new project of the Institute for Anarchist Studies (IAS), aims to convert words into politically useful tools—for those already engaged in a politics from below as well as the newly approaching—by offering definitional understandings of commonly used keywords. Each Lexicon is a two-color pamphlet featuring one keyword or phrase, defined in about 2,000 words of text, and all pamphlets are available for free from the IAS, or can be downloaded here for printing and sharing (and soon on the IAS Web site too!) in either color or B&W. Get ‘em out to occupy everywheres, your neighbors, friends, and family, infoshops and community centers, and on and on!

The first five pamphlets, designed by Josh MacPhee of Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative and printed by P&L Printing in Denver, are: “Anarchism” by Cindy Milstein, “Colonialism” by Maia Ramnath, “Gender” by Jamie Heckert, “Power” by Todd May, and “White Supremacy” by Joel Olson. Stay tuned for more titles in this growing series, such as “Capitalism,” “Direct Action,” and “Solidarity,” among others. And for more on the IAS, see http://anarchiststudies.org

lex_anarchism_master (Anarchism)

lex_colonialism_master (Colonialism)

lex_gender_master (Gender)

lex_power_master (Power)

lex_whitesup_master (White Supremacy)

“When the People Lead”

Video from “Revolutionary Nonviolence?” Part 3: “When the People Lead”

at the Friends Center, Philadelphia, on Monday, March 5, 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42OxxLHW9VQ&feature=youtu.be
Organizers share stories of strategic campaigns for social change. Featuring: Bal Pinguel (1986 people power revolution in the Phillipines); Vivienne Crawford (civil rights movement in Philadelphia); Arthur Waskow (civil rights and Vietnam War movements); and Cindy Milstein (anarchism and anticapitalist organizing)

Sponsored and organized by: The American Friends Service Committee (www.afsc.org), Occupy Philadelphia Friends Center and Interfaith Working Groups (occupyphillyga.net), and the Shalom Center (www.theshalomcenter.org). Questions? Email revnva@gmail.com.

 

Something Did Start in Quebec City: North America’s Revolutionary Anticapitalist Movement

Note: This piece was originally written in spring 2001, following the Anti-Capitalist Convergence in response to the Summit of the Americas meetings in Quebec City; it was republished in Allan Antliff, ed., Only a Beginning: An Anarchist Anthology (Vancouver, BC: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004). I’m reposting this essay here for archival reasons, but also, given current debates within the occupy movement, as a history lesson of sorts. Quebec City represented one of the “early” adoptions and usages of the “respect for a diversity of tactics” phrase, coined by anarchists in Montreal in 1999 (to the best of my knowledge), as a defining framework for the 2001 convergence.

* * *

When thirty-four heads of state gathered behind a chain-link barrier in Quebec City this past April to smile for the television cameras during the Summit of the Americas, it was the tear-gassing outside that garnered all the media attention. Those on both sides of the fence jockeyed to put a spin on the meaning of the massive chemical haze that chocked the old city for over two days. The “insiders” claimed that as duly elected leaders of so-called free countries, they were attempting to democratically bring “freedom through free trade,” and as such, those on the streets were merely troublemakers without a cause or constituency that needed to be dealt with accordingly. The “outsiders” asserted that those hiding behind the fence were the real source of violence — the tear gas exemplifying what nation-states are willing to do to protect capitalism and the dominant elites — and thus, a certain level of militancy was necessary to tear down the “wall of shame” that many saw as separating the powerful from the powerless.

What got lost in the smoke, however, was the substantive transformation that this particular direct action represented. For Quebec City’s convergence, more than anything else, ushered in an explicitly anti-capitalist movement in North America — one spearheaded by anti-authoritarians (by and large, anarchists). That was our real victory in Quebec. But what caused this sudden sea change?

Serendipitously, one fence; self-consciously, two groups.

Occupation Is Not Recreation

Sign du jour at eviction du jour (Occupy DC), but the message feels true–doubly so–right now for Occupy Philly: it’s not fun & yet it also doesn’t feel serious. To my mind, our occupations/decolonizations absolutely need to be extra joyous & extra thoughtful if we’re really serious about social transformation. Even when it’s hard. Or maybe more so then.

Photo by Joshua Stephens

Communities of Care

This weekend has underscored how crucial it is to prefigure new forms of social relations, both to qualitatively transform the present & push past it. At the dance for Dara Greenwald on Saturday night and then her memorial all day Sunday here in NYC, hundreds of us processed her death and celebrated her life in ways that built on the community of care she herself built for her life & death–transparently, honestly, with empathy, humor & grief. As she herself wrote toward the end, she lived her life well & she wanted to die well, & it was extra evident that both were true. Yet she also modeled how all of us can form webs of interdependence outside hierarchy that sustain & nourish us, not just in moments of trauma but equally in moments of joy. She brought many friends together to care for her & each other during her cancer–defying statist, privatized & alienating forms of “health care”–& through that do-it-ourselves example, she also ensured that many more friends could come together to care for each other now.

After the power of all that, I went on a pitiful OWS Oakland solidarity march–pitiful not only because it seemed purposeless but also pitiful in that almost no one seemed to have anything of substance to say to each other, or even really know each other. Meanwhile, back in Philly, my brave Occupy Philly comrades/friends continued to surprise & impress, boldly tearing down the fence surrounding our former encampment, which is set for groundbreaking ceremonies this morning at the start of the $50 million-plus upscale development project. More than this action, though, I realized how generative each & every OP demonstration is: always purposeful, but also always creating a space of commons, where we build friendships & trust, catch up on each others’ lives, & talk politics, strategy, & ideas, forging a deeper community of care as well as deeper community of resistance/prefigurative by the way. We may not be hip & glamorous like NYC & OWS, but damn, Philly & OP, thanks for showing me that we can be there for each other, growing ourselves & a movement, while just getting better all the time. Sad I’m not with you right now, on the streets last night & doing jail solidarity now. Mad love to Philly (& Oakland comrades too!)