Occupy Forces Cancellation of Chicago G8 Summit

You may have already heard the news, but in case you haven't, The White House recently announced that the Chicago G8 Summit will be canceled on account of the Occupy Movement's incredible work organizing and planning resistance and demonstrations. Obama and company are moving the Global 1% summit to a remote location where masses of ordinary Americans won't be expected to show up and protest. The planners of the G8 are "cutting and running", so to speak, and changing their plans because of the resistance they expect to face if they "stay the course".

This should be seen as a victory for Occupy and the growing Left in the United States. And inasmuch as that is true, it should be seen as a serious defeat for Mayor 1% here in Chicago.

Rahm worked all of his Washington connections to bring NATO and the G8 to Chicago this Spring. At some point or other, it's likely that he used his leverage as former White House Chief of Staff to make a pitch to Obama something like the following: "Hey, trust me... bring the G8 to Chicago and I promise there won't be any fucking protests. And I'll find a way to raid the public purse to buy a bunch of riot cops and all the rest. Maybe I'll have to close a couple of libraries, schools and health clinics, along the way, but fuck 'em. So, what do you say?"

Obama, of course, said yes. And ever since Rahm public announced his plan to bring the G8 to town, he's been hammering away at anyone who's dared to question his decision. Of course, he never asked any actual Chicagoans whether they actually wanted to shell it out to throw a big party for the global 1%. But anyone who knows the Democrat Machine in Chicago knows that the Boss (whether its Daley or Rahm) simply does what the Boss wants around here. Asking the population what they need or prefer is not what the city government does in Chicago.

So, this time, Boss Emanuel decided that he wanted to throw a big party for the G8 on our dime. And he dug in his heels and used his command over the obedient City Council to force through anti-protest ordinances as well as measures that give him carte blanche to spend as much as he likes.

What's more, I think it would be fair to say that Rahm was excited about the whole thing. How could he not be? He and his minions planned and enthusiastically plugged it for months. He alone probably invested countless hours schmoozing with elites, chatting with millionaires, etc. to bring the representatives of the global 1% to town. Rahm recently said that "from city perspective, this will be an opportunity to showcase what is great about the greatest city in the greatest country." He was pumped.

But he didn't get his way. He lost. The G8 will not be coming to Chicago. Rahm's got to be pissed.

Of course, the ruling class politicians who organize these sorts of summits have an interest in concealing the nature of their decision to move the Summit. But try as they might, they can't fully conceal their intentions since circumstances make it so obvious that they're trying to avoid facing any public resistance to their agenda. Take, for example, the following statement from the White House:

"To facilitate a free-flowing discussion with our close G-8 partners, the President is inviting his fellow G-8 leaders to Camp David on May 18-19 for the G-8 Summit, which will address a broad range of economic, political and security issues," the White House announced this afternoon.

Yes, they moved it to facilitate a "free-flowing discussion". Translation: they realized that if they held the protest in the second largest city in the US, a city with a growing Occupy movement, that there would be massive public protests decrying the presence of a small clique of elites making decisions behind closed doors that will have grave consequences for the global 99%. This kind of mass showing of grass-roots resistance to the domination of the 1% in global affairs would, of course, disrupt their capacity to have a smooth, "free-flowing discussion." Better, then, to have it out in the middle of nowhere (see below).

That way there will far less public resistance to what is, quite obviously, a democratically illegitimate global organization.

But there's another dimension here is unlikely to be publicly addressed by Obama's White House. Let's not forget that it's an election year. Obama and the Democrats will be doing their best to try to rhetorically lull those sympathetic to the Occupy movement into voting for them. They will try to pose as the "party of the people", as the party that stands for taxing the rich and fighting for the 99%. But it's rather hard to do this effectively if there are massive protests underway in the President's hometown, especially since the very people on the streets will be the target of Democrat campaigning. A massive grass-roots confrontation has the potential to look rather bad for the man who desperately wants to position himself as the "President of the people" despite all of the evidence to the contrary.

So, once it became clear that the organizing efforts underway meant massive, large protests against the G8, Obama decided to renege on his decision.

Whatever he says publicly, we know that Rahm can't be pleased with this decision. Even the Boss of the Chicago Machine can be forced to relent when enough pressure is generated from below. We can take him on and win. He's not invincible. When we stand together and threaten to build mass movements that draw the majority of the population into active resistance, our leaders cannot fail to take notice.

This should be a lesson to everyone in Chicago fighting back against injustice and domination from above. We can stand together and defeat Rahm. We can challenge him and force him to back down. Because when the 99% stands together, it has a social power like no other. We--the 99%--do the work, we make this society run. When we are mobilized and organized, we have the ability knock our leaders off their thrones and force them to take notice.

Of course, in the midst of our victory celebrations, we have to be well aware of the challenges ahead. NATO, for the time being at least, is still scheduled to come to town. And, for all intents and purposes, NATO represents the exact same interests as the G8 (even the interests of French capitalists are served by NATO and they would be generally hard pressed to say otherwise). Still, we have a lot of work to do, probably no more or less than we had before us when both the G8 and NATO were slated to come.

But this victory has the potential to be a galvanizing factor as we move closer to May. It shows that we can win, it shows that what we do matters. Activists far and wide should seize upon the recent news to build the self-confidence of the movement and push participants to be even more ambitious in their demands. If we can win on this issue and force the President to relent, we can win on many others. We're just getting started.

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What's the Point of Education?

If you ask Chicago's Rahm Emanuel—known locally as "Mayor 1%"—the point of education is to provide for the specific needs of the owners of big corporate firms. The owners sketch up the job descriptions, they decide what will be produced, according to what modes of organization, when and where. Schools, then, are nothing more than publicly-subsidized training centers whose curriculum matches the fleeting demands of profit-hungry corporate leaders.

In their classic, must-read book on the topic, Schooling in Capitalist America (2011, Haymarket Re-issue), radical economists Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis elaborate more on this perspective:

How can we best understand the relationship between education and the capitalist economy? Any adequate explanation must begin with the fact that schools produce workers. The traditional theory explains the increased value of an educated worker by treating the worker as a machine. According to this view, workers have certain technical specifications (skills and motivational patterns) which in any given production situation determine their economic productivity. Productive traits are enhanced through schooling...

...The motivating force in the capitalist economy is the employer's quest for profit. Profits are made through hiring workers and organizing production in such a way that the price paid for workers time—the wage—is less than the value of the goods produced by their labor. [If the price paid for the worker's time (i.e. the wage) wasn't less than the value of the goods the worker produces during her shift, the boss would have no reason to hire her in the first place -t]...

...Schools produce workers...Schools foster types of personal development compatible with the relationships of dominance and subordination in the economic sphere, and finally, schools create surpluses of skilled labor sufficiently extensive to render effective the prime weapon of the employer in disciplining labor—the power to fire and hire.

In short, according to the 1%, the basic goal of education—which includes everything from curriculum to methods of student and teacher evaluation—should be to foster and sustain corporate profitability. Considerations such as human development and flourishing are irrelevant. Developing the talents of students and enabling them to lead free lives doesn't even enter into the picture.

Moreover, to the extent that music, arts, and the humanities fail to provide corporate owners with the sorts of traits that the 1% is looking for, they should be completely eliminated. (Although they're less commonly the object of direct ruling-class ire, I note that the natural sciences are distorted and abused by this educational program as well—especially on the question of how grant money is allocated and so forth). This is just a way of saying that the knowledge and skills woven through disciplines such as literature, philosophy, history, art, anthropology, languages, culture and so on are—as far as the 1% is concerned—useless at best, and dangerous at worst. What's needed, instead, is a surplus of people who empathize with orders, defer gratification, respect the authority of bosses, come to work on time, who possess the technical skills needed to do whatever the boss needs them to do. (For more on this see this (esp. 6:40-onward) as well as this (as yet unreleased) book Capitalism and Education)

***

It's clear that there is no space in this educational vision for the interests of educators, parents and students to be voiced. Their job is to take orders from above. The goals are set for them in advance. Their only use lies in efficiently maximizing those ready-made goals.

It comes as little surprise, then, that more and more of the people charged with running school systems and universities are drawn directly from the corporate world. For example, in the case of the Chicago City Colleges (which used to be called "Peoples' Colleges") a corporate business executive with no specific expertise in higher education, Cheryl Hyman, has been charged with overseeing their "reinvention." In this task, Hyman been assisted by a slew of corporate consultants. As the Reader reports:

[Hyman] was assisted by consultants from McKinsey & Company and the Civic Consulting Alliance (the consulting arm of the Commercial Club of Chicago) who worked, initially pro bono, to "dig into the metrics" with her. By midsummer she'd hired former McKinsey consultant (and Renaissance 2010 Fund official) Alvin Bisarya as vice chancellor of strategy and institutional intelligence. In March 2011, Donald Laackman, a principal at the Civic Consulting Alliance, was installed as president of Harold Washington College. And last January, McKinsey was awarded a half-million-dollar contract for work on City Colleges changes this year.

The idea is that educational institutions should be completely subordinate to, and take their orders from, corporate "experts". Accordingly, the "ignorant" public—students, teachers, and parents—have no meaningful role to play in determining how schools are run. After all, as far as the corporate "experts" are concerned, the students, parents and teachers are noting more than the passive objects of "reform" rather than agents whose interests the school system should serve. For those parents, students or teachers who dare to dissent from this ruling-class consensus, the reply—which is actually a threat—is something like this:

Look, if you're going to survive in this society, you need a job. But to get a job, you have to do what exactly we say. We—the "job creators"—decide what jobs there are and who gets them. If you disobey us, we'll freeze you out of the system and leave you with nothing. So it's either a life of obedience to ready-made goals and (if you're lucky) precarious employment, or a life of destitution and marginalization.

This goes for students and parents as much as it does for teachers. Students and parents are denied a voice and threatened with marginalization if they don't do what the system asks of them. And if educators themselves speak up and try to resist the corporate re-structuring of their curriculum, they are scapegoated, threatened, attacked and punished. Rahm Emanuel and his brutal assault on the Chicago Teachers Union is a case in point.

And, aside from the fact that teachers unions are the most powerful organized labor force in the contemporary United States today—which makes them a clear target for an employing class on a warpath to smash the union movement entirely—unionized educators are also in a position to resist commands from above demanding that they teach only what corporate leaders want them to teach. Hence, the corporate elites have a clear interest in bludgeoning,discrediting and otherwise attacking teachers unions.

The most perverse part of this is that ruling elites use the threat of unemployment to make it appear as if they're performing some kind of philanthropic service by using educational institutions to shoehorn people into low-paying, precarious jobs. By exploiting high unemployment and the economic misery of the 99% (caused by austerity and the global crisis—both forced upon us by the 1%), Rahm and his goons are attempting to sell themselves as "job-creating saviors" of the 99%.

But it's not hard to see through this sham, even by their own lights. If Boeing wants 100 more workers to enter the labor market today (because, say, they want to drive wages down in order to make hiring new people maximally profitable), there's no guarantee that they'll want those 100 people next year. Maybe they'll change their mind because their profit margins aren't high enough, or maybe they'll leave Chicago in search of a more easily exploitable labor force. Though educational institutions are being forced to serve corporate interests, it's not the case that corporate elites are being asked to reciprocate. There is nothing to stop corporations from benefiting in a one-sided way from public funds in the short-run, only to pack up and leave thousands unemployed at a later date.

***

Often, political struggles within the sphere of education are struggles over the question of access: who is granted access to which schools, who isn't, and why. The struggle over access is the struggle against school closures, against teacher layoffs, against tuition hikes and user fees. It is the struggle against a university system financed through the exploitative—and fabulously profitable—student loan industry. Traditionally, working class people and oppressed minorities were completely excluded from the university system. Struggles from below created inroads for previously excluded groups to get a foothold in the university system. But today, the ranks of those being entirely excluded is growing by the day as austerity causes living standards to plummet and tuition and fees to soar. The question of access is a key question. In the context of cruel regimes of austerity being imposed from above, it is perhaps the central question facing millions of ordinary people in the 99% right now.

But the question of access, taken by itself, is only one part of the struggle. After all, what is it that we are fighting to gain access to?

The only way to answer this question is to put forward a perspective on what the point of education is. We already saw the 1%'s answer: educational institutions should either be made to subsidize corporate profits or they should cease to exist entirely. But what kind of answer should the 99% give?

***

Human beings flourish when they are able to cultivate their talents and exercise their capacities for imaginative thinking and creative activity. Living a rich and meaningful life requires that we have the space to reflect and figure out who we are and what we really care about. Leading a free life means honing one's capacity for critical thinking—for seeing the world as it really is rather than the way our leaders want us to see it. Living a free life also means learning about our own history, that is, the often untold stories of groups women and men who struggled against forms oppression and exploitation in the past—in contrast to history-as-seen-from-above which focuses on the alleged "heroics" of a small group of "Great Men". These important—indeed necessary—goals can only be accomplished through education. I don't say that education is sufficient to accomplish these goals, since that would play into the hands of those who argue that teachers and educators should be made responsible for solving all the world's problems. The only way to fully realize human potential is to fight for a different kind of society—a socialist society—where the material conditions for human flourishing could be secured for all. Nonetheless, though hardly sufficient, I do claim that education is a necessary part of fully realizing the promise of such a society.

I stress that these goals I describe above are not "luxuries". They do not describe a life that should only be available to a select few. On the contrary, the goals described above speak to basic human interests that exceed the the narrow goals imposed on us from above by capitalism. As G.A. Cohen puts it:

We have needs beyond the needs to consume and these aren't recognized by capitalism. We have a need, for example, to develop and exercise our talents. When our capacities lie unused, they don't enjoy the zest for life that comes from having one's capacities flourish. People are able to develop themselves only when they get good education. But in a capitalist society, the education of children is threatened by those who would contort education to fit the narrow demands of the labor market....We shouldn't stake our children's future on the hope that the capitalist market will need what's good for them.

...There's a lot of talent in almost every human being. But in a lot of cases that talent goes undeveloped, because people lack the time, energy, resources and facilities to develop it. Throughout history, only a leisured minority has enjoyed this fully. And they did so (and continue to do so) on the backs of a toiling majority...

...The ruling class wants education to be geared toward restoring profitability to the system... But it's dangerous to educate the young too much, because they will become cultivated people who are likely to be less satisfied with the low-paying jobs the market offers them. This might create aspirations that capitalism can't match.... Therefore, people must be "educated to know their place"...

This is a powerful diagnosis of the problem and a vision for how things should be different. The most basic claim is that we shouldn't cater to the tendency in capitalism to view people only as sources of profit, and when they can't be profitably exploited, as redundant and expendable.

Even the members of the ruling class cannot deny the power of this argument. That is why, by and large, the arts and humanities are well-funded and relatively protected at elite colleges and universities. If Rahm and the 1% in Chicago are openly and publicly calling for the complete corporatization of the City Colleges—largely populated by working-class people of color, a large number of them recent immigrants—they are not suggesting that the University of Chicago be transformed into a training facility in which professors and administrators are the mere servants of corporate leaders.

Of course, there are trends—even in the halls of so-called "elite" institutions—toward corporatization. And they need to be rooted out, criticized and fought against. The systematic underfunding and debt-financing of graduate programs in music, creative writing, visual art and film (among other endeavors) is a grave problem even at the "top schools".

But it remains true that the "plan for transformation" of the City Colleges in Chicago—and elsewhere—evinces racist and anti-working-class assumptions on the part of those at the top.

After all, Rahm isn't sending his own children to the corporatized charter schools or public military academies that he favors as models for the Chicago Public School system. He sends his kids to an expensive private school where students have full access to art, music and other "luxuries". And we can bet that he isn't going to send his children to the City Colleges when they graduate from high school. So, for the children of wealth and power, there's one kind of education. But for the children of working class people—and especially working class people of color—there's another kind of education. For Rahm and his buddies, the people at the bottom should be "educated to know their place" so that they can effectively and willingly fill the role that the 1% has selected for them—whether it's as a temporary part of the corporate workforce or as member of the unemployed industrial reserve army.

***

There's a profound contradiction between what the capitalist system—premised as it is on profitability for the employing class—requires and what flourishing human beings require. As long as the basic priorities of society are determined by forces outside of our control, we will be faced with this contradiction. The proponents of the system as it is will say that education should be a mere means for efficiently satisfying ready-made goals determined by the employing class. Proponents of the human interests of the 99% will insist that education be part of putting ordinary human beings in a position to decide for themselves what the basic goals should be.

As long as the priority of the social system is shackled to the ready-made goal of profit maximization for the rich, it will always be possible to paint "non-productive" forms of knowledge as "useless", "irrelevant" or, at best, mere "luxuries" available only to the children of the rich. It will possible to make high-stakes testing and corporatized school structures look necessary and unavoidable.

But right now these market ideologies that are regularly used to legitimize the system are ringing hollow for millions of people. Masses of people rose up and took to the streets last Fall in the US because they are sick and tired of living underneath an economic and political system dominated by the 1%. The Occupy movement awoke a sleeping giant which, although disturbed from its slumber, has yet to realize the full extent of its power to change society. Millions of people are coming around to the idea that the system doesn't serve their interests—and they are hungry for alternatives. The only way to resolve the contradictions plaguing education in a profit-based society is to fight for a different kind of society—one in which the social forces of production are controlled democratically and made to work for human ends rather than for the iron laws of profit accumulation.

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The Importance of Movement Democracy

I think it's good that there is so much debate ensuing around tactics and strategy within Occupy right now. Movements only move forward if they are able to vigorously deliberate about their own strategy and goals. Avoiding debate and discussion means leaving our views unexamined and uncriticized. It means allowing the inertia of the status quo to set in and dampen progress. When this happens, movements wither on the vine. To the extent that the arguments about Black Bloc tactics have ignited discussions of this sort, they are productive for the movement as a whole.

Still, there are several unfortunate consequences of the framing of many of the debates raised by Chris Hedge's polemic against Black Bloc tactics. Some of the debates appear to have devolved into a shrill, abstract and moralistic back and forth about non-violence/violence. Others ignore matters that deserve a lot more attention than they're getting from the media. As a result of the framing of the "Black Bloc debates", a number of crucial questions have been lost in the fray.

What do I have in mind? The question of movement democracy, on the one hand, and the related question of how consciousness changes, on the other, are two deeply important questions that are not well-served by the debate instigated by Hedges's polemic.

As many have pointed out, the "Black Bloc" is a tactic, not an organization. Many who employ the tactic seem to have a roughly similar set of politics, but there is nothing like political homogeneity among the Bloc's participants. Different people employ the tactic in different contexts for different reasons. I'm inclined to say that any sweeping, abstract assessment of the Black Bloc as a tactic is bound to get things wrong. Only by conducting, as Lenin puts it, a "concrete analysis of a concrete situation" can we hope to get things right here. But what would a more concrete assessment of the tactic look like?

In order to answer this question, we have to back up for a moment. Who is it that's supposed to be doing the assessing here? And what method or practices for assessment should be used? There has been a lot of general debate over whether Black Bloc tactics are effective or justifiable. But the question of who should make this decision (and how they should make it) has been largely ignored. Before we can know which tactics are the right ones, we have to be clear about who should make that call.

One perspective here would be the following: the question of Black Bloc tactics is a matter best handled behind closed doors by activists already committed to using such tactics. According to this perspective, Black Bloc tactics should be employed whether or not the rest of the movement is won through dialogue and debate. Perhaps an attempt to win the rest of the movement should be tried, but if, in the end, that argument isn't won at a G.A., those who prefer Black Bloc tactics should simply go ahead with their plans anyway. Thus, activists of this persuasion see movement democracy as a mere means to achieving their pre-deterimined goals, rather than a genuine deliberative process where their own minds might change in the course of collective discussion with their comrades. Ultimately, this perspective assumes that decision-making power about movement tactics should rest with a relatively narrow group of people who decide internally what to do. I use the example of Black Bloc tactics, but this perspective could just as well be employed in support of any tactic whatsoever.

I'd like to suggest that this is a deeply problematic position.

A far better perspective would be one in which movement democracy is central. It is deeply undemocratic to use democratic bodies (like a G.A.) as mere means to achieve pre-determined goals (which can be discarded if it proves to be an unreliable means). The person who approaches movement democracy in this way says, in effect, "I'm for democracy only if it means I get my way, otherwise I'm against it." In the end, this person will say "I don't care if most people disagree with me about what this movement should do, at the end of the day I don't have any obligation to justify myself to fellow activists." This is not a democratic approach in the least. This individualistic/strategic perspective brushes against the grain of the cooperative and deliberative attitudes necessary to the flourishing of movement democracy.

But why is movement democracy important? It's worth going through the most significant reasons why effective mass movements have to be internally democratic.

First of all, an internally democratic movement draws everyone involved into active participation in the determination of the goals and tactics of the movement. Rather than allowing a self-appointed clique of "experts" to issue orders from on high, vigorous movement democracy mobilizes and activates all participants and enables them to be the co-authors of the movement (rather than mere followers or sympathizers). People have a much stronger stake in a movement when they are actively involved in running it. Mass participation goes hand in hand with genuine movement democracy.

Mass participation is key because it fosters that crucial element of all successful social struggles and revolutions: self-activity. As the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky once put it, a "vibrant and active democracy" is needed within movements so that all members can "participate actively and consciously in working out its views and in determining its course of action." The point isn't that democracy is the most fair procedure in some abstract sense; rather, the idea that democracy is an essential political element of active social movements from below. Mass participation generates political energy and an anti-conservative spark that cannot be achieved in any other way. All of the most successful and inspiring social movements in history have created radical new forms of democracy from below that draw everyone into active participation (the revolutionary workers council is a key example). The success or failure of Occupy depends on its ability to draw the masses of people into active participation in determining its course of action.

Furthermore, a movement that eschews vigorous internal democracy risks running aground on the shoals of substitutionism. Substitutionism is the political mistake of substituting oneself (or one's small group) for a mass movement. Without vigorous movement democracy, where everyone debates publicly and openly what their common course of action should be, the door is left open for a group (or competing groups) to substitute their own perspective and goals for the perspective/goals of the movement writ large. Substitutionism is problematic for at least two reasons. First of all, it it elitist. Rather thank seeing liberation as a process in which the masses collectively emancipate themselves through their own self-activity, substitutionists assume that a minority must step in to grant the benighted masses liberation from on high. Second, substitutionism has the effect of de-mobilizing people. By drawing a sharp line of demaraction between themselves and the rest of the movement, substitutionists give others the impression that their active participation lacks value and importance. Substitutionist posturing does not win new people to the struggle. It doesn't radicalize the masses and encourage revolt from below. It tends to be perceived as top-down, insulting and de-mobilizing by those outside of the substitutionist clique.

Substitutionists aren't always self-professed radicals, although many are. Gradualist, conservative groups who have a stake in the status quo (esp. groups close to the Democratic Party) can step in and substitute themselves for the movement just as easily as ultra-left radicals. The key to preventing substitutionism is unfettered, vigorous movement democracy. That way, the direction of the movement is, ideally, determined by nothing except the unforced force of the better argument in mass deliberative bodies like G.A.'s. Of course, organized radicals can and must participate in those debates and deliberations. The experience and depth of politics they bring has a lot to offer the movement. But they must do so as participants in the collective-self governance of the movement, not as "experts" standing above and outside of the movement purporting to show the "ignorant masses" the unvarnished truth.

Finally, direct participation of the masses in intra-movement democracy is essential because of the collective learning process that it makes possible. This brings us to the question of how consciousness changes and how people are radicalized.

According to some, the best way to radicalize people is through provocative, small-scale actions that suddenly shake ordinary people from their "dogmatic slumbers". By witnessing daring examples of the "propaganda of the deed", people are radicalized and drawn into participation in struggle.

Now, I think it would be abstract and unhelpful to say that small-scale, bold actions have no progressive effect on consciousness. Everything depends on the form and content of the action and the context in which it occurs. But if there are examples of successful political interventions of this kind, there is also a long list of examples in which this approach resulted in spectacular failure. And even the most successful examples of the "propaganda of the deed" pale in comparison with the radicalizing effect of direct participation in collective struggles against the 1%. People are radicalized in the course of actively fighting back in concert with others. In a society in which people are bombarded everywhere they turn by advertisements and injunctions to buy this or that, it is unreasonable to expect that a mere slogan or image will be enough to win people to joining the fight for their own liberation. Drawing people into participating in struggle is the key to changing consciousness.

But how are people drawn into mass action and participation in struggle? Worsening material conditions and discussion/direct-engagement are essential here. Peoples daily lives are being shaken by brutal austerity from above, worsening living standards for the 99%, mass layoffs and unemployment, foreclosures and school closings, etc. They don't need a small clique to tell them that something is wrong with society. What they need is someone to engage them critically, to talk to them, to challenge them in discussion to link arms with others in struggle. Radicals need to talk to people in their own communities, to meet them half-way and engage them directly. This is all the more important if the Occupy movement is going to successfully collaborate and integrate itself with communities that face racial oppression, residential segregation and police intimidation. It's not enough to pull off creative political stunts that, in effect, fly the flag and demand that people rally to it. Direct political discussion with the 99% is essential to building mass movements.

Importantly, political discussion has to begin from where people's heads are at; if it abstractly sweeps in from elsewhere it is unlikely to get any traction. What's more, this dialogue has to draw on people's concrete experiences. Take the question of the role of the police. It would have been abstract to aggressively scold and berate new activists who were sanguine about the police in the early days of the movement. To be sure, raising objections to their attitudes toward the police was necessary, even at the beginning, because the cops never have been, and never will be, on our side. But things have changed drastically since then. After all of the repression from the police that the movement has faced, radicals are now very well-positioned to draw on those people's experience in arguing that the cops aren't on our side. Without a democratic forum for debate and dialogue that can draw on the collective experience of the movement, we can't expect to win fellow occupiers to the perspective that the police aren't a force for social justice. People's views are not set it stone; they are liable to change rather quickly on the basis of political debate and concrete experience through struggle. There's no substitute for engaging people in critical political dialogue in a way that draws on their own experience and concerns.

Now, critical dialogue doesn't mean that activists should leave people's existing views intact or simply pander to what they already think. This would be conservative and ultimately antithetical to the entire spirit of activism itself. Activists try to change the world, not merely interpret it as it is. Critical discussion and dialogue should be a combination of listening to people's concerns and questions, on the one hand, and challenging them to be more militant and active on the other. In the context of escalating attacks on the 99% from above, people's consciousness can develop extremely quickly. Seeing others engaged in mass struggles is a radicalizing force as well, which is all the more reason to build a mass, vigorously democratic movement from below.

This kind of critical discussion and debate can only flourish in the context of a democratic mass movement. If everyone simply does their own thing, without discussing among one another which way forward is best for all, these discussions may never transpire. If some groups, under the guise of a "diversity of tactics", simply opt out of democratic deliberation when they feel they won't get their way, this thwarts the capacity of the movement debate out and discuss tactics effectively. As a result, we can't generalize from each other's experience or learn from each other's mistakes.

The collective learning process that mass movement democracy makes possible is impossible to experience any other way. As socialist Norman Geras describes it, with mass movements:

"...the end must already be operative in the means employed, the liberation of the masses can only be their own work, and it it is in this very process of achieving it that they must develop those qualities which will sustain a socialist society. Thus, for Trotsky, mass participation in the political forms thrown up by a revolution is not only a manifestation of the widespread desire to assume more active control over political and economic life, it also promotes and consolidates that desire. Revolution is consistently seen as an educative process, in which the same mass actions which are necessary to destroy the existing economic and political structures, also have the effect of delivering the working class from bourgeois ideology, of making it conscious of its interest as a class, of raising its confidence in its own ability to organize and decide, and of providing it with the experience of these activities."

This educative process, where we learn from each other and radicalize through the course of struggle and collective self-determination, is impossible if some groups regularly opt out and decide that tactics are best determined by small groups who separate themselves from the movement.

So, the question of "Black Bloc: Pro or Con?" is not one that can be answered abstractly. It should only be answered by direct participants in a mass movement who collectively debate and deliberate together in an open, democratic spirit. To think that a few self-apointed "experts" could answer this question for everyone in a couple of widely-publicized internet debates misses this crucial point.

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Against Hedges on the Black Bloc

Many readers will have seen Chris Hedges' polemic against the Black Bloc titled "The Cancer in Occupy". It's getting a lot of play on the internet, so I figured it would be worth joining in the fun and offering a few of my own unsystematic, incomplete remarks on the topic. What follows is more a critique of Hedge's polemic and less a thorough analysis of the Black Bloc phenomenon:

1. Socialist critics of the Black Bloc (and, to be clear: I consider myself one of them) should recognize the basic tone and method of criticism employed by Hedges right away: it is closely analogous to red-baiting. I'm unsettled by this language of "cancer", "beasts", "criminals" and so forth. This strategy is a hop, skip and a jump away from classic red-baiting tactics used by mainstream elements to purge and denigrate radicals from movements. To be clear: I'm not accusing Hedges of red-baiting in this particular polemic. But this strategy of argument lends itself rather easily, with a few changes here and there, to red-baiting and anti-radical hysterics. That should give socialists pause. Sure, there are plenty of political criticisms which need to be made, which target the ultra-leftism and adventurism of some of the Bloc's participants. But let's set aside the language of cancer and disease, beasts and criminals. Many of these folks are comrades in struggle, and their ideas aren't fixed in stone. To the extent that it is possible—and it may not be, given the way that the Bloc often operates—revolutionaries should be in critical dialogue with them about how social revolutions happen, why we have to build internally democratic mass movements, why the working class is key, etc. Neither the Bloc nor their sympathizers in the movement are persuaded of anything when it is derided as a "disease" or a "cancer".
   
2. Hedges blames the Bloc where he should blame the cops. This comes out rather clearly when he says that "this is a struggle to win the hearts and minds of the wider public and those within the structures of power (including the police) who are possessed of a conscience. It is not a war. Nonviolent movements, on some level, embrace police brutality." After everything that's happened, I find it absolutely incredible that Hedges has the chutzpah to say that the Occupy movement is presently engaged in a mission to win the "hearts and minds" of the cops. This perspective completely misunderstands the function of the police as an institution in our society. Are white Occupiers supposed to encourage their black comrades to go up and start polite moral discussions with the legion of armed thugs in blue who regularly brutalize and murder people in their communities? Are white people supposed to tell people of color in the movement that they should embrace police brutality? Moreover, are we to think that the cops are a more worthy political audience for the movement than the "disease" that is the Bloc? Hedges misses the mark here by a wide margin.
   
3. There is a moralistic thread running through Hedges's piece regarding the issue of non-violence. It is patently absurd to say that there are only two positions here: one of fetishizing violence for its own sake and one of fetihsizing non-violence. I absolutely agree that it's bone-headed to think that Occupy can go toe to toe with the State in a physical confrontation and win. It can't. And I completely agree that the strength of the movement lies in mass character, and especially in its capacity to mobilize the working majority to use its special social power to disrupt the profit system. So, I agree that it's important to challenge elitist insurrectionist ideas within the movement. It's important to distinguish genuine social revolutions from coups waged by small self-appointed elites. Whether or not it is possible to engage a group that appears to place no stock in intra-movement dialogue and debate, it's certainly not the case that we should have to adopt Hedges' abstract and ultimately fetishistic perspective toward non-violence. Moralistic injunctions to "obey the law" are not left-wing criticisms.
   
4. Hedges's critique of ultra-leftism is ham-fisted. He makes it sound as if it is a crime to offer radical critiques of mainstream "left" elements and institutions. It would be easy to contort his arguments against ultra-leftism to serve the purposes of a soggy reformist apologia for the conservatism of the Democratic Party and the higher-ups of the AFL-CIO. Although I disagree with his generally warm embrace of the Hedges piece, Louis Proyect usefully compares the ultra-leftism of many of participants in the Bloc to the sectarianism of Stalinist parties during the so-called "Third Period" in the 1920s and early 30s. (I also think the Weathermen and Red Army Faction comparisons are apt as well, but I won't discuss them here). During the so-called "Third Period", Communist Parties under the direction of Stalin's Russia were instructed to view all non-Communist groups on the Left (e.g. reformists, other revolutionaries, trade unionists, etc.) as "social fascists", on par with groups on the far Right. Everyone who wasn't in the Communist Party was to be viewed as a class traitor and a tool of the system. Of course, this was a disastrous policy and it eventually gave way to its equally problematic opposite, the sycophantic tailism of the "Popular Front". The "Third Period" perspective, it seems to me, accurately captures some of the rather abstract and highly sectarian dismissals of groups on the organized Left with whom the Bloc evidently disagrees (e.g. the Zapatistas, organized labor, etc.). But the problem with ultra-leftism isn't that it offers criticisms of mainstream Left forces such as the labor movement or Left parties elsewhere in the world (e.g. the Zapatistas or Bolivia's MAS or the PSUV, etc.). That criticism is necessary and it underscores why we should steer clear of lesser-evilism and tailism. Instead, the problem with ultra-leftists is that they are abstentionist, abstract, and ultimately sectarian. They are incapable of understanding what "critical support" means at crucial conjunctures, and they fail to grasp that fighting in the here and now for reforms doesn't necessarily make one a reformist. Many are elitist and cynical about the possibility of mass revolt. Most have an un-dialectical and implausible perspective when it comes to the concrete question of how movements are built and how peoples' consciousness changes in the course of struggle and self-activity. So, I'm all for critiquing ultra-leftism. But let's not do so in a way that lends itself to easy co-optation by lesser-evilists and liberals.
5. Hedges is probably at his best when discussing the need to build mass movements that are internally democratic. But this argument needs to be closely tied to an analysis of how successful social transformations occur. And this requires bringing the centrality of the working class into the picture. But so far as I can tell, this is not a major part of Hedges's analysis. He seems to think that the movement is trying to win the support of "the people" plus those in power with a conscience. But the politics here are soggy at best, and conservative at worst. The 1% is not our audience. Occupy is at its strongest when it draws the masses of working people into self-activity with an eye to engaging in industrial actions such as strikes, sit-downs, factory occupations, walk-outs, and all the rest.
   
6. Hedges derides the Bloc for sectarianism (rightly), but takes himself (wrongly) to be non-sectarian. In fact, his polemic is highly sectarian. Sometimes he makes it sound like the enemy isn't the capitalist state or the ruling class, but rather the "cancer" within the movement. He sometimes makes it sound as if the Bloc is a bigger threat to the movement than the State, the ruling class and the organized Right. But that is to merely reproduce the sectarian mistake of those in the Bloc who label everyone who isn't a BB'er a "tool of the system" or a "sellout" and, therefore an enemy of the movement. He, like Bloc ultra-leftists, makes it sound like the main enemies are within the Left rather than without. To be fair, Hedges says plenty of things that brush against the grain of this sort of sectarianism. But too much of what he says in the piece is at odds with this non-sectarian impulse. I'm not saying that the Left should handle the Bloc with kid gloves. But let's not single them out as the single most significant challenge that the movement faces. Surely the 1% and the State have that distinction.
   
7. The language of "criminal" is useless to the Left. When Hedges follows a discussion of property destruction with the charge of criminality, he might as well have said "and get a damned job!" next. To be an anti-capitalist is to think that the institution of property as its configured in capitalist societies is illegitimate. Of course, that doesn't mean that one should steal from other members of the 99%; ethical and political considerations here overwhelmingly speak against such an opportunistic and ultimately selfish conclusion. I don't destroy the property of my neighbors because it would be ethically wrong and politically useless; considerations of "legality" don't enter in to it. Moreover, socialists think that the working class should own and control the means of production. That is a sharp objection to the legitimacy of capitalist property rights. So, the rebuke to the Bloc isn't "But you don't respect capitalist legal institutions!". Rather it should be: "hey comrade, you aren't doing anything to advance the cause of winning a socialist society", or "what you're doing is opportunistic and individualistic; it's not a political strike against property but a selfish orgy of appropriation and abstract destruction". "Criminality" does no critical work here. It makes it sound like Occupy should call the cops on the Bloc. For all I know, that's what Hedges thinks we should do.
   

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Joe Moreno: A Fighter for Chicago's 1%

Joe Moreno is the Alderman of Chicago's 1st Ward. Now, anyone who knows anything about Chicago knows that the City government isn't exactly a bastion of grassroots democracy. Typically Chicago city government calls to mind corruption, collusion with the rich and powerful, strong-arm tactics, and police violence. We think of the "Chicago Machine". Still, despite all of this, Moreno wants you to think that he's different. If you take his word for it, he is something of a progressive who stands up for justice, freedom of expression, and the interests of the 99%.

But Moreno is no progressive. He's a dogged fighter for the privileged and powerful.

Moreno, like the vast majority of his obedient colleagues on the Chicago City Council, recently voted for an ordinance that cracks down on the rights of protesters in Chicago. The intent of the ordinance is obvious: it is designed to criminalize and discourage legitimate protest. Rahm doesn't want there to be any dissent or protest this May when he is planning to host two of the foremost representatives of the global 1%: NATO and the G8. To make sure that there's no protest, Rahm is using a combination of fines, brute intimidation, and red tape to severely curtail Chicagoans ability to organize demonstrations. Like the recent austerity budget Rahm proposed which made punishing cuts to the living standards of ordinary Chicagoans, Moreno enthusiastically voted "yes".

Moreno recently penned a self-serving article in the Huffington Post offering a defense of his vote for the crackdown. It is a litany of half-truths and irrelevant fist pounding from start to finish. No matter what he says, his actions make it clear whose team he's playing on. Moreno is a staunch fighter for the 1%.

According to Moreno, it's OK that he voted to crackdown on protesters because "almost everyone agrees that having these two summits in our city is a great opportunity to solidify our rightful place as a world city."

That's just false on two fronts.

First, neither Moreno nor Rahm ever asked Chicagoans whether they wanted to treat the global 1% to a $65 million dollar party. I don't recall ever being given the opportunity to have a voice in whether or not the City would spend those resources on NATO/G8. In classic Chicago Machine form, Rahm and his lackeys on the Council just did it, just like they did with the infamous parking-meter privatization deal. They could care less what the rest of us actually want or need—the NATO/G8 summit isn't about us. Of course, Rahm and Co. have self-serving reasons to pretend as if the decision to host the summit was sparked by some grassroots initiative. But we know better.

Second, it's far from obvious that the NATO/G8 summit is going to do anything good for ordinary Chicagoans. As I say, it isn't intended to help out the 99% in Chicago—it's little more than a get-together for the 1%. Even some bourgeois economists are claiming that it will be a financial disaster. And it's absolutely criminal that Moreno thinks its better to spend $70 million (and counting) on a big party for the 1% when the city is laying off librarians, closing health clinics, cutting transit, closing schools, and cutting back on a number of different basic city services. If Moreno and Rahm actually cared about making Chicago a "world class city", they'd fully fund our public schools, fully modernize and expand our aging transit system, open new health clinics, and so on. But instead they are letting all of those basic social goods wither on the vine. And more cuts on are on the way. So it's ludicrous to think that a big party for NATO and G8 is what Chicago needs. Powerful groups like NATO and G8--which stand for the interests of the 1%--are the source of the misery of ordinary Chicagoans. They are stalwart defenders of the system that is forcing austerity down our throats.

If Moreno were, in fact, a "progressive", he could easily have put his foot down and fought for the basic interests of ordinary Chicagoans. Yet, rather than standing up against Mayor 1%, Moreno has decided to regurgitate Rahm's talking points about how the summit is such a "blessing" for all of us here in Chicago. Maybe it's a blessing for Rahm's resume. But it's a nightmare for the rest of us.

A progressive would have stood up against Rahm and his plan to spend millions entertaining organizations responsible for war, occupation, and economic exploitation. Moreno, however, did what the vast majority of his other obedient, conservative Council Members did: he did Mayor 1%'s bidding and betrayed the rest of us.

Rather than actually explain, in plain words, why he is so fond of the crackdown ordinance, in his article Moreno patronizes the vast numbers of people who opposed the bill (2,000 of whom, by his own admission, sent him emails urging him to vote no). According to Moreno, the thousands upon thousands of Chicagoans who criticized the bill just don't know what they're talking about. As Moreno puts it, there seems to be a big gap between "perception and reality." Translation: "C'mon guys... there's really nothing to worry about! The city government and the Chicago Police have a great track-record. They're trustworthy and I can assure that they how to "handle things". Or maybe you're just too dumb to understand the facts because you have some "special agenda"."

Wait, so you're not convinced by Moreno's suggestion that you're just too ignorant to see the facts for what they are? Well, don't worry. Moreno's still got more up his sleeve. He wants you to know that he's actually a big fan of protesting. That's right! He loves protests. Freedom of speech is something he absolutely treasures. So don't worry. His vote for the crackdown doesn't mean you can't still be pals. He loves the idea of protesting injustice!

It's just that he, like Rahm, doesn't want you to actually do it. Especially not this May when NATO and G8 are in town.

OK, so you're still not convinced by Moreno's apologetics? Well, not to fear: he's got one more piece of shit to sling against the wall in the hopes that something sticks:

It would have been easy for me to vote no on this ordinance. I know that I disappointed many of my supporters today. But, I don't want to be someone who refuses to compromise and doesn't give any ground. I'm not interested in beating my chest and becoming someone who can't get anything of substance done for my constituents.

Yes, it would have been easy. But Moreno didn't want to "beat his chest" and stand up for what's right. Instead he gave in to Rahm and the Machine because he wanted to continue to be someone who can, as he puts it, "get things of substance done for his constituents". Translation: "Look, if you didn't buy any of my other bullshit, then at least blame the Machine and not me. Because if I had opposed Rahm, then Rahm would have punished me. I'm weak: don't blame me, blame the Boss."

Still not convinced? Well, just fill out hundreds of pages of paper work a week in advance, pay a hefty fee for a permit, send in details on your proposed placards, prepare a detailed list of which contingents will be marching with you, and Moreno and the City will consider whether they feel like granting you the right to protest. In the event that they don't give you the permit, you can, well, shove it. Oh, yes, and don't forget to fund and publicly support your local Democratic Party in 2012 because without it we wouldn't have progressives like Moreno to stand up for the people!

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Left Talking Points on Ron Paul

"Ron Paul 2012" signs are seen at Occupy-related events from time to time. This seems to happen more in the South. By and large, these forces seem marginal and have little hope of achieving wider influence in the Occupy movement, given the movement's basic politics (i.e. class-conscious, anti-austerity, anti-racist, radically democratic, generally skeptical of the two-party system, critical of capitalism, etc.). Still, there are many newly politicized folks who have questions about the relationship between Ron Paul-style right-wing politics and the movement. This is by no means a central question facing the movement today. But, to the extent that there are questions of this kind arising in certain local contexts, the following may be useful. Here are a couple of suggested talking points that the Left can draw on in clarifying the politics of Ron Paul:

1. Paul is out of touch. Occupy stands for taxing the 1%, resisting all cuts and austerity, reigning in the unchecked economic and political power of the financial sector, among other things. In sharp contrast, Ron Paul's position is that the 1% are over-taxed, that we need even more cuts and austerity, and that big banks and corporations are over-regulated. This is not a marginal political disagreement. This is a fundamental divide between those who genuinely want to stand up and fight for the interests of the 99%, on the one hand, and those who want to cede even more power to the system—capitalism—that empowers and enriches the 1% on the other.
   
2. Paul stands for the two-party system. Occupy is a grassroots social movement that has taken to the streets in order to challenge the political and economic dominance of the 1%. It has used general strikes, direct actions, mass marches, speak outs, and general assemblies as its tools. It has empowered millions of ordinary people to stand up and fight for their own interests. It has not begged for crumbs from above, it has not placed its faith in leaders on high, nor has it confined itself to pandering to the existing political system. At its best, it has been fiercely independent of our broken electoral system and the two-party straight jacket. But Ron Paul is operating 100% within that broken system, as a candidate for Palin and Perry's Republican Party—with whom he votes more than 80% of the time. Those who support him in this journey miss the entire point of Occupy, which is to empower people themselves—not high and mighty leaders—to fight for their own liberation. We do the work in this society, we make it run. The 1% doesn't pick up their own garbage, they don't pilot their own private jets, and they don't produce the necessities of life they need to survive. The 99% produces all of it—and when we stop doing what we do the system grinds to a halt. That's all the power we need to topple the system that enriches the 1%.
   
3. Paul's politics are racist. This is not a moral judgment about his character (that is another matter). This is about politics. For example, his position on the Civil War is that it was unjust because it infringed upon the "legitimate property rights" of slave owners. Instead, he claims, the Federal Government should have compensated slave owners for their lost "property". Paul is also a staunch opponent of the Civil Rights Act which, he claims, is an unjust incursion on the right of big business to discriminate against blacks. Noticing a trend? Paul doesn't, at the end of the day, really care about freedom and liberation for all--he cares about the property and privileges of business owners. Paul has also made numerous racist anti-black public comments, and he put out a newsletter, The Ron Paul Political Report, which regularly printed far-Right racist commentary. Don't take my word for it, read the newsletters for yourself (see here). Even Paul's most calculated and measured remarks on race evince colorblind racism. Paul is also a staunch defender of draconian, xenophobic anti-immigrant laws. Paul also regularly refers to undocumented people as "aliens". The Occupy movement, in contrast, stands in uncompromising solidarity with black people and immigrants in their struggle for freedom and equality. Tolerating Ron Paul's politics in the movement is an insult to working-class people of color who are being hit harder than anyone else by the global economic crisis.
   
4. Paul is anti-education. Occupy has challenged the profiteers who are hijacking public education and lining their pockets on the backs of heavily indebted students. The movement has called for a moratorium on student debt and free, quality public education for all. But Ron Paul, like most of his Republican brethren, fiercely opposes the stands that Occupy has taken on these issues. He stands for abolishing the Department of Education and slashing education spending. He stands for cutting all Pell Grants, all Stafford Loans, indeed all public financial aid, since these programs "discriminate" against the wealthy. He is for privatizing and corporatizing public education. He stands against teachers and opposes their right to collectively bargain. He claims that education is not a right, but a commodity that should be bought and sold for a profit in the marketplace. His position on health care is the same: health care is not a right, but a luxury commodity that should be sold by private corporations for profit. In other words: if you can't afford to buy it, well fuck you. Capitalist property relations matter more than human life.
   
5. Paul is anti-choice and homophobic. Paul has attempted to ban abortion at the federal level (see the Sanctity of Life Act). Paul also wrote a bill called the "Family Protection Act" that starts with talk of abolishing the Department of Education and ends with a proposal to "prohibit the expenditure of Federal funds to any organization which presents male or female homosexuality as an acceptable alternative life style or which suggest that it can be an acceptable life style." In 1990, a Ron Paul Political Report newsletter complained about President George H.W. Bush's decision to sign a hate crimes bill and invite "the heads of homosexual lobbying groups to the White House for the ceremony," adding, "I miss the closet." "Homosexuals," it said, "not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities." Comments of this ilk abound in the Ron Paul Political Report.
6. Ron Paul will not end the wars. Only a movement will end war—in particular a mass movement from below that has the power to challenge capitalism, the political and economic system that produces war and imperialism in the first place. Moreover, the mere fact that Paul is against the wars doesn't entail that he deserves the support of Occupy. Pat Buchanan and David Duke are also against the wars. So are the editors of the hard-Right journal The American Conservative. But none of those bigoted reactionaries deserve an ounce of support from Occupy, and neither does Paul. Furthermore, isolationist nationalism--Paul's basic foreign policy—has no place in a movement that is global and fiercely internationalist. Occupy stands in solidarity with the global 99% in its struggle against the global system—capitalism—that holds it in contempt. We oppose war and imperialism not because they violate the principles of right-wing isolationism, we oppose them because they oppress and brutalize our sisters and brothers in the global 99%.

There are plenty of other things to say here. But these points really make clear how wide the gulf is between Ron Paul conservatism and the radicalism of Occupy. Readers interested in more detailed refutations of the sort of politics pedaled by Paul and other so-called "libertarians" should consult the following: why the wealth of the rich is illegitimate (1, 2, 3); capitalist property rights vs. freedom (here and here); how "libertarians" oppose liberty (here and here); the "free" market as illusion (here). For a socialist analysis of how power works in our society, see here.

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Voluntarist Currents in the Occupy Movement

Check out American Leftist for an excellent roundup (and commentary) on recent events relating to Occupy Oakland. I won't weigh in specifically on anything that's going on there, simply because I don't know enough about the situation on the ground there. I would, however, like to make a rather general argument about the occupy movement as a whole and what it needs to do push the struggle to the next level.

First, all eyes were on Oakland because of the size of the protests, the numbers of people drawn into the movement, and the explicit call for a general strike. As countless commentators have reminded us, the last gen strike in the US was in Oakland in 1946. We've clearly entered a new era of class struggle not seen in a generation or more. Class struggle, on order to be such, has to draw large numbers of working people into a fight against some segment of (or, better, against the entire) ruling class.

Likewise, OWS was able to defend itself from Bloomberg's bid to destroy it because it mobilized huge masses of people, many of them union workers, to defend Zuccotti Park in its moment of need.

Succinctly put, the most exciting thing about the entire occupy movement is that it is --quite explicitly-- about drawing the whole 99% into the fight against the 1%. It's primary strength is that it is a mass movement against a political and economic system of, by, and for the 1%.

It goes without saying that this is an exciting time to be on the Left (and I mean the real Left, i.e. the anti-capitalist Left). Finally, a movement has broken through and challenged the legitimacy of the system through direct actions of various sorts, unpermitted protests and marches, occupations of public space, and now strikes and labor actions.

Still, countless challenges and obstacles remain. How, for example, can the continued occupation of a public space help us to win the changes we're fighting for? And, in cities where the authorities have physically prevented an encampment from taking hold, to what extent is it important to continue trying to occupy a public space on the model of OWS? Or, if occupations are meant to be a spring board for growing mass demonstrations (and, potentially, even mass strikes), how do we get from here to there? Finally, how do we build successful general strikes that have the potential to shut down entire cities? These are not easy questions to answer.

However, in a context where newly radicalized people have had their expectations about what's possible raised astronomically, there are bound to be folks who think that must be easy answers to these questions. There are bound to be folks whose legitimate excitement is driving them toward a position of impatience. This is understandable. All of us surely feel this way to some extent or other. I can say, for one, that this movement has electrified me politically in a way that no other movement has.

Nonetheless, I think we need to focus on how we got where we are in order to see where we need to go. As I described above, we didn't get where we are by way of small-scale provocations attempted by folks who feel that they can, through sheer will-power, force the movement into a more radical direction. That is, we didn't get here by way of voluntarism. Voluntarism is a politics that takes it to be possible for a small group, or even an individual, to more or less will a large-scale social change into existence through clever actions or provocations.

The trouble with voluntarism isn't that the individuals attracted to it lack motivation, political energy, or enthusiasm for changing the world. They have all of that and more --and that is not what I aim to criticize. The trouble with voluntarism is that it presupposes a perspective on social change that is problematic. As I described above, progressive social change happens when masses of people --in open defiance of the powers that be-- pour out onto the streets, occupy parks and factory, blockade capital flow, etc. In short --it happens because of some accumulation of people power that has the potential to threaten the powers that be. The 1% in Chicago, for example, isn't afraid that a small group of activists might roam the city performing street theater, banner drops, or other spontaneous or unpredictable actions. The 1% in Chicago is afraid of a mass movement drawing tens of thousands of working class people into the streets to oppose its continued dominance. That is why Rahm cleared out Grant Park by force and arrested hundreds of protesters.

But, and I'm speaking exclusively about the movement in Chicago at the moment, I think some occupiers have drawn the conclusion that because mass actions aimed at occupying Grant Park were met with police repression, they were failures. Because those actions didn't successfully "take the horse", some are now beginning to wonder whether mass movements are actually the way to change things. Understandably, this has led some to veer toward voluntarism, wherein the way forward involves pulling off unpredictable, small-scale and spontaneous actions (rather than public, mass actions drawing in as many participants as possible). In other words, this sense that we were defeated has led some to lower their expectations about what is possible. I think that perspective is understandable, but it should be re-thought. We have no reason, given what's happening all over the world right now, to doubt that a mass movement is both possible and worth fighting for.

I think we have good reason to be excited about the two failed attempts to take Grant Park. Those attempts weren't unqualified failures at all --both actions drew out more than 5,000 people to march, without a permit, through the heart of Chicago's financial district. Both actions won the movement international attention and coverage. And both actions, where over 300 people were arrested in defiance of the police order to clear the park, have elevated sympathy for movement among ordinary Chicagoans. A crew of nurses got arrested in defiance of the City's hard-line refusal to grant OC a space. A poll after the second attempt to camp at Grant Park revealed that 79% of Chicagoans stood in support of the movement, with only 8% opposed. Those actions were not failures. We should not lower our expectations in their wake --we should collectively assess them so that we can learn from their mistakes.

But why didn't those actions succeed in winning Occupy Chicago an encampment? It's hard to say exactly. For one, we would have needed more people there to actually force the cops to back down from mass arrests. The second attempt to take the horse was voted on 4 days before it went down --and as of the Friday before the action there was still no official flyer, no official Facebook group, no organized publicity or outreach. And nonetheless 6,000 people turned out. It could have been much bigger if we'd have had more time to consciously build the event by handing out leaflets at subway stations, making posters and flyers, etc. One lesson we should learn from the second attempt to take the horse is that the more time we get to build an event the bigger it has the potential to be.

We need the movement to be big if its going to succeed. OWS didn't hold Zuccotti Park because it was the perfect strategic location in all of Manhattan. It held the park because a hundred thousand people turned out to defend it. The cops, and the powerful billionaire mayor who called on them to attack OWS, were forced to back down by the sheer numbers of people who turned out to defend it. That is our fundamental strength as a movement of, by, and for the 99%: we are the vast majority of society!

So, whatever we decide to do to take this movement to the next level, it has to take stock of this fundamental fact: our strength is in numbers. If some folks want to organize small-scale, spontaneous actions meant to raise awareness and critical consciousness, they should go for it. If some want to do banner drops, small-scale bank protests, street theater, public guerrilla art projects, etc. etc. they should be cheered on for their enthusiasm and fighting spirit. But we also have to be clear: these actions are only worthwhile if they encourage more people to join and participate in the movement as a whole. Any action meant to substitute itself for a mass movement is a step in the wrong direction. Any action that discourages mass participation, is a waste of precious time and energy. Any action that isn't building toward the kind of mass 99%-strong occupy movement we all need is counter-productive.

We can't let discouragement or impatience get in the way of fighting for the kind of movement we need. Voluntarism is tempting, but revolutionary patience is what we need. Not passivity, not complacency, not conservatism. Just a sober, patient perspective that enables us to see that building this movement will not be easy. I'm not suggesting that we set aside our sense of urgency. On the contrary, I think we have to be patient in order to think through and discuss precisely how we can convert all of the excitement, energy, and urgency into a victory for our side!

Neither I am saying that we must "work within the system" or ask for modest demands. On the contrary, I am suggesting that we need to think through how to build this movement as big as possible so that it has the power and militancy to challenge the foundations of the system itself.

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What is a General Strike?

What is a general strike?

A general strike is when a large number of coordinated workers in different industries (in a locality or in an entire country) all stop working at the same time. When workers stop doing their jobs, the system grinds to a halt. The goals of general strikes have been different in different times and places, but they are always aimed at forcing powerful groups (bosses, employers and their friends in government) to bend to the will of the working majority. Goals of past general strikes have included: recognition of collective bargaining rights, better wages and conditions, increased political power for the working majority, and the overthrow of capitalism (i.e. and end to the private ownership of the means of production by a small elite).

Could a general strike happen in the United States?

It already has happened here! General strikes --and struggles of all kinds against oppression and exploitation-- are a huge part of the history and heritage of the United States. Though we're not taught it in school, there have been several big general strikes in US history: 1877 Great Railroad Strike, 1877 St. Louis General Strike, 1892 New Orleans General Strike, Seattle 1919, The Great Textile Strike of 1934, 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters Strike, Toledo 1934, 1934 San Francisco General Strike and the 1946 Oakland General Strike. You'll notice from a quick glance at these dates that there was an explosion of labor militancy during the 1930s. This period of increased struggle put the fear of God in the 1% who worried that they might lose power. Thus, after WWII the U.S. ruling class clamped down hard on working class militancy through a campaign of red-baiting, purges, criminalization of strike action, union-busting, and outright repression. The 1% would use the same tactics to crush the Black Power movement. By the end of the 1960s, workers wages stagnated and declined for the first time since the 1820s. Thus began a long one-sided class war from above against the working majority. Wages are still stagnant today while unemployment levels soar toward historic highs (16.5%). Unsurprisingly, in this context the question of a general strike is back on the agenda and has re-entered the discourse as a feasible option.

What role does the general strike play internationally?

There are many countries in the world where general strikes are occurring or being planned as we speak. In Western Europe, the general strike is a key tactic of the working class in fighting back against cuts and austerity. The May '68 movement culminated in a general strike that involved over 10 million workers stopping work all at the same time. General strikes were a part of the Portuguese and Iranian Revolutions during the 1970s. General strikes were used by workers in Poland in the early 80s against the Stalinist regime that exploited them. General strikes played a key role in ousting Mubarak in the Egyptian Revolution --and the key to the success of the revolution lies in the capacity of workers to shut the system down. Occupy activists in the U.S. are (self-consciously) part of a global movement. We need to take a look at what our sisters and brothers in the global 99% are doing right now to fight back against their respective ruling classes --and that means taking the idea of a general strike seriously.

What could a general strike do for the occupy movement in the US?

The occupy movement is a global phenomenon that has electrified millions of people in the 99% all around the world. People said it couldn't happen here in the US --but it is. People are determined to fight back against cuts, austerity, layoffs, and war. They stand together against a system that places the profits of the 1% above the needs and interests of the vast majority. The occupy movement stands for genuine democracy from below --it stands for empowering the 99% to take control of society and run it in the interests of the majority. But how do we get from here to there? The occupation of public spaces --where free debate and grassroots democracy can flourish-- are key part of the struggle. But we also need to think about how to leverage the promise of occupied parks and public spaces to take the struggle to the next level. Workers' central role in economic production gives them an unparalleled social power--by use of the strike weapon--to paralyze the system like no other social force. The next logical step for the occupy movement is to consider using strike action --co-ordinated work stoppages by ordinary working people of the 99%-- to force the 1% to take us seriously. The 1% is banking on the fact that this is going to be a cold winter. The last thing they want is for us to actively disrupt the profit system that forms the basis of their power. A general strike can do just that --because the 1% does not pick up their own trash, nor do they pilot their own private jets. They need us to co-operate in order to maintain their dominance. A general strike sends a clear message: we will no longer co-operate and toil for a system that oppresses us.

Is a "colorblind" general strike movement possible?

Absolutely not. We need to be clear here: colorblindness, the view that race is "divisive" and undermines the unity of the movement, is a form of racism itself. Colorblindness, by definition, is blind to the reality of racial oppression and therefore plays a role in reproducing it. What's more, the idea that anti-racism is "divisive" is music to the ears of the 1%. They can divide a movement with racists in it --but they can't divide a movement that stands together against all forms of oppression. The last thing that the 1% wants is a movement of, by and for the entire 99% that stands firmly and uncompromisingly against racism. Furthermore, a successful general strike depends upon dense networks of solidarity. But solidarity cannot be built on a foundation of sexism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia or oppression. Solidarity is only possible when all workers fight together and promise to stand up for one another in accordance with the principle that an injury to one is an injury to all. One final thought. We sometimes encounter a caricatured version of the working class in the US according to which it is nothing but brawny, white men. That is false. Today, the majority of the working class in the US is women. The working class is disproportionately people of color. The working class is every bit as diverse and different as this movement needs to be if it going to stand together and win. Our sisters and brothers of color are being forced to endure this recession in a particularly acute way. As Malik --the co-founder of Occupy the Hood-- puts it: "when white people get a cold, black people get the flu". The entire 99% is hurting bad --but the pain of people of color as a group is particularly intense. We need to stand together for the good of all of the 99%. The potential for the Occupy movement to unite and assuage the social and economic misery of whole 99%--and especially of those who face special oppression-- is unprecedented. The time to get involved is now. This is what Fred Hampton was talking about back in 1969. Power to the people!

If we're for a general strike, what can we do to build it?

General strikes are not easy to pull off --they take countless hours of hard, unglamorous organizing work. But tireless organizing for the betterment of humanity is what the occupy movement is all about. So we can do this. What's the first step? There is no ready-made rulebook for how to proceed, but there are several things that we can do to encourage escalation via strike action. First off, general strikes don't spontaneously materialize because someone puts out a call for one. Putting mass strikes together requires that we work with the labor movement. This requires establishing relationships of solidarity between the movement and labor unions --particularly those unions who are under attack and have the strongest incentives to get involved in the movement. Right now transit workers and teachers are being scapegoated, attacked, punished and threatened with layoffs. Postal workers are facing mass layoffs. These facts should help orient those establishing links between the movement and organized labor. The key is to establish links with the rank and file workers of unions in order to make the argument for escalation via strike action. If the rank and file workers themselves are ready to push the struggle forward, their leaders will have no choice but to follow their lead. Solidarity --and the involvement of the labor movement-- is what stopped Bloomberg from destroying OWS. We need to learn from that experience and build on it. But we can also do other things --besides working directly with the labor movement-- to get the idea of a general strike out into public discourse: we can start discussions about general strikes (e.g. what they are, why they're important) in all kinds of social spheres --in workplaces, schools, streets, churches, neighborhoods, on buses and trains, in union halls, listservs, social media, homes, General Assemblies, committee meetings, etc. If you're moved by what you've read here, pass the world along and make the argument that working people have a potential social power like no other --to withhold their labor and force the rich and powerful 1% to take note. Only when we learn about our own history --and our own power-- can we have the constructive collective discussions that grease the axles of workers struggle. Publicize, talk about it, make fliers, post about it on Facebook, tweet that you're for a gen strike, join a revolutionary socialist organization, talk to ordinary people on the street. Don't wait --the time is now!

Is the general strike a "silver bullet"?

Hardly. We can expect a general strike to meet with the same state violence and repression that the Occupy movement has met with thus far. But our strength is in numbers --and in our capacity to shut the system down by withholding our labor. We should be careful not to romanticize the mass strike and make it sound like its the answer to all of our problems. It's not. But it is the next logical step in the progression of our movement. We --the 99%-- have enormous power when we stop doing what the system requires of us. We make this system run, we do the work in this society. It is our right to protest and occupy public spaces to begin the discussion about a new kind of society. But is also our right to withhold our labor and grind the system --which we know serves the needs and interests of the 1%-- to a halt. The ruling class can't ignore us when we stop doing the work that makes their position of dominance possible. A mass strike is a serious weapon in the tactical toolbox of the 99%. We must start talking about using it. Less abstractly: we must start talking about how one could be built in the here and now. We should consider learning from our sisters and brothers that inspired the world by fomenting the Arab Spring. We have a world to win!

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