[This fascinating reflection on the significance of yesterday's (!) arrests of over 700 Occupy Wall Street protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge for the prospects and strategy of the movement are published with the writer's permission, as the third in FotM's occasional series on tactics.]
Some Thoughts On Leaderless Resistance And Occupy Wall Street
by SKS
I will go out and say it outright: the "Occupy" movement in itself is a snowclone, viral movement with a lot of promise - regardless of the many valid critiques others have engaged regarding its many short-comings. I do not intend to add to the chorus, but provide a fresh perspective, hopefully thought provoking, on a key aspect of the movement: the claim of "leaderless resistance". (While I am cognizant of the fascist origins of the strategy and tactic, in particular Louis Beam as a voice of the far-Right, I am ignoring this for the time being: the truth is that in practice in the last 20 or so years it has become widely used in the left and in the animal rights and ecological movements, and hence as a practice, divorced from the right - however, the theoretical underpinnings are indeed elitist)
My intent, in this note, is to raise context and observations on the nature of "leaderless resistance" as a strategic outlook, and as a tactic. I am particularly motivated by the counter-intelligence coup the NYPD achieved in the Brooklyn Bridge kettle (which echoes a similar one in London nearly a year ago). That is, my intent is a strategic and tactical observation of the "leaderless resistance" concept as applied to "Occupy Wall Street", its problems, its roots, and more importantly, alternatives that increase the effectiveness, security, accountability, and survivability of this movement. I do so as a veteran of the anti-colonial struggle in Puerto Rico, and in particular both the relative victory against the US Navy in Vieques Island in 1999-2003, and the relative defeat of the 1998 anti-privatization strikes - as well as the student and community struggles there. Also, as a red diaper grandchild, having the dubious honor of being exposed to the worse excesses of counter-intelligence and State repression since before birth. As an active student of these matters, I do not claim authority, but I do not claim ignorance either.
I. Starting from the end
The Brooklyn Bridge kettle is a historic event: it represents both the first time in living memory that a mass disruptive action has happened in New York City that was pro-active in form: there is no RNC convention, there is no WTO meeting, there is nothing to fight for other than the atrocious malfeasance of the State and Wall Street.
It is also historic in that in represents a conscious shift in police tactics. For those who remember the "Guantanamo-on-the-Hudson" during the RNC protests in 2004, it is clear: while mass arrests did happen, they were the usual random snatching operations in a large scale street isolation. As such, violent tactics, such as the use of pepper guns and baton charges were the norm. Perhaps the most recent example in a mass movement of this set of tactics was the Pittsburgh G-20 protests in 2009 in which even sonic weapons were used. However, in those protests, already the first change of tactics was visible: two of the most dramatic events of the protest were the identification of passive plainclothes police among the protesters (not active provocateurs) and the preemptive dismantling of a media center, including the arrest of those behind one of the main Twitter accounts used for organizing (which was part of a months long intelligence operation).
This "kinder and gentler" approach has its roots in contemporary policing theory, and had its first essay in the London kettles in fall of 2010. Some of the same tactics first used there were clear in the Brooklyn Bridge kettle.
Let's give a short overview of the ones I find significant:
1) Tactical assumption of a lack of leadership in the protest. While politically and even on terms of prosecution they wouldn't admit this, the police didn't try to snatch particular leaders from the protest as they would normally; this pragmatic approach to dealing with the situation is novel and proved very effective to their ends. In London, this allowed easier kettling by tricking naive and idealistic people into moving in the direction the cops wanted, to then kettle them. In the Brooklyn Bridge incident, this was semi-successful: apparently the majority of the people saw the obvious trap and side-stepped the police. Still, hundreds fell for it. In effect, since there are no leaders, the police become the leadership, de facto.
2) Use of high-ranking officers in the front-lines. One of the origins of the Police Riot, which is what often leads to the most violent actions on the part of the Police in mass situations. In the Brooklyn Bridge kettle, nearly all the front-line officers present were "white shirts" or officers of Lieutenant rank and above. While Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna earlier provided a one-man Police Riot, he is indeed a rotten apple: white shirts are often the cooler heads under pressure, and in the videos you can see open chastising on the part of these white shirts to even lower rank white shirts. This also a pragmatic recognition on the part of the Police of the non-violent, yet provocative, nature of the protest: they do not expect violent actions on the part of the mass - they do expect a few cops to lose their cool and riot, with the consequential spectacle in the media. This robs the mass action of the provocative intent of civil disobedience: since the State's reaction is pedestrian and "acceptable", there is no message transmitted. The medium of mass civil disobedience is robbed of its only effect. The cops win, not the movement.
3) The measured proportionality of action. Until recently, the tactics of mass policing in the western world were based on intimidation and control via overwhelming force. The use of non-lethal weaponry, the massed deployment of physically imposing riot police on exotic steroids, the use of provocateurs and active counter-intelligence. This has given way to a more proportional and surgical utilization of what they call "the quiver": all of the options previously available are still available, but not deployed. In the recent English riots, this perspective gave way to much criticism on the part of right wing elements who sustained that the police intervention was ineffective. However, a careful look at the arrest and convictions show they doth protest too much. All of the people allegedly involved in murders during the riots have been indicted. Nearly all active participants, including those involved in minor crimes, have been arrested, indicted, and for the most part convicted. Turns out that the Police were not asleep at the wheel, or even overwhelmed: they switched from a tactic of direct control and intimidation to one of post-facto enforcement: essentially hitting participants when they least expected it. Rather than street fighting and running battles, the police chose CCTV video, and intelligence operations to get the participants. The result is even more effective than that of a running street battle from the perspective of the state.
With all this in mind, and with some further elaboration below, I think it safe to conclude that the Brooklyn Bridge kettle had a particular intent, all related to counter-intelligence:
1) De-articulation of the main base of the "Occupy Wall Street" camp. By successfully depopulating the main base, the police were able to isolate the committed participants in the infrastructure of the camp, the unaccountable true leadership of the movement. Like sifting sands for gold, the identification of the logistical leadership is priceless to future intervention. Those targeted should be very vigilant: they are no longer Anonymous. Leaderless resistance claims to solve this by allowing any compromise member to be taken over by another anonymous member, but the false egalitarianism promoted that we are all willing, able, and equally effective in any capacity is a lie. If this were true, we wouldn't need surgeons or pilots because we would all be able to do it, without a need for skill, talent or willingness. If, say, Lorenzo, gets arrested, who will take over him? A model of leadership that identifies, protects, and prepares people for accountable leadership is less vulnerable in this respect.
2) The de facto Red Squad needed to update the databases. This movement has attracted lots of people who are new activists, unknown to the State. They needed to round them up and identify them, and in particular those willing to be arrested for the movement. Rounding them up in a diffuse open plan like that of the camp, or tediously using CCTV and on foot video for no crime cannot be justified. However, the process of booking is an intelligence coup. Not only are the databases updated, but new items added, biometric data collected, network analysis made. In effect, 700 arrests mean, 70,000 data routes for the average person, who knows 100 people or so. There is overlap, so obviously the number made vulnerable is not 70,000, but it will still be in the five figures. This is a counter-intelligence coup. Yes, we are Anonymous, we never forgive, we never forget. Neither does the State - and its power is underestimated. One of the claims of leaderless resistance is that since people do not actively conspire in cells or pyramids, it protects the independent cells. But as the Federal de-articulation of the North-west USA eco-cells (the Elves of the Earth Liberation Front) shows, there is no need for active conspiracy to connect the dots via social network analysis (and I do not mean Facebook: social networks are not a technology, it is how humans connect socially everywhere). In effect, the movement has provided the State with an intelligence head-start of great value - and did so because the leaderless resistance's directionless approach failed to notify people of this consequence.
3) Separate the "hardcore" from "softcore" and from "nocore" activists. A key goal of counter-intelligence is to de-cohere movements so they implode. One of the methods used in the past is to take advantage of the inherent wedges within movements. The leaderless resistance model claims to solve this by eliminating hierarchy - but this is also a lie. The elimination of formal hierarchy doesn't eliminate informal hierarchy of will, charisma, economic/racial/gender privilege and other such background hierarchies. In effect, counter-intelligence hoists the movement on its own petard in a pragmatic approach. This wedging is formally addressed in "leaderless resistance" theory as "weeding out the weak", a sort of social-Darwinist process - but this is anathema to a true mass movement. The inherent elitism of "leaderless resistance" with the onus of dedication and self-sacrifice is exploited effectively by the state.
4) Criminalization. This is the most political of the goals. By criminalizing the movement, in other words, by equating active participation with the possibility of being processed criminally, the same "preventative" logic of policing is imposed on political speech. The idea, however, is not to prevent gang violence or other crimes, but to prevent political speech that questions the groundwork of the State. Leaderless resistance in this sense doesn't figure at all: no matter what strategic and tactical method is uses, this response will happen. However, leaderless resistance has a specific weakness in this respect: the inability to protect participants from State criminalization. No team of lawyers, no bail fund, no clarity to participants on what can criminalize you or not. The kettling exploits this: by criminalizing behavior that normal citizens assume to be legal, and because leaderless resistance is unable to provide clarity to participants that kettling can happen, participation is limited to those willing and able to be subjected to criminalization. This has concrete effects: in many jobs, even a misdemeanor can get you fired, and definitely having to serve time and pay a fine is an economic hardship to the bulk of people.
II. The Law of Unintended Consequences
Another problem is that even the strategy and tactic of leaderless resistance is not actually being followed as prescribed by its creators. One of the most important aspects of the leaderless resistance concept is the aspect of direction: it is "leaderless" in so far as it puts the onus on acting on the principles, rather than organizing anything around them, but it is not "directionless".
So, one of the fundamental problems of "leaderless resistance" as carried out by the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, is not the concept itself, but a lack of clarity and education on what the concept means, and furthermore, an irresponsible assumption that not having leaders means that a decision is a good idea by the sheer power of numbers. As those in the Brooklyn Bridge kettle will now find out, a lack of leadership that devolves into a lack of direction.
There is a difference between wanting a non-bureaucratic, open, transparent, participatory, decentralized, and accountable leadership, which can provide direction to the movement and not having leadership and direction at all.
One of the unintended consequences is that in the context of a lack of leadership and direction is that the State, and their enforcers, the police, become the leaders and directors of the mass. As happened at the Brooklyn Bridge, by all accounts.
The abandonment of any pretense of leadership also signified the abandonment of any pretense of direction, with nefarious unintended consequences.
III. Mass movements require mass leaderships
All of this means that the concept of "leaderless resistance" needs to be reformulated to the actual mass movement as it exists.
As we see, "leaderless resistance" is a theory that applies to vanguardist, elitist struggle: it is perhaps a viable alternative to direct resistance (that is, defensive) politico-military situations, such as occupation by a foreign power, or as a way to mobilize direct action around narrow, single issue campaigns, such as ecology or animal rights. It is, at heart, a politico-military theory that requires each member to become a soldier. This is anathema to any mass movement: not even in hunter-gatherer societies do all members of the group engage directly in warfare or even military affairs. In effect, leaderless resistance theory is elitist: it calls only upon the most dedicated, the most "clear", the most capable - all while seemingly advocating egalitarian participation.
However, it is not applicable to a movement that aspires to be a mass movement: the mass movement needs a mass leadership, a mass direction.
Personally, I view the development of a broad united front of the different affinities is needed: far from the NGO model of bureaucracy, it needs to be based on actual active participation, not simply endorsing a proclamation. This will of course accept and respect the existence of multi-polar and pluralist politics: false unity is always false. Differences of opinion and of direction are healthy if they are in good faith. The need for poles of leadership to emerge is not to be feared, but recognized and embraced: let only those forces and affinities willing to be accountable and responsible emerge. We shouldn't be little children hedonistically acting upon our whims: real action in real life has real consequences, only those willing to grapple with those consequences, to protect the movement, to advance the movement, and to engage the movement with wider society should take leadership, but leadership shouldn't be a bad word. With leadership also comes direction: in particular, is this movement for true revolutionary political and economic change, or simply aimed at extracting reforms that "return" to a mythical "better" past? These are questions others address, but the fact is they need to be addressed by the mass itself: the "leaderless resistance" claim is in itself a leadership and direction that seeks to exclude, implicitly, the addressing of these questions.
The alternative, quite frankly, is to continue to let the cops be the de facto leaders of the movement, surely a way to de-articulate any potentiality it has to effect actual change - and surely a way to cause more harm than good to future movements of resistance. The struggle for peace, justice, jobs, equality is not a short or direct one. We shouldn't kid ourselves into thinking there won't be bends in the road, or one in which leadership is irrelevant. Those defending the status quo certainly recognize the immense value of leadership, and have effectively used that against the movement.
Participants in Occupy Wall Street, and the other viral snowclones that emerge for it, would be doing themselves a service by critically approaching this central question: there are no shortcuts, there are no easy victories. The Financial-Industrial complex that rules the USA, the crumbling Empire that feeds it, the nuclear deterrent that holds the world hostage is not easy to beat. And it cannot be beaten, no matter how hard you will it to be, without leadership and direction. Leaderless resistance is a self-kettle, a straight-jacket that will keep the movement from acquiring the true mass, political, basis that can enable actual change to happen.
Those who want a wide-tent should understand that a free-for-all is not the answer: the enemy of my enemy is not always my friend. This a strategic and tactical consideration, a politico-military one, if you will: the ability of the movement to resist, grow, and triumph against the present odds require that it doesn't straight-jacket itself into what doesn't work anymore. Be realistic, do the impossible...
[Earlier Tactics installments can be found here and here.]
October 2, 2011
Tactics (3): "Leaderless Resistance" & Cop Tactics At Wall Street
September 28, 2011
Reflecting on the murder of Troy Davis
After Troy Anthony Davis was murdered last week by the State of Georgia, a close friend who has been active in both the labor movement and the struggle for civil & human rights for many decades shared her observations. Her heartfelt examination, her humanity, these are the elements of any capital murder case that are missing in in what some folks insist on calling the "justice system." I invite both long-time and new readers of Fire on the Mountain, to ponder this and share their thoughts…
The Troy Davis Execution
On the Wednesday night of the Troy Davis execution I was glued to the television with my 30 year old son, at his home. We were both holding our breath waiting for the Supreme Court decision, and could not hold back tears when they refused to give him a stay of execution.
We have not lived together for 7 years, so we rarely watch TV together. So on this night we reverted to a much younger version of ourselves with him asking me for assurance that would I come save him if he was on death row; like any mother wouldn’t want to be able to say “yes” to that question.
I thought the NAACP was at its best. Executive Director, Ben Jealous was totally sympathetic and respectful of the family of the police officer who had been killed. At the same time he was a staunch advocate for Davis saying that justice had to be “precise”; that executing Davis when there were so many doubts was not justice for either Davis or the victim.
As remarkable, were the scores of people who agreed with the NAACP---Desmond Tutu, and Jimmy Carter included. There was even a letter from past and present executioners talking about the horrible psychological toll executing a person takes on a “person of conscience”, only made worse when that person maintains their innocence and their guilt is in doubt. Davis’ last words were to the officers’ family declaring that he did not have a gun the night their son or brother was killed.
The officer’s mother could not bear to watch the execution but she was interviewed by TV reporters. She insisted she needed Davis killed so she could get closure. Though I truly felt sorry for her that she had lost her son, and the indignity of him being killed while trying to protect a homeless person, I found her statement incomprehensible. If my son, were to die before me, I do not think I would ever get closure. Its so against nature for a child to die before their parents. And clearly this poor mother had not gotten closure in the 22 years since his death. For her to think she would get closure by the execution of Davis is against all reason. Studies show that victims families do not get relief from these executions; and certainly the doubt raised about Davis being the killer had to undermine any satisfaction.
In Texas, that same night, another execution was going on. It was the execution of a young white man who had purposely killed a Black man-James Byrd- by chaining him to the back of a truck until his body was totally mutilated to the point that the highway police originally thought he was a dead animal run over by many vehicles. That family put out a statement that said: They were not advocating that this killer be executed. He could not harm their family from the prison; that violence in response to violence only perpetuates it; and finally that executions historically in this country had been of Black men, and this execution of a white men did not take away that history, or make it fairer by evening the score.
To me, the difference in consciousness between the 2 families was stunning. From the ugliness of the centuries of discrimination and lynchings, the Black family had emerged with a generous spirit and a historical perspective. The white family had not gotten past the Barbaric “an eye for an eye”. Its this difference in consciousness; that regressive consciousness that has defined this country since its inception, this ongoing legacy of slavery and Jim Crow that keeps this country socially backward, despite all our riches.
September 5, 2011
Black NJ: POP's Labor Day March for Jobs in Newark
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| POP's September 5th March for Jobs took to Market Street in Newark without a permit |
"A September 'Labor Day' celebration is nearly unique to the United States," he continued. "the US capitalists want us to celebrate with beer and cook-outs, to forget labor's struggle for a better world; but we chose to use today holiday to demand jobs at a living wage!"
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| Larry Hamm listens as community activist Sharon Hand speaks about her experience since losing her job, meeting POP, and joining the "Daily Campaign" |
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| Rallying in front of the Essex County Courthouse |
Labor Day, with its backyard barbecues and Local Union cookouts and parades, is a day that doesn't lend itself to mass action. For those who rallied at the courthouse and marched downtown from there to the Broad & Market and back, it was the best People's Daily picket yet. The loud and boisterous honks of support from passing motorists more than made the day.
To view additional photos from the Labor Day march & rally (and a special thanks to my friend Jon who snapped these shots), click on this photos link. Read more!
September 4, 2011
Martha Cameron Takes A Bust: A Tar Sands Followup
Last week I posted a sharp-as-hell piece by my old friend Gary Goff on why he was heading to DC to get arrested in the Taz Sands Protest. Today I follow up with a report from my old friend Martha Cameron, Gary's partner, who evidently decided, while in DC, to put her body on the line as well! They were two of the 1252 people arrested in the two week protest at the White House.
As a post-arrestee of the Tar Sands Action Project, I urge you all to take 5 minutes to do two things:
1. Watch this video by Josh Fox -- it will give you a glimpse into the magnitude (and scariness) of the Tar Sands project.
2. Call the White House. Urge President Obama to reject the Tar Sands proposal and start building renewable energy, which will generate far more permanent jobs and help mitigate the disaster of global climate change: 202-456-1111.
There's a lot more information at Tar Sands Action Project, and photos of each day's sit-ins on Flickr. My husband Gary Goff and I were with the August 24 group. Here's one photo from the Flickr set for our day. That's me in the red hat, hiding from the sun, holding the sign I made for the sit-in.
The two people in the foreground, Bryan and Cherri, came up with a group from the Gulf area. Bryan is an environmental justice organizer from Manchester, Texas, the neighborhood in Houston where Keystone XL oil is scheduled to be refined. Manchester, aka "Petro-Metro," is already the site of numerous other dirty industries.
Cherri was with a group from Louisiana, still recovering from Katrina, but also now suffering severely from the effects of the BP oil spill and cleanup. She told stories that are familiar to anyone who has heard the stories of the 9/11 First Responders -- the rush to clean up the mess, the promises of support, and now the sicknesses resulting from exposure to the oil and the massive use of highly toxic dispersants. As in New York, cleanup workers were barred from using protective coverings. As in New York, compensation is slow to come or nonexistent. Locals try not to eat the fish, which are frequently covered with lesions and tumors.
Fritzie, another woman from Louisiana, blamed her daughter's miscarriage on the cleanup chemicals, which were liberally sprayed over residential areas. Her daughter is no longer able to work; she now suffers from extreme fatigue, horrible skin eruptions, and other symptoms consonant with toxic chemical poisoning. Again, I thought of the First Responders, but also of the cleanup workers from the Exxon Valdez spill, the soldiers with Gulf War Syndrome, the Vietnamese people and U.S. soldiers sickened by Agent Orange...
I also learned that much of the energy used to process the tar sands oil will be derived from fracking. So we are destroying the Northeast's freshwater and land resources in order to perpetuate the destruction of the boreal rain forest in northern Canada and threaten the Ogalla Aquifer in the western United States. We are burning money in order to burn money in order to burn the planet even faster. This is insane. We have to stop this. So please, take 5 minutes. Watch the video. Call the White House. Demand jobs. Demand renewable energy. Demand an end to the oil wars being fought in our name in Central Asia, the Middle East, Northern Africa, in South America, and here at home.
August 22, 2011
Gary Goff Is Going To Jail!
Gary Goff has been a good friend of mine for more than a quarter of a century, as has his partner Martha Cameron. We have strategized together, marched on Washington together, picketed red-lining realtors in his Brooklyn neighborhood together and protested too many wars and occupations undertaken by this country's rulers together. We have never been arrested together, though.
So when Gary told me that he was planning, at age 64, to go to Washington and take a bust doing civil disobedience, I was a bit surprised. Lately, much of his activism has been as a NYC employee and elected officer of his local in District Council 37 of AFSCME, at a time when civil servants are very much in the system's crosshairs.
Naturally I wanted to know what the hell he'd be facing arrest for, and why he thought that the situation demanded it. As he and Martha (who will be right there, doing logistics and media tasks in DC for Gary and other protesters) head for Washington, I am honored to publish this powerful and cogent answer to my questions.
I'm going to Washington, D.C., next week so I can get arrested. "Why?" you may ask.
The short answer is that I want to do what I can to prevent an environmental disaster. The long answer is a little more complicated. Here’'s what it'’s about.
As we run out of easy-to-reach oil and gas, we are turning more and more to high-risk extraction methods:– deep-ocean drilling, hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and tar sands refinement. Fossil fuels from conventional sources are bad enough. These are so much worse. Extraction is riskier, dirtier and infinitely more costly to the environment. Soil, oceans and freshwater are routinely contaminated.
The BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico exposed the dangers of deep-water drilling. The Oscar-winning documentary Gasland has opened our eyes to the dangers of fracking. But tar sands? Most of us in the United States don't even know what they are.
The world’'s largest deposits of tar sand--naturally occurring soil that is saturated with a sludge-like form of petroleum--are located in northern Alberta, Canada. For every barrel of crude oil extracted, four tons of tar sands are strip-mined and four barrels of freshwater are contaminated. According to Friends of the Earth, “during tar sands oil production alone, levels of carbon dioxide emissions are three times higher than those during conventional oil.” About 400 million gallons of freshwater are used daily. The residue--a toxic stew loaded with cyanide, ammonia and other dangerous substances--is stored in “tailing ponds” that are so large they can be seen from space. Indigenous communitiesliving near these ponds have high rates of renal failure, lupus, hyperthyroidism, and rare forms of cancer.
Scientists say the safe limit for CO2 in our atmosphere is 350 parts per million (ppm). We are currently at 392 ppm. The Alberta tar sands will likely add an additional 200 ppm. “If the tar sands are thrown into the mix it is essentially "game over,"” says Jim Hansen, NASA'’s leading climatologist.
The TransCanada Corporation plans to build the Keystone XL Pipeline to carry crude oil from the Alberta tar sands to refineries nearly 2,000 miles away on the Gulf Coast of Texas. This pipeline will cross 71 rivers and streams (including the Missouri, Yellowstone, and Red Rivers), the Ogallala Aquifer (which supports agriculture throughout the Midwest), any number of delicate ecosystems, and an active earthquake zone. One person has called the whole scheme a bomb with a 2,000-mile fuse.
Leading environmental organizations point out the real danger of pipeline leaks: tar sand oil is much more acidic than conventional oil, and therefore much more corrosive. TransCanada says the risk of pipeline leaks is minimal--one leak every twenty years at most. But since the Keystone Project began two years ago, the pipeline has already had 12 major spills!
JAIL
At this point you might be thinking,
"“Okay, I get it. The tar sands are a bad idea. That pipeline is a really bad idea. But why go to Washington during the hottest, stickiest time of year? Why go out of your way to get arrested?”"Here’'s the deal: Any pipeline that crosses the U.S. border needs a special Presidential Permit. If we are going to stop the expansion of the Keystone XL Pipeline, we have to convince the Obama administration not to issue the permit. Several weeks ago an impressive group of scientists, activists. and indigenous leaders put out a call for people opposed to the pipeline to engage in peaceful civil disobedience in front of the White House. (Click to see the Invitation.) This will not be a one-day action; it will take place every day from August 20 to September 3. So far, over 2,000 of us have signed up.
The older I get, the more I find myself thinking about the world I will leave my children and grandchildren. The race to the bottom, the juggernaut of greed that is bringing on global climate change, is truly frightening to watch. I don't know if getting arrested at the White House will stop it, but I have to try.
That’'s it. I've covered the basics of the issue and my thinking about why I'm doing what I'm doing. Below are some things you can do to help and some additional information.
Spend Some Time in the Slammer
If you would like to join the actions in Washington over the next couple of weeks, here'’s how you too can get arrested. And just think of the benefits: when the teacher asks how you spent your summer vacation, you'll have something interesting to say. (Click here to register.)
Tell President Obama: Stop the Pipeline!
I know, I know, another online petition. But petitions do matter: this one does, for sure. It will help support people like myself protesting in Washington, but more important, it will put Washington on notice that the American people are aware of--and oppose--this looming disaster. So do it; it only takes a minute. (Click here to sign the petition.)
Help Out the Folks Who Live on the Front Lines Every Day
Working-class communities, communities of color, and small farmers are disproportionately affected by environmental problems. The Keystone XL Pipeline is no exception. Indigenous communities in Alberta are already suffering: in Fort Chipewyan, with a predominately First Nation and Metis population, 100 of the 1,200 residents have died of cancer. If the pipeline is built, working people and people of color all along the way will be hit hard. Many of these people would like to be part of the Tar Sands Action, but they can't afford to make the trip. Tar Sands Action has set up a special fund to defray their costs. (Click to see donation page.)
The American Petroleum Institute claims that the pipeline will create “hundreds of thousands” of new jobs--as many as “465,000 jobs,” according to one API official. Union leaders representing the Teamsters, Plumbers, Operating Engineers, and Laborers have endorsed the pipeline, stating that it will “spur the creation of 118,000 jobs.” In hard times, the importance of jobs cannot be denied, but we need to be wary of such claims. Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith, who often write on labor issues, examined these figures closely and found them to be grossly inflated--a combination of wishful thinking and flimflam. The U.S. State Department'’s own estimate? Somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 new jobs over a period of three years.
And it'’s not just about jobs. The labor movement needs to represent workers in all aspects of their lives. As the late labor leader Walter Reuther once said, "“What good is a dollar an hour more in wages if your neighborhood is burning down?" What good is another week’'s vacation if the lake you used to go to is polluted and you can't swim in it?” What good is a union job if all we’'re doing is building our own gallows.
Tar Sands Action is the website developed by the protest’'s organizers.
One excellent source is Keystone XL Pipeline from the environmental group Friends of the Earth.
The Guardian newspaper in Britain generally has good coverage of environmental issues, including several useful pieces about tar sands and the pipeline.
The Global Energy Crisis Deepens by Michael Klare is an in-depth look at how the end of conventional oil has lead to the development of more dangerous fuel sources. Klare has written extensively about the global impact of resource scarcity – specifically regarding war and politics.
For an excellent labor perspective on this issue, see Pipeline Climate Disaster: The Keystone XL Pipeline and Labor by Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith.
Labor activist Joe Uehlein is one of the original signers of the Tar Sands Action Invitation. As a young man he had a union job constructing the Three Mile Island nuclear plant. See his piece, Joining the Labor Movement and the Sustainability Movement: Together We Can Stop the Tar Sands Climate Catastrophe. Read more!
August 18, 2011
Tactics (2): Nailing Presidential Hyprocisy
Tactics in the struggle come in all sizes and shapes, and I’m undertaking to post an occasional commentary on one or another that has struck my fancy. (First one's here. Suggestions for future articles are most welcome.)
This tactic is the Watchfire For Freedom, set alight in an urn directly opposite the White House on January 6, 1919 and kept burning day and night by members of the National Women’s Party in support of the demand that women be granted the right to vote.
Some background first: The Watchfire For Freedom came after the considerable momentum for women’s suffrage won in the first 15 years of the 20th century. At that point, the National Women’s Party, the militant wing of the suffrage movement, had decided to target President Woodrow Wilson, demanding that he actively support the passage of a national women’s suffrage amendment.
Even the patriotic fervor surrounding the US entry into World War 1 didn’t stop their 24/7 pickets at the White House. Neither did the arrests, jailing and, when they began hunger strikes, brutal force-feeding of NWP leaders like Alice Paul. Broad popular anger at this mistreatment swelled and Wilson caved in. While the war was still raging in early 1918, he pledged to push through Congress the vote for women as soon as combat ended.
Here’s where the Watchfire comes in. With the war over in November 1918, and the presidential promise of support in hand, how could the movement keep up the momentum? The Watchfire For Freedom urn was set alight, and kept alight, as the focal point for organizing and not merely as an abstract symbol. Wilson had led the US into the war in order, he claimed, to “make the world safe for democracy.” Every time he made a speech or issued a statement proclaiming or calling for democracy and freedom in war-torn Europe, Women’s Party leaders would take a copy of Wilson’s words and solemnly burn it in the urn, denouncing any talk of democracy when more than half the population was denied its most basic trapping in the US.
The Watchfire For Freedom stayed right in front of the White House until June 4, 1919, when the 19th Amendment passed the Senate.
So what are the particular merits of this tactic?
It provided a central focus for the suffrage movement when pressure needed to be increased to clear the final blockades of male supremacy in Congress and in state legislatures. It kept the focus concentrated on Wilson, the head of the Democratic Party, rather than dispersing it. It provided regular news to be reported when newspapers were the sole form of information (every big city boasted numerous papers and even small towns had one) and many of those papers were pro-suffrage.
It used the enemy’s weaknesses against him--the hypocrisy of proclaiming a new and democratic Europe while denying democracy to women here was clear and easy to understand.
It drew on the strength of the movement--the mainstream suffrage association had more than a million members and the National Women’s Party over 50.000. While maintaining a permanent vigil at the White House took resources, women were willing to travel from around the country and do their stints--like the Minnesota contingent headed by Berthe Moller, who brought pine boughs from their home state to burn in the urn, and who wound up in the hoosegow, evidently because they also added an effigy of Wilson to the flames!
Might imitating this tactic work today?
Probably not, but there are things to be learned from the reasons why it would likely fall short. First, most issues today are not as tightly focused as winning a single Constitutional Amendment, and few have a movement in the millions united around such a single political goal. Second, tactics pioneered by the National Women's Party have become ho-hum--their protests during the war were arguably the first mass civil disobedience protests at the White House.
And speaking of ho-hum, what about calling an elected official a hypocrite? It's universally understood today that politicians are lying double-talkers who will say and promise anything to advance their own interests, and those of their backers. Publicly charging them with hypocrisy usually gets from their most ardent defenders, whether Republican or Democrat, not indignant denials but tortured explanations of why political realpolitik demands that they fudge things so much.
And, of course, there's the problem that changes in military doctrine over the last hundred years mean the word, or even the concept, "watchfire" never crosses the average American's mind today, unless he or she is for some reason singing the second verse of "The Battle Hymn Of The Republic."
August 15, 2011
Tactics: Chumping Nazis With Tee-Shirts
I'm a sucker for innovative tactics, always have been. It's worthwhile to go beyond "Hey now, that's cool...", though, and try and figure out what makes some tactics seem to deserve our appreciation.
I ran across one the other day. Seems that the lucky kids at a fascist skinhead music festival in Thuringia in what was East Germany got a free t-shirt, with a snazzy white on black skull and crossbones and, below it, the proud proclamation "Hardcore Rebels."
The only thing is, when they launder their new acquisition (or their mommies do), that stuff will all wash out, revealing a new message from the donors. This is an outfit called Exit Deutschland, whose aim is to help "young people transition out of militant right-wing lifestyles." The new message: "What happened to your shirt can happen to you. We can help you break with right-wing extremism."
Okay, let's contemplate this tactic--as a tactic. Me, I'm an ocean, a culture and two generations away from having much right to speak in the debate over whether trying to convert li'l Nazis-with-training-wheels into "normal" German kids is the best approach to fascist currents there.
The tactic, however, is elegant. Its strengths reveal themselves on minimal reflection. The kids take the tees because, duh, they're free.
Sooner or late, depending on individual hygiene standards, they learn that they have been chumped. That humiliation, and the larger-scale display of their movement's vulnerability, may be more even important than the penetration of the message that there is a specific alternative for those uncertain about their course, especially newbies.
Then there's the megaphone effect--the German media picked up the story, at least in passing, and spread the word that attendees at the show had been made fools of. This also raised the profile of Exit Deutschland and thus its potential reach and effectiveness.
As with any tactic, it's also important to look at the limitations. The scale of the tactic was necessarily limited. The concert, run by the ultra-right National Democratic Party, had only 600 of the fash in attendance. I have no idea what the group's finances are like, but for a real grassroots outfit, handing out 250 specially-printed shirts would be a significant expenditure.
Whoever did the actual infiltration and distribution may well have been captured on video and likely marked for retaliation by those who were played. And of course, it can't be expected to work twice in the same milieu.
No surprise. Tactics are by their very nature limited and can be countered by an enemy who understands them. But when a tactic is rolled out like this one was, it's a people's victory and worthy of contemplation as an aesthetic object in its own right.
