FEBRUARY 2003
Are you outraged with the US government's arrogant practice of policing the rest of the world, yet are you leery of having your outrage exploited b y obsolete Leftists for their own bankrupt agendas? Are you pissed off that the US military is once again bullying tiny Third World countries and preparing to slaughter innocent civilians, yet are you hesitant to give any credibility to the Paleolithic Left's claims to leading a mass anti-war movement? Are you disgusted with America's imperial business-as-usual, yet are you also bored to tears with the Left's protest-politics-as-usual? There's a simple, do-it-yourself alternative that effectively challenges the US government's military adventurism while denying the fossilized Left its organizing and leadership pretensions. This strategy is based on the idea that thousands of grains of sand can cause even the largest, most powerful machine to grind to a halt by becoming wedged in the gears and stuck between sensitive parts to gum up the works. The goal of this alternative strategy is to put our anti-war activism and movement to maximum effect.
MAXIMUM SELF-ORGANIZATION
Forget about joining that PC Leftist organization. Instead, get together with friends who oppose US foreign policy and are willing to do something about it. This small informal group of friends can be located in your work, school or community and should have some experience doing things together. At the very least the small group can act as a backup when you attend those tired old anti-war demonstrations, with friends watching each other's backs in case of trouble from police or counter demonstrators and with the group easily able to take advantage of spontaneous breakaway actions from the staid main demo. Ideally, the small group can also act on its own in ways more creative than the Left's tedious, predictable dog-and-pony shows. Sit down with your friends and decide what you want to do as well as where, when and how you want to do it. Gather the supplies and resources you need to accomplish your action, practice if you need to, then just do it.
MAXIMUM PROTEST
The Left's range of protest-from timid letter writing to boring march-and-rally-rarely challenges established routines, transcends proper channels or takes on official authority. More often than not, Leftist protest acts to legitimize the Left itself with the carefully crafted façade of mass participation that remains firmly under Leftist control. By contrast, small groups of friends can infiltrate protest into every sphere of society in ways that emphasize its disruptive possibilities. On the job or in the streets, in schools or within government bureaucracies small groups of friends can deliver popular outrage through talking to fellow workers and bulletin board postings, anonymous e-mail broadcasts and wearing black armbands, leaflets left in strategic places and speaking up to superiors, banners strung from buildings and personally decorated work stations, etc. The ways to protest are legion.
MAXIMUM RESISTANCE
Aside from armed resistance, the Left condescendingly labels most forms of resistance moralistic and individualistic. Yet not being a "good German" and going along with the schemes of the powers-that-be can be a powerful political act that goes beyond inspiration and "organizing by example." Boycotting corporate military contractors, refusing to register for the draft or pay war taxes, disobeying orders as munitions workers or soldiers, not cooperating with government civil defense or popular mobilization measures can be organized collectively to have a strong social effect. Small groups of friends can encourage, publicize, support or carry out resistance, propagating forms of refusal on more and more levels of society until resistance becomes a social force in its own right.
MAXIMUM DIRECT ACTION
The Left capitalizes on the misery of the people it claims to fight for, hoping to act as powerbroker between "the masses" and the powers-that-be. Little wonder that these misery pimps steer clear of direct action that is nothing less than folks taking matters into their own hands. Shutting down military recruiters by chaining the doors and gluing the locks. Destroying military files and records with fake blood or homemade napalm. Infecting government computer systems with destructive software viruses. Mobile sit-ins and blockades that disperse when the police arrive, only to reassemble at the next intersection or government building. On-the-job slowdowns, sick-ins and sabotage to stop war production. Small groups of friends are ideal for implementing and spreading direct action.
MAXIMUM TAKEOVER
The last thing the Left wants is for "the people" to take power on their own, without the Left's "leadership." The act of takeover in turn is the practice of taking power on a small scale to create temporary liberated zones. When marching demonstrators seize the streets and transform them into an open-air university or a wild-in-the-streets block party, that's takeover. When folks occupy the empty lots in their community to build playgrounds for their kids or cultivate gardens to feed the homeless, that's takeover. When people occupy government buildings and convert them to day care centers or infoshops, that's takeover. Small groups of friends can be the center of such takeovers and can also provide for the organization of such temporary liberated zones.
MAXIMUM SELF-GOVERNMENT
The Left's preferred forms of organization are political parties and trade unions, both of which substitute for direct social power. Compare this to the small group of friends that serves as the basic element of social power. Whether called a crew, collective, affinity group, cell, posse or revolutionary gang it can simultaneously allow for the internal development of cooperative non-hierarchical social relations and permit the external decentralized bottom-up organization of social power through association, federation and alliance. But the small group is neither a perfected final organizational form nor is it an end in itself. By creating a self-governing social power the proliferation of small groups concurrently makes society ungovernable at the base to the powers-that-be and opens up the potential for broader, more radical forms of self-activity, self-organization and self-government.
DON'T WAIT FOR INSTRUCTIONS! DON'T ASK FOR PERMISSION!
Red Zone You are now leaving the American sector PO Box 29251, Oakland, CA 94604-9251 (Western pundits declared the United States the de facto victor of the "cold war" after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, proclaiming as well that there was now no viable economic alternative to market capitalism. Yet working people around the world continue to rise up against American hegemony and the power of capital. In Mexico, these rebellious regions are called "red zones" by the government which subjects their populations to low-intensity or counter-insurgency warfare.)