> I did not see Chuck mention the use of violence. But
> let's face it, channeling the movement into the ballot
> box and the walk-in-the-park-singing-kumbaya type
> demonstrations have their limitations. It's time to
> try direct action, instead of just symbolic indirect
> actions.
Doug Henwood wrote:
> So what else do you have in mind? There's a bit of a macho mystique
> around direct action - it's bold, it's radical, it's not for pussies.
> But give some examples of some actions that could accomplish something
> other than making the actors feel tough & revolutionary.
Back in March, Ward Churchill spoke several times in the Bay Area. At one of these events, he took written questions from the audience. One audience member asked him the standard "what can we do?" question. Churchill smiled and said that this was one of those annoying questions that only Americans asked him. He related that in his travels around the world people never asked him this question. He argued that they don't ask this question because they know what they can do. But Americans persist in asking this question, despite having access to incredible resources and privilege.
Yes, I support the use of violence. In fact, there is an entire website devoted to crticizing my support for the use of violence. I think that violence can be an effective tool of dissent and social change. I'm not about to adopt a tactical lifestyle code and then deny the fact that people around the world use violence all of the time to fight and struggle.
But this does not mean that I'm a violent person or think that violence is the only, or even chief, path of social change. My main point in criticizing contemporary American activism is twofold: 1) it lacks strategy and planning; and 2) privileged American activists are timid and won't even do mild things that are outside of our comfort zones. The lack of strategy can be seen in what groups like ANSWER have done. The same thing over and over again. The International Action Center, the parent of ANSWER, was long derided for its focus on protest for the sake of protest. UFPJ isn't much better and they are in ways worse because they took the trust of the movement and squandered it on ineffectual electoral politics.
What strategy and tactics would I recommend? The answers are lying all around us in terms of current struggles and activist history. My friend Jesse Walker wrote a very perceptive article today for Reason Online titled "The Other Insurrections." (http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050511084317993)
Two excerpts:
"Latin America's outbreak of people power hasn't received as much stateside attention as its counterparts in Central Asia and the Middle East. This is presumably for the same reason media accounts of nonviolent Arab movements often ignore Palestinian resistance to Israel's "security barrier": The uprisings aren't aligned with U.S. interests. Official Washington has not been celebrating South America's turn to the left--three-quarters of the continent's people now live under left-wing governments--and popular protest is generally regarded as a part of that shift."
"Nonviolent resistance, Schock reminds us, is not the same thing as "passive resistance." It's a set of tactics, not a politically correct lifestyle; it's aimed not at persuading leaders to change their policies, but at making it impossible to enforce those policies. Gene Sharp has been cataloging those tactics for decades, listing 198 of them in 1973's three-volume study The Politics of Nonviolent Action and citing several more since then. They fall into three general categories: methods of protest and public persuasion (e.g., a march), of organized noncooperation (e.g., a tax strike), and of "nonviolent intervention" (e.g., a land occupation). Contrary to the conventional wisdom, such methods have frequently worked under repressive dictatorships as well as under relatively benign systems; many times they've succeeded where guerilla tactics have failed. In 23 of those 31 rebellions, from Bolivia to Bulgaria and from Mongolia to Mali, the uprising contributed directly to regime change."
In other words, we can just look at what our comrades are doing around the world for examples of what works. One thing that burns me up about the so-called peace movement is that some of its members are quick to criticize us "violent anarchists," but they can't even bother to use their numbers and resources to engage in civil disobedience campaigns. Yes, there has been some NVCD, but none of the main coalitions have attempted to coordinate CD campaigns in conjunction with mass protests and other tactics. Thus, we have seen no civil disobedience against the media or defense contractors led by ANSWER or UFPJ.
For example, the utter bankruptcy of ANSWER was illustrated during one cold January protest march in Washington, DC. They had mobilized thousands of people and had them walk by the Navy base in southeast D.C. ANSWER had made sure to organize a toll booth of volunteers on Pennsylvania Avenue to collect donations from protesters, but they didn't even bother to organize ANYTHING at the gates to the Navy base. Understandably, more than a few more radical people were shocked that thousands of people were merely walking by the base and they just stood there in shock.
We also know from activist history what works. Actions work. Direct action gets the goods. The labor movement grew a century ago because of strikes and direct action. The civil rights movement accomplished things through mass direct action. The anti-globalization movement became a force through direct action. And the anarchist movement wouldn't have grown in recent years if it hadn't been for direct action. Oh, and the FCC created LPFM because the pirate radio movement, more direct action, exploded during the mid 90s.
As far as I'm concerned, the answers to the anti-war movement's failure are right in front of our noses. If we fail to adopt these tactics and put together more effective strategies, it's because we want to be stubbornly ignorant or because we've decided that our comfort level is more important than 1600 American and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghani lives. You don't have to resort to violence or become a Plowshares nun, but standing around in the park is not dissent, resistance, or anything.
Chuck