> Chuck, I really don't understand what your strategy is for building a
> movement. There's almost no popular support in the U.S. for
> anarchism. It's immeasurably small. How do you win friends and
> influence people?
There is alot more popular interest in anarchism now in the U.S. than when I became an anarchist 21 years ago. I'm still very optimistice about the prospects for anarchism, although I'm a bit worried about the downturn in activism in the past few years. Based on what I'm hearing in my network, I think we are on the cusp of a big upswing in activism.
Several days I agreed with somebody, perhaps B., about anarchism being a process. It's a methodology. So instead of counting how many vanguardists are dancing on the head of some future revolutionary pinhead, I'm more focused on day-to-day direct action.
Today I spent 6 hours working on our infoshop here in Kansas City with a comrade. Our expansion project is nearing completion. When it is done we will have an infoshop, library, bookstore and organizing center that is over 1000 square feet. The infoshop is part of a much larger arts center which we are slowly turning into a European style social center. We have a large theater with 150 fixed seats. We have a dark room, a future computer lab, an underground nightclub, and the new bicycle repair collective. We have big plans for this specific project and other projects around Kansas City.
We've been busy making connections with neighborhood people, local groups, and more.
In other words, you win friends and influence people by relating to them one person at a time. People want to see something tangible based on your ideas. We're not selling people newspapers and the propsect of endless meetings about socialism. ;-)
Our space is another indie bookstore that sells the Monthly Review. Our existence also helps support the rest of the alternative press.
But I digress. It's late on this Saturday night, Sunday morning.
I think that you build a movement by simultaneously focusing on activism, direct action, political education, agitation, and building infrastructure.
It's important to mobilize and organize around small campaigns and bigger movements. You have to engage the system, confront it, and hope to change it. You can sit around exchanging emails about corporations, or you can create Greenpeace UK and the McSpotlight website. Youc an cause McDonalds millions of dollars. You can throw a brick through McDonalds windows and thus inform the world that there are people around who are angry abou McDonalds and capitalism. Americans are indoctrinated into thinking that you can't fight City Hall. Our first job is to show people that you can fight City Hall and win.
The post-Seattle anti-globalization movement is a perfect example of how something bigger happens because people were organizing around smaller issues which then snowballed into Seattle, Quebec City and so on. These big summit protests then help local organizing. People have a collective experience at a summit convergence, get inspired, and go home and organize. The summit protests put activists in the spotlight, which bring more people into the movement.
The post-Seattle movement got lots of people interested in anarchism. We got lots of media attention. I've been going through my email archive from 2000-2001 and have been struck at how many emails Infoshop was getting from people who wanted to learn more about anarchism.
I think that you also build a movement by building infrastructure and counterculture. My work with infoshops is part of my strategy to build up radical infrastructure around the U.S. This is important because social movements depend on these counter-institutions. If you look at the radical labor movement in the U.S. of the early 20th century, you'll notice that it was grounded in a network of labor halls, community centers, summer camps, schools, and so on. These social spaces existed in part because of the immigrant working class communities, but this stuff was very vital to those social movements.
A social center such as an infoshop or radical bookstore provides space for activist groups to meet. It provides a nexus for politicized people to meet each other and go off to form new groups and projects. They provide a crucial role in supporting radical political education. They provide venues for political speakers. They provide radical books and magazines. Counter-institutions may not be the revolution, but they provide a bigger soapbox for the movement.
I could talk about how widespread anarchism is these days around the U.S. Our numbers may be really small, but we have a presence in most cities and towns. Tonight there was some news about a Food Not Bombs that is feeding people in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Last weekend Crimethinc had a convention in Athens, Ohio. I attended anarchist bookfairs this year in San Francisco and New York. When I decided to go to NYC in April, I had to pass on anarchist conferences in Toledo, Ohio and Columbia, Missouri that same weekend.
It looks like I'll miss the Anarchism and Christianity conference this coming weekend in Dubuque, Iowa.
Or we could talk about how the anarchist movement keeps me busy. I am, more or less, a full time anarchist organizer. The pay really sucks, but I like the work. I've already talked about my work with the Crossroads Infoshop, which has kept me very busy this summer. Much of my time is spent on keeping Infoshop.org running. That website has been in operation since 1995. Our traffic is as busy then ever and we are talking about adding servers to handle the traffic. Last month we had over 100,000 unique visitors, which is pretty damn good for the summer months. I'm pretty busy with editing updates to Infoshop News, doing technical support, developing new services, adding new content, and communicating with collective members and readers of the site.
From where I sit this morning, I see plenty of reasons for optimism.
Of course, I'd love to see the movements get larger. That will take lots of hard work and patience. I think that American Left is more capable of effecting radical change than they think. The problem is that most of our comrades have been scared into not doing anything (mostly our fault, not Bush's) while others pay too much to the naysayers who dominate our political circles.
I think we should give ourselves more credit than we do.
Are you off that boat yet?
Chuck