an anti-war movement is about getting other people to do certain things in the context of a social movement. the focus isn't politicians. the anti-war movement or the free tuition movement or a prison reform movement is directed at government. the party ostensibly in power is irrelevant to its existence and its goals.
but ultimately, and this is where you and i differ, is that engagement in political PRAXIS (not activistism) is the point. these movements, whatever they are, for they could be very focused on local issues such as housing or creating alternatives to unemployment lines for the unemployed (cf Ehrenreich in Bait and Switch), are what needs to be continually sustained.
so, what i look for if i'm going to go out and support groups expressing "the struggles and wishes of the age" is not going to be groups that nourish passivity in the form of stuffing bills in piggy banks or signing internet petitions or holding episodic candlelight vigils. i'm going to look for groups expressing the struggles and wishes of the age because they engage people in political PRAXIS where people build a social movement infrastructure. peoplein these groups are learning how to organize by doing (to me) really simple stuff: organize a phone bank, figure out how to write good propaganda (marketing with its "call to action" in business lingo), run a meeting, plan - not just the small stuff, but to hook it into a big picture vision, learn how to achieve small goals and successes, in order to sustain the group through what will be a long, tough slog, etc. etc.
These are very concrete examples of what I mean by a social movement infrastructure. And they reason why I think they're important is because of my experience in a struggle against a radioactive waste dump siting in upstate NY. the reason why this sleepy rather apolitical town, which seemed really conservative, could rise up and fend it off was because there was this organizing infrastructure built around religious groups, women's groups, quilting circles, etc. these people knew how to get shit done: raise money, mobilize people, etc. so when we needed to fight NYS on the radioactive waste dump, it wasn't hard to get anything going: we just built on this already existing infrastructure of netowrking, communication, leadership, administration, etc.
so, no one's going to storm anything any time soon. but when the conditions are ripe for such, we'll have invested our human and social capital into organizations that create social movement infrastructures, foster political PRAXIS, and create alternative spaces where people have cultivated the skills needed for theory to inform PRAXIS and PRAXIS to inform theory.
>>the reason why the religious right can exercise the power it does is
>>because those folks *are* perfectly willing to skip voting if they have
>>to. they have a history of retreating to their holes and waiting for the
>>end times or the end of their days. whatever. they have been very
>>apolitical at times. that's a threat for the republicans because that
>>retreat to an apolitical stance erodes their base. hamsher doesn't have
>>same kind of threat and doesn't intend to cultivate it.
>
>This is totally garbled. The religious right *used* to skip voting.
exactly. it's a threat. they have a history. they have a vision of the world where the only answer to the world's problems isn't to influence who's in office. they have a *project* that unites them, that can solidify them, that has ZIPPO to do with politics, conventionally understood. they dump their money into creating a social movement infrastructure that cultivates people with the skills to sustain that social movement over the long haul. when unemployment is a problem, they create faith-based help for the unemployed. when families can't find affordable quality daycare, they create daycare facilities and summer camps. when there's a high divorce rate, they create affordable couples counseling. when there's a domestic violence problem in their community, they create shelters and counseling centers. the list goes on.
i'm not advocating an anarchist-based approach to trying to build some alternative society per se. I'm talking about the way they create social movement skills amongst their followers: they teach people how to get shit done. and when they need to mobilize people in the service of conventional politics, they have people who know how to do it. they know how to get shit done.
>The result was that Governor Reagan liberalized California's abortion
>laws, the Republican Party platform would endorse the ERA every four
>years, and nobody listened to the religious right. Sure, religious right
>leaders sometimes threaten Republicans with the specter of low fundie
>turnout if the GOP betrays the cause, but they never actually end up
>calling for a boycott. At worst they sponsor primary challenges against
>sell-out Republicans. That's exactly what the Hamshers of the world do to
>the Democrats. (The standard refrain on her website goes: The Dems lost
>the 1994 midterms because Clinton sold out the base with NAFTA.)
>
>There's no reason to be uncritical about Hamsher, though. There's a lot of
>activistism on that website. They don't seem to spend a lot of time thinking.
>
>SA
well, that's not saying much. we don't spend a lot of time thinking email lists or blogs. they're not exactly conducive to thinking or theorizing in general, so i hardly hold that against them.
we have very different understandings of what the problem is to begin with. I'm a marxist, you're not. too bad we don't agree but i don't think it matters much.
why do you need anyone's approval to just go out there, ally with Jane, and get shit done? why does it even need to be discussed? you want to do it; do it. i'd say that doing it and being successful at it would be more of an argument than any discussion on an email list *about* whether it should be done or not.
shag
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)