r0ms
8th August 2009, 22:08
This was originally posted on StealThisWiki, but I feel that it is relevant to post here as well. Hopefully the Politics forum is the correct place for this, but if not, I apologize and I would appreciate it if a moderator moved it to the correct forum.
WARNING: This post contains lots of words.
If you have a short attention span, or plan on posting without reading the thread, please consider not posting at all. I would rather not see several pages of "tl;dr" posts, so I'm warning you ahead of time.
DISCLAIMER: Some of this is directed toward the STW forum and may have little to no relevance here, hopefully those parts are obvious.
We all consider ourselves radicals in word or deed. Of that I have no doubt. Many people who are sick of the current state of things have grown even sicker with the rise of the right wing nutjobs at town hall meetings that are meant to discuss healthcare, and sicker at how the supposedly left-wing media is handling it. This is the most partisan Amerika has ever been in its 232 year history, and it will only get worse.
Some of us are Anarchists. Others, Communists, Socialists, liberal Democrats and some Republicans. We come from all walks of life and from all corners of the globe. Whatever the case may be, we are united by a sense that something is fundamentally wrong with the world that we have walked into, and we are trying to do whatever it takes to correct it. Abbie Hoffman, the man whose book we are re-writing for the digital generation, saw this before anyone else. He took his own life. We must respect Hoffman's goal, because in a very real sense we are furthering it along.
Rom, one of the members of the board here, tried mightily to start a student group at his school. It has today failed, only days before the official start of the school year.
I have seen my family torn apart because of a corrupt system that aims to further along the top one percent of the population and leave behind the proles to fend for themselves.
So here's what we should do. Because clearly being a "radical" isn't working. Not in the classical sense. Rather, we should aim to be ... rational. The only way to change the current system is to be more rational than the rest of the diseased population we are, unfortunately, a part of. We can still subscribe to our individual beliefs, but if there is a way to make Anarcho-Primitivism (just an example) look plausible, we should find that way.
It's time to man up. To do more than post on a website, to throw around insults in an echo chamber.
I'm sorry for ignoring the usual levity of the board, but I'm so far over it, I feel like usurping everything and disappearing myself.
I agree, particularly about the general atmosphere on this board. I joined here to find camaraderie amongst like-minded radicals, a place to discuss and organize to create actual change. What I found was a shockingly cliché forum environment: a bunch of people starting irrelevant and shallow discussions, interrupted occasionally by trolls that initiate brief, arbitrary arguments over the nuances of our ideologies.
Maybe this is the wrong forum to be asking for this on, but there must be somewhere for us to find a group of people that are actually going to meet up and make change happen. This board, thus far, has helped me only indirectly by introducing me to AgentOrange, who I now consider a friend and political ally, but we are not enough. Alone we can not change things. Alone we try to organize and our failures result in increased hatred (if not on his part, certainly on mine) for our fellow people and serious depression and hopelessness. And the worst part is seeing people that agree with us in theory demonstrating the kind of behavior that we all supposedly hate: apathy, complacency.
Social activism is difficult, it requires a lot of time and a lot of effort, often for very small victories. Frequently it is disappointing and intimidating, but we can not back down from this because it is the harder path to take. All too often I see potential revolutionaries crippled by their comfort, pacified by their hopelessness. I don't know what the solution is, but I know we're not going to find it by having shallow political arguments online, or at sleepovers with friends. We are not going to overthrow a corrupt system with our talk. But that's part of the problem with revolutionaries, at least anywhere I've been, they talk too much and do too little. And when you try to excite those revolutionaries and get them outside to fight for what they talk about, they back out, they see no chance of success. Often they will even criticize you for being so gung-ho about activism, treating you as if you were less of an intellectual because you want to be on the front lines.
And maybe this isn't the forum to discuss this on. I've seen a lot of elitism here, and as AgentOrange has said before, that is exactly the way to exclude potential revolutionaries, and to be honest, we have way too little support to be excluding people. We need to be rational, in the sense that we need to be outside, talking to people, explaining our message, organizing with others, and inspiring others to organize. It may seem like a small step, but we have to build up a web of support before we can pull off any kind of action. It's what the SDS is doing right now around the nation, trying to create a welcoming image of professionalism to attract as many people as possible. Then when we have support, we can start causing real change. SDSers in Olympia blocked Striker vehicles from being shipped to Iraq for two weeks. This is a small action by a small group of people, but imagine if people around the nation were doing things like that.
Change can happen, but you can't trust other people to organize for you. You need to be the one to speak out in your community. Call it cliché, but you be the change. Most of us here, that have attempted in some form or another to organize and inspire, know that people are followers. If you've ever been in a leadership position you know this, and it is true even amongst intellectuals and radicals. Being a leader doesn't mean exploiting others or oppressing them, it means constantly reaching out and helping them feel comfortable to organize and be active as well. It takes a lot of effort and time, but you must be calling people, talking to people, and meeting with people frequently, always working to expand your base. Even if you're insecure about your knowledge on the subject, or you don't trust yourself to eloquently explain your position to people. Most of the time, the person that wins the crowd is not the more knowledgeable, it's the one that creates an inspiring and relevant image.
I hope, at least, that this isn't because people are incapable of being leaders, but rather because everyday they are taught, through peer pressure, through school, through their parents, to be submissive, conformist people. It takes an exceptional person to lead and go against these institutions, which is why so few are speaking out. We need to have a message that is appealing to the average person, in some cases, the average student, and we need to have an image that fits that as well. Having a red mohawk, wearing the Anarchist Circle A, and generally looking counterculture is not going to appeal to many people because it is, by definition, counterculture. I'm not saying I'm not guilty of this myself, I know that my clothing choices are often eccentric and unusual, but there's no denying that it hurts my cause.
It's much easier for the establishment to corner us and trash our movement if we all look unusual. "They're just extremists, radicals, communists," whatever they call us, being categorized or generalized is never a good thing. It excludes potential supporters that are more moderate and insecure. The reason the political parties succeed where we fail is because they play by the rules of the game. They appeal to people in a socially acceptable, conformist way. We may not like it, but we might as well accept that people pay more attention to socially acceptable things. So when AgentOrange says we need to be rational, from my interpretation he doesn't mean we need to abandon our ideologies or give up the fight. He means that we need to work to make our message mainstream, to include as many people as we possibly can. Fringe groups don't get what they want. We need to understand what messages work and how to include other people.
For RevLeft specifically, I read a thread recently about the Zeitgeist Movement, and most of the people argued that it was just Communism with a different name. I have to say that I was more than disappointed reading that thread. The kind of exclusive, elitist perspective that I saw is exactly why we aren't appealing to more people. We shouldn't be criticizing those people, we should be applauding them, and incorporating them. Communism has been demonized in almost every society in some form by the established hierarchy. The name is not what matters, it's the message. We should be working with those people, not excluding them and criticizing them.
WARNING: This post contains lots of words.
If you have a short attention span, or plan on posting without reading the thread, please consider not posting at all. I would rather not see several pages of "tl;dr" posts, so I'm warning you ahead of time.
DISCLAIMER: Some of this is directed toward the STW forum and may have little to no relevance here, hopefully those parts are obvious.
We all consider ourselves radicals in word or deed. Of that I have no doubt. Many people who are sick of the current state of things have grown even sicker with the rise of the right wing nutjobs at town hall meetings that are meant to discuss healthcare, and sicker at how the supposedly left-wing media is handling it. This is the most partisan Amerika has ever been in its 232 year history, and it will only get worse.
Some of us are Anarchists. Others, Communists, Socialists, liberal Democrats and some Republicans. We come from all walks of life and from all corners of the globe. Whatever the case may be, we are united by a sense that something is fundamentally wrong with the world that we have walked into, and we are trying to do whatever it takes to correct it. Abbie Hoffman, the man whose book we are re-writing for the digital generation, saw this before anyone else. He took his own life. We must respect Hoffman's goal, because in a very real sense we are furthering it along.
Rom, one of the members of the board here, tried mightily to start a student group at his school. It has today failed, only days before the official start of the school year.
I have seen my family torn apart because of a corrupt system that aims to further along the top one percent of the population and leave behind the proles to fend for themselves.
So here's what we should do. Because clearly being a "radical" isn't working. Not in the classical sense. Rather, we should aim to be ... rational. The only way to change the current system is to be more rational than the rest of the diseased population we are, unfortunately, a part of. We can still subscribe to our individual beliefs, but if there is a way to make Anarcho-Primitivism (just an example) look plausible, we should find that way.
It's time to man up. To do more than post on a website, to throw around insults in an echo chamber.
I'm sorry for ignoring the usual levity of the board, but I'm so far over it, I feel like usurping everything and disappearing myself.
I agree, particularly about the general atmosphere on this board. I joined here to find camaraderie amongst like-minded radicals, a place to discuss and organize to create actual change. What I found was a shockingly cliché forum environment: a bunch of people starting irrelevant and shallow discussions, interrupted occasionally by trolls that initiate brief, arbitrary arguments over the nuances of our ideologies.
Maybe this is the wrong forum to be asking for this on, but there must be somewhere for us to find a group of people that are actually going to meet up and make change happen. This board, thus far, has helped me only indirectly by introducing me to AgentOrange, who I now consider a friend and political ally, but we are not enough. Alone we can not change things. Alone we try to organize and our failures result in increased hatred (if not on his part, certainly on mine) for our fellow people and serious depression and hopelessness. And the worst part is seeing people that agree with us in theory demonstrating the kind of behavior that we all supposedly hate: apathy, complacency.
Social activism is difficult, it requires a lot of time and a lot of effort, often for very small victories. Frequently it is disappointing and intimidating, but we can not back down from this because it is the harder path to take. All too often I see potential revolutionaries crippled by their comfort, pacified by their hopelessness. I don't know what the solution is, but I know we're not going to find it by having shallow political arguments online, or at sleepovers with friends. We are not going to overthrow a corrupt system with our talk. But that's part of the problem with revolutionaries, at least anywhere I've been, they talk too much and do too little. And when you try to excite those revolutionaries and get them outside to fight for what they talk about, they back out, they see no chance of success. Often they will even criticize you for being so gung-ho about activism, treating you as if you were less of an intellectual because you want to be on the front lines.
And maybe this isn't the forum to discuss this on. I've seen a lot of elitism here, and as AgentOrange has said before, that is exactly the way to exclude potential revolutionaries, and to be honest, we have way too little support to be excluding people. We need to be rational, in the sense that we need to be outside, talking to people, explaining our message, organizing with others, and inspiring others to organize. It may seem like a small step, but we have to build up a web of support before we can pull off any kind of action. It's what the SDS is doing right now around the nation, trying to create a welcoming image of professionalism to attract as many people as possible. Then when we have support, we can start causing real change. SDSers in Olympia blocked Striker vehicles from being shipped to Iraq for two weeks. This is a small action by a small group of people, but imagine if people around the nation were doing things like that.
Change can happen, but you can't trust other people to organize for you. You need to be the one to speak out in your community. Call it cliché, but you be the change. Most of us here, that have attempted in some form or another to organize and inspire, know that people are followers. If you've ever been in a leadership position you know this, and it is true even amongst intellectuals and radicals. Being a leader doesn't mean exploiting others or oppressing them, it means constantly reaching out and helping them feel comfortable to organize and be active as well. It takes a lot of effort and time, but you must be calling people, talking to people, and meeting with people frequently, always working to expand your base. Even if you're insecure about your knowledge on the subject, or you don't trust yourself to eloquently explain your position to people. Most of the time, the person that wins the crowd is not the more knowledgeable, it's the one that creates an inspiring and relevant image.
I hope, at least, that this isn't because people are incapable of being leaders, but rather because everyday they are taught, through peer pressure, through school, through their parents, to be submissive, conformist people. It takes an exceptional person to lead and go against these institutions, which is why so few are speaking out. We need to have a message that is appealing to the average person, in some cases, the average student, and we need to have an image that fits that as well. Having a red mohawk, wearing the Anarchist Circle A, and generally looking counterculture is not going to appeal to many people because it is, by definition, counterculture. I'm not saying I'm not guilty of this myself, I know that my clothing choices are often eccentric and unusual, but there's no denying that it hurts my cause.
It's much easier for the establishment to corner us and trash our movement if we all look unusual. "They're just extremists, radicals, communists," whatever they call us, being categorized or generalized is never a good thing. It excludes potential supporters that are more moderate and insecure. The reason the political parties succeed where we fail is because they play by the rules of the game. They appeal to people in a socially acceptable, conformist way. We may not like it, but we might as well accept that people pay more attention to socially acceptable things. So when AgentOrange says we need to be rational, from my interpretation he doesn't mean we need to abandon our ideologies or give up the fight. He means that we need to work to make our message mainstream, to include as many people as we possibly can. Fringe groups don't get what they want. We need to understand what messages work and how to include other people.
For RevLeft specifically, I read a thread recently about the Zeitgeist Movement, and most of the people argued that it was just Communism with a different name. I have to say that I was more than disappointed reading that thread. The kind of exclusive, elitist perspective that I saw is exactly why we aren't appealing to more people. We shouldn't be criticizing those people, we should be applauding them, and incorporating them. Communism has been demonized in almost every society in some form by the established hierarchy. The name is not what matters, it's the message. We should be working with those people, not excluding them and criticizing them.