Community action

[Mack MacHeath]

I would like to organize localy, and would like a source for opinions and advice to help me from common pitfalls/ burning myself out withou accomplishing anything. The time is excellent for workers(many who may be out of work ) to organize and make their voices heard. My ideas are currently underdeveloped so help me flesh them out. What i would like to do is start with a group of 5-10 and build a local commuity/commune from there while developing a model that is functional anywhere in the us/1st world?

[Omegared]

What are some common problems in your area?

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Hopefully this should be of some use: http://libcom.org/organise/community-organising

[RED DAVE]

I would like to organize localy, and would like a source for opinions and advice to help me from common pitfalls/ burning myself out withou accomplishing anything. The time is excellent for workers(many who may be out of work ) to organize and make their voices heard. My ideas are currently underdeveloped so help me flesh them out. What i would like to do is start with a group of 5-10 and build a local commuity/commune from there while developing a model that is functional anywhere in the us/1st world?In my experience, and in the general experience of the Left in the US and other major industrial countries, community organizing is a waste of time politically. People, good leftists, petit-bourgeois radicals, liberals, etc., spent a tremendous amount of time and energy doing this kind of work in the 60s and 70s. The results were nil. What you end up doing is social work, which the bourgeois state can do much better than you can.

You do not end up either radicalizing workers or recruiting to revolutionary organizations.

I suggest that you get involved in support work for a local union, union rank-and-file group or unemployed organizing. This will involve you in working with the working class as a class. I don't mean to be harsh, but bitter experience shows that this kind of work is a sure path to burnout or to activities that are nonpolitical. At very least, work in the antiwar movement or something like that.

RED DAVE

[Cooler Reds Will Prevail]

In my experience, and in the general experience of the Left in the US and other major industrial countries, community organizing is a waste of time politically. People, good leftists, petit-bourgeois radicals, liberals, etc., spent a tremendous amount of time and energy doing this kind of work in the 60s and 70s. The results were nil. What you end up doing is social work, which the bourgeois state can do much better than you can.

You do not end up either radicalizing workers or recruiting to revolutionary organizations.

I suggest that you get involved in support work for a local union, union rank-and-file group or unemployed organizing. This will involve you in working with the working class as a class. I don't mean to be harsh, but bitter experience shows that this kind of work is a sure path to burnout or to activities that are nonpolitical. At very least, work in the antiwar movement or something like that.

RED DAVE

How is community work nonpolitical?

And it's a little hypocritical to criticize groups that do this kind of work for not having accomplished anything when far more people in the US have been radicalized around community oriented programs than because leftists have joined up with local unions or done support work for them. I'm not suggesting that this type of work doesn't have a place (because it absolutely does), but don't call the kettle black.

[RED DAVE]

In my experience, and in the general experience of the Left in the US and other major industrial countries, community organizing is a waste of time politically. People, good leftists, petit-bourgeois radicals, liberals, etc., spent a tremendous amount of time and energy doing this kind of work in the 60s and 70s. The results were nil. What you end up doing is social work, which the bourgeois state can do much better than you can.

You do not end up either radicalizing workers or recruiting to revolutionary organizations.

I suggest that you get involved in support work for a local union, union rank-and-file group or unemployed organizing. This will involve you in working with the working class as a class. I don't mean to be harsh, but bitter experience shows that this kind of work is a sure path to burnout or to activities that are nonpolitical. At very least, work in the antiwar movement or something like that.
How is community work nonpolitical?I didn't say it wasn't political. I said that, despite appearances, it isn't political in the way that Marxists are accustomed to thinking of revolutionary politics. And it leads to disillusionment and burn out.


And it's a little hypocritical to criticize groups that do this kind of work for not having accomplished anything when far more people in the US have been radicalized around community oriented programs than because leftists have joined up with local unions or done support work for them.You will have to document the fact that more people have been radicalized by community programs than union work. In fact, in my experience, most people who have been radicalized were so moved by participation in noncommunity work such a the antiwar movement.


I'm not suggesting that this type of work doesn't have a place (because it absolutely does), but don't call the kettle black.Are you saying that you think that union work has its place or community work has its place? you're not being clear.

RED DAVE

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Are you saying that you think that union work has its place or community work has its place? you're not being clear.

RED DAVE
He was saying that union work has its place, which it does. FYI, probably the greatest clear-cut victory for the working class in the UK in the last few decades was the poll tax campaign, which was based around communities and originally written off by leftists who thought it couldn't go anywhere because it wasn't workplace based.

[RED DAVE]

Are you saying that you think that union work has its place or community work has its place? you're not being clear.
He was saying that union work has its place, which it does.Nice of you guys to admit it.


FYI, probably the greatest clear-cut victory for the working class in the UK in the last few decades was the poll tax campaign, which was based around communities and originally written off by leftists who thought it couldn't go anywhere because it wasn't workplace based. Never said that such activitycouldn't be worthwhile, but to build a Marxist party based on such actions is impossible and it would be foolish to try.

By the way, of the groups that participated in this anti-poll tax struggle, what happened to them after the campaign was voer? Was there any follow-up, organization or party building or ongoing groups that carried on after it was over?

RED DAVE

[Tablo]

I don't think he necessarily wants to build some political party of Marxist orientation. I think he simply wants to help build class consciousness through community organizing.

[RED DAVE]

I don't think he necessarily wants to build some political party of Marxist orientation. I think he simply wants to help build class consciousness through community organizing.Again, my experience is that this is virtually impossible to do. The anti-poll tax movement had an issue handed to them by the government. And while there was a victory, there is no indication that there was an increase in class consciousness.

While the loathsome Margaret Thatcher did lose the prime ministership after the "anti-poll tax riots," another Conservative, John Major, replaced her. He backpedaled on the poll tax but instituted, instead, a so-called council tax, which has also been criticized as being regressive. So what, in reality, was gained by this alleged community organizing effort, either in terms of reform or organizing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_Tax_Riots
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_Tax

RED DAVE

[Tablo]

Again, my experience is that this is virtually impossible to do. The anti-poll tax movement had an issue handed to them by the government. And while there was a victory, there is no indication that there was an increase in class consciousness.

While the loathsome Margaret Thatcher did lose the prime ministership after the "anti-poll tax riots," another Conservative, John Major, replaced her. He backpedaled on the poll tax but instituted, instead, a so-called council tax, which has also been criticized as being regressive. So what, in reality, was gained by this alleged community organizing effort, either in terms of reform or organizing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_Tax_Riots
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_Tax

RED DAVE
I know what you are saying, but class consciousness has been built without that type of political organizing. Atm it is difficult to do with such massive propaganda by the state though...

[ls]

Again, my experience is that this is virtually impossible to do. The anti-poll tax movement had an issue handed to them by the government. And while there was a victory, there is no indication that there was an increase in class consciousness.

While the loathsome Margaret Thatcher did lose the prime ministership after the "anti-poll tax riots," another Conservative, John Major, replaced her. He backpedaled on the poll tax but instituted, instead, a so-called council tax, which has also been criticized as being regressive. So what, in reality, was gained by this alleged community organizing effort, either in terms of reform or organizing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_Tax_Riots
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_Tax

RED DAVE

Sorry RD, but you failed to mention the mass non-payment campaign on top of those significantly powerful events. The combination of all of these and the ousting of that Thatcher government was a clear result of class-struggle and it definitely increased class consciousness at a time when the working-class of this country was at its most defeated, it is still recovering in many ways.

It's just plain incorrect to say that events like these "do not raise class-consciousness", in addition you and your cadre seem to often criticise others for economism when it comes to pure workers' struggles so it's as if there's no winning.....

[RED DAVE]

Sorry RD, but you failed to mention the mass non-payment campaign on top of those significantly powerful events. The combination of all of these and the ousting of that Thatcher government was a clear result of class-struggle and it definitely increased class consciousness at a time when the working-class of this country was at its most defeated, it is still recovering in many ways.

It's just plain incorrect to say that events like these "do not raise class-consciousness", in addition you and your cadre seem to often criticise others for economism when it comes to pure workers' struggles so it's as if there's no winning.....I guess i come acrss too strong when it comes to community organizing, and in the US it has a different quality than, say, in GB.

When I speak of community organizing, the model is a group of leftists opening a store front or an office to "work with" or "serve" the community in primarily locally-based issues such as rent, community improvements, social services, etc. This was a massive focus of left-wing work in the 60s and 70s. Perhaps the most famous efforts in this regard were the ERAP Project in New Jersey, led by Tom Hayden and other early SDSers, the rent strikes in New York led by various civil rights organizations (I was heavily involved) and the efforts of the Panthers.

My point is that none of these efforts had any effect on the pace of radicalism or class consciousness. People were burned out through these efforts. And the Panthers became the target for government repression.

Groups repeating this kind of effort today are going on emotion not politics. All they have to do is research history and see what happened. And there is no reason, based on the nature of class power in the US, that there would be any other result.

RED DAVE

[The Ungovernable Farce]

I guess i come acrss too strong when it comes to community organizing, and in the US it has a different quality than, say, in GB.

When I speak of community organizing, the model is a group of leftists opening a store front or an office to "work with" or "serve" the community in primarily locally-based issues such as rent, community improvements, social services, etc. This was a massive focus of left-wing work in the 60s and 70s. Perhaps the most famous efforts in this regard were the ERAP Project in New Jersey, led by Tom Hayden and other early SDSers, the rent strikes in New York led by various civil rights organizations (I was heavily involved) and the efforts of the Panthers.

My point is that none of these efforts had any effect on the pace of radicalism or class consciousness. People were burned out through these efforts. And the Panthers became the target for government repression.

Groups repeating this kind of effort today are going on emotion not politics. All they have to do is research history and see what happened. And there is no reason, based on the nature of class power in the US, that there would be any other result.

I agree that community organising projects by activists, especially ones who don't already have a genuine pre-existing link to that community, have a very high failure and burn-out rate. I also think that workplace organising projects by activists, especially ones who don't already have a genuine pre-existing link to that workplace, have a very high failure and burn-out rate. This doesn't mean that workplace organising is a doomed project that should be abandoned, it just means that class struggle is hard. Would you claim, for instance, that the occupation of Lewisham Bridge primary school (http://libcom.org/news/lewisham-bridge-school-occupation-24042009) (which later resulted in a victory (http://libcom.org/news/lewisham-bridge-school-heritage-listing-upheld-01082009)) didn't do anything to advance class consciousness? Struggles that don't go beyond the immediate interests of a particular section of the working class are limited (although important), and can even turn into reactionary struggles to protect the relative privileges of one group of workers, as with nationalist campaigns against migrant workers; community action is one way that solidarity can spread so that the struggle is less about the interests of one particular section and more obviously in the interests of the class as a whole. I think that's pretty important.

[bcbm]

In my experience, and in the general experience of the Left in the US and other major industrial countries, community organizing is a waste of time politically.i think its strange that because an organizing tactic didn't work as well as expected at one time, in one context, it is being dismissed as a total failure. in some places (http://libcom.org/library/take-over-city-italy-1972-lotta-continua) community organizing was quite successful. there's no reason it couldn't be successful again, especially in the us as the number of foreclosures continue to rise and our lives outside of the workplace come under increasing attack. even stranger is to recommend "support work for a local union, union rank-and-file group or unemployed organizing," to avoid "burnout or ... activities that are nonpolitical," as though union rank and file work has been wildly more successful in radicalizing the working class in the us, doesn't lead to burnout like other forms of activism and doesn't ever involve nonpolitical activities? absurd.