Intersectional Or It's BS: Rolling Activism/Organizing/Social Movements Thread

i still get emails from the riseup listserv for an anarchist group in the neighborhood/city i used to live in, can't bring myself to unsubscribe for some reason even thought it's 95% 'i dumpstered too much food come take some off my hands' and 'pigs at the metro' + the occasional flameout

everyone in the core group is coming out of the world of student/university organizing work--people's ideas of what constitutes things like media outreach and direct action are very different from one another.

i'd be interested to hear more about this

― ♪♫_\o/_♫♪ (Karl Malone), Wednesday, January 14, 2015 7:12 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh I guess I just mean that their idea of direct action sort of ~isn't~ direct action--it's just become the term they use for any kind of protest, as opposed to the more specific "lay your bodies on the gears/literally stopping The Bad Stuff from happening" meaning direct action is really supposed to convey. In initial drafts of our outreach stuff they kept referring to the march we were planning as 'taking direct action,' so I tried to narrow their sense of it a little bit.

The differences in how to do media outreach I think mostly just stem from that they're used to working in the closed-world of the campus--they call their friend at the school paper, a reporter shows up. They're less used to having to compete for the assignment desk's attention, or trying to build relationships with reporters over a longer timeline.

like is conflict and then resolution ever productive even if some (me) are interested in that and get a kind of subconscious conditioned kick out of it or is it "actually" part of the problem

― languagelessness (mattresslessness), Wednesday, January 14, 2015 7:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean i sorta think "allies" or cheerleaders or what have you are the people most needed for these kinds of moments--like its sort of our responsibility to show up and Actually someone. i heard an anarcho slogan a while back that stuck with me--"solidarity means attack." by extension i think solidarity also means stepping up and engaging people who are attacking our side.

Perversely that can be hard to do, bc as a non-member of an affected population, it's delicate to defend the rights of marginalized ppl that you aren't one of. It means being a really good listener, I think, and knowing that you won't please everyone but you also can't get comfortable with your position--it should feel worrisome all the time, I think!

But I do aggree that in power analysis, like "Who has the strength and can be effective?", it makes sense for allies to engage w attacks. It also spares the energy of the marginalized group that is under attack all the time--it's just the humane thing to do.

Last night the core group was having a meeting to plan the agenda for our Next Steps meeting ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, and more than once from the group founder expressed a real reluctance to use words like "working group," explicitly said "I don't want this to be a Process meeting," and eventually it came out that they wanted to avoid all the trappings that have been associated with Occupy because "that was 4 years ago, and a lot of people our age and younger think of that as the failed movement of the past that got bogged down in endless meetings."

It also spares the energy of the marginalized group that is under attack all the time--it's just the humane thing to do.

― Orson Wellies (in orbit), Thursday, January 15, 2015 4:45 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

right, like, every now and again i'll get this sense of like "wow defending against this nonsense all the time is EXHAUSTING" and then another voice in my head says "you're exhausted? try having to do this every day for life"

This is a from Bill Moyer's "Movement Action Plan," which I was reading on the train this morning. It's a framework he came up with in the mid-80s to identify the 8 stages social movements go through on their way to victory, with examples from around the world throughout the late 20th century.

The connections it made to what I saw going through OWS kept giving me goosebumps ("Stage 4 begins with a highly publicized, shocking incident, a "trigger event", followed by a nonviolent action campaign that includes large rallies and dramatic civil disobedience. Soon these are repeated in local communities around the country.")

This is a long quote from his section on Stage 5 that I wish I'd read 3 years ago:

After a year or two, the high hopes of movement take-off seems inevitably to turn into despair. Most activists lose their faith that success is just around the corner and come to believe that it is never going to happen. They perceive that the powerholders are too strong, their movement has failed, and their own efforts have been futile. Most surprising is the fact that this identity crisis of powerlessness and failure happens when the movement is outrageously successful—when the movement has just achieved all of the goals of the take-off stage within two years. This stage of feelings of self-identity crisis and powerlessness occurs simultaneously with Stage Six because the movement as a whole has progressed to the majority stage.

Many activists conclude that their movement is failing because they believe that:
- The movement has not achieved its goals. After two years of hard effort, which included big demonstrations, dramatic civil disobedience, arrests, court scenes and even time in jail, media attention, and even winning a majority of public opinion against the powerholders' policies, the movement has not achieved any of its goals. The problem, however, is not that the movement has failed to achieve its goals, but that expectations that its goal could possibly be achieved in such a short time were unrealistic. Achieving changes in public policies in the face of determined opposition of the powerholders takes time, often decades. The movement, therefore should be judged not by whether it has won yet, but by how well it is progressing along the road of success.

- The movement has not had any "real" victories. This view is unable to accept the progress that the movement has made along the road of success, such as creating a massive grassroots-based social movement, putting the issue on society's agenda, or winning a majority of public opinion. Ironically, involvement in the movement tends to reduce activists' ability to identify short-term successes. Through the movement, activists learn about the enormity of the problem, the agonizing suffering of the victims, and the complicity of powerholders. The intensity of this experience tends to increase despair and the unwillingness to accept any short-term success short of achieving ultimate goals.

- The movement no longer looks like the Take-Off stage. The image that most people have of successful social movement is that of the take-off stage—giant demonstrations, civil disobedience, media hype, crisis, and constant political theater—but this is always short-lived. Movements that are successful in take-off soon progress to the much more powerful but more sedate-appearing majority stage, as described in the next section. Although movements in the majority stage appear to be smaller and less effective as they move from a national to local focus, and from mass actions to less visible grassroots organizing, they actually undergo enormous growth in size and power. The power of the invisible grassroots provide the power of national social movements.

- The powerholders and mass media report that the movement is dead, irrelevant, or non-existent. The powerholders and mass media not only report that the movement is failing, but they also refuse to acknowledge that a massive popular movement exists. Large demonstrations and majority public opposition are dismissed as "vaguely reminiscent of the Sixties", rather than recognized as social movements at least as big and relevant as those 20 years ago. And when movements do succeed, they are not given credit. The demise of nuclear energy is said to be caused by cost overruns, high lending rates, lack of safety, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, rather than from the political and public opposition created by the people power.

Battle Fatigue
By the end of take-off, many activists suffer from "battle fatigue". After two years of virtual 'round-the-clock activity in a crisis atmosphere, at great personal sacrifice, many activists find themselves mentally and physically exhausted and don't see anything to show for it. Out of quilt or an extreme sense of urgency, many are unable to pace themselves with adequate rest, fun, leisure, and attendance to personal business. Eventually, large numbers of activists who were part of movement take-off lose hope and a sense of purpose; they become depressed, burn out, and drop out.

Stuck in Protest
Another reason why many activists become depressed at this time is that they are unable to switch from protesting against authority in a crisis atmosphere to waging long-term struggle to achieve positive changes. Many activists are unable to switch their view of the process of success from one of mass demonstrations to that of winning the majority of public through long-term grassroots organizing. Consequently, being active in Stage Six feels like they are abandoning the movement. Another reason why many activists are unable to switch to Stage Six is that they do not have the knowledge or skills required to understand or participate in the majority stage. For example, nonviolence trainers play a critical leadership and teaching role during the take-off stage, but virtually disappear in the majority stage because they lack the understanding and skills to train activists to participate in this stage.

Rebelliousness, machismo, and more "militant" action and violence are some of the negative effects of feelings of despair and powerlessness. These efforts are often reckless and defiant acts of despair, frustration and rage, which stem from the collapse of unrealistic expectations that the movement should have achieved its goals within the first two years. The feelings of failure and exhaustion, the organizational crisis, the calls for militant actions, confusion, hopelessness, and powerlessness all contribute to widespread burnout among activists.

The movement needs to make deliberate effort to undercut this problem. First, it needs to reduce the feelings of despair and disempowerment by providing activists with a long term strategic framework which helps them realize that they are powerful and winning, not losing.

Organizational Crisis
The loose organizational model of the new wave local organizations begins to become a liability after six months. The loose structure promoted the flexibility, creativity, participatory democracy, independence, and solidarity needed for quick decisions and nonviolent actions during take-off. But after six months, the loose organizational structures tend to cause excessive inefficiency, participant burnout, and an informal hierarchy.

Some ways in which activists can overcome their identity crisis of disempowerment are the following:

- Use an analytic framework of successful social movements, such as MAP, to evaluate their movement, identify successes, and set strategy and tactics.
- Form personal/political support groups that enable activists to participate in movements as holistic human beings, take care of their personal needs, reduce guilt, have fun, and provide support (and challenge) in doing political analysis and work.

- Help activists evolve from protestors to long-term social change agents. Provide social change agent training, which includes not only nonviolence but all the skills for understanding and organizing successful social change movements.

Highly recommend the whole thing.

like just the frame he provides there for like, a militancy of despair, makes soooo much sense to me

"we haven't won yet and this problem is too big lets just fuck shit up"

yeah, been there, seen that

I mean the whole Green Scare thing can (also) be framed in those terms and make sense

exactly

thats what makes the sweep of this essay he wrote so impressive to me, that i'm getting all these resonances in stuff i've experienced and then he's like "just like the anti-nuke movement in 1979/the anti-Marcos protests in the Phillipines/the Vietnam anti-war movement" and i'm like oh right he wrote this 30 years ago

I'm going to run for office on a platform of not allowing elected officials to speak at ANY EVENT unless they're officially on the panel and taking questions. This thing where they come in late, get to speak right away, and then leave early and don't stay to hear people's questions or concerns (or any of the other speakers) is BULLSHIT.

That event tonight wasted my time when I could have been drinking with fellow activists. I resent that.

Machismo, militant violence etc....well, you wouldn't have that if you started with a real understanding of the Civil Rights Movement and actually studied non-violence and WHAT IT MEANS for change.

I'm floored that people would affiliate with ANY movement without putting some time into learning real NON-VIOLENCE, which is not just physical, it refers to attitudes and a sensitivity toward others.

Mandatory reading, esp. the part about "internal violence of spirit".

People who think there isn't enough work for them to do will find themselves busy once they think about violence of spirit and how much of it occurs every day. Violence of spirit is inescapable on the Internet, for example, and how do we combat that?

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-power-of-non-violence/

well, you wouldn't have that if you started with a real understanding of the Civil Rights Movement and actually studied non-violence and WHAT IT MEANS for change.

Think of how many people don't begin their activism and organizing work with study, as compared to those who do.

I do think we have a responsibility to learn about the history and structure of these movements, especially those of us who self consciously think of ourselves as doing organizing work as opposed to more passively participating--but imagining that everyone will do that, I think, sets the bar unrealistically high.

I'm floored that people would affiliate with ANY movement without putting some time into learning real NON-VIOLENCE, which is not just physical, it refers to attitudes and a sensitivity toward others.

― SCOTTISH PEOPLE ONLY (I M Losted), Friday, January 16, 2015 3:10 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And again--following the larger context of long-haul thinking that Moyer is talking about in the excerpt I quoted--I've seen (hell I've *been*) the transformation of someone from 100% studied nonviolence to thirsting for militant confrontation. That transformation didn't come from lack of study--I'd spent months reading Gandhi, King, and others in our tent library--it came from despair.

Like I'm not disagreeing with you by any means, Losted, I'm just saying that an incredulous reaction to despairing militancy seems itself to forget empathy.

I'm going to run for office on a platform of not allowing elected officials to speak at ANY EVENT unless they're officially on the panel and taking questions. This thing where they come in late, get to speak right away, and then leave early and don't stay to hear people's questions or concerns (or any of the other speakers) is BULLSHIT.

That event tonight wasted my time when I could have been drinking with fellow activists. I resent that.

― Orson Wellies (in orbit), Friday, January 16, 2015 2:51 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fuck this

same shit happened last night at a zoning meeting where as soon as the developers were done speaking a bunch of councilmemebers were like COOL PEACE

just a q - have any of you ever considered running for office? i know (believe me, I know) campaigns are deeply awful, but it's a logical next step isn't it?

I started thinking about it this spring after a couple of local radicals made legitimate non-long-shot runs at City Council seats.

I'd only want to run for a local office somewhere I really had organizing roots--I'm still laying those down here, and if I go anywhere else any time soon I'd be starting again.

(i say that to mean, i guess, that if i ever did it it'd still be a couple of decades of work away)

hey, you'd be surprised at what roots you already have -- i think a couple of decades is a long time to wait for public officials/decision-makers whose politics reflect a more inclusive/progressive/intersectional worldview :)

I don't think "despairing militancy" is necessarily spiritual violence, unless it causes you to objectify others or isolate yourself. I've been through "despairing militancy" wrt the environment but I take care not to judge others, I've just been radical about what and how I consume. Some may view that as confrontational, but in my heart It was not about that, it was about not wanting to expend energy and the fruit of my labor in a system that was violent to the earth.

Actually, I saw that word "militant" and knew it was problematic in lumping it with aggression, bullying, negativity. I think you can be militant without a prejudice toward others.

Machismo, militant violence etc....well, you wouldn't have that if you started with a real understanding of the Civil Rights Movement and actually studied non-violence and WHAT IT MEANS for change.

― SCOTTISH PEOPLE ONLY (I M Losted), Friday, January 16, 2015 10:10 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lets not be so glib, any study of the civil rights movement that includes its latter phase would also include a whole lot of people rejecting nonviolence

You misunderstand the Civil Rights Movement proper if you don't wrestle with the pesky concept of non-violence and what it means.

Also wrestling with the issue of armed self-defense is NOT the same thing as rejecting non-violence, nor is it a crucial of the most important and influential rights movement in history.

I'm not being glib, failing to pay regard to Dr. King and others is a serious mistake. This is NOT what the Black Panthers were about, though. They were upset about violent abuse of defenseless, ordinary black people - like youths and the elderly.

"a crucial" = "a criticism". Spellcheck is malfunctioning.

If I ran for office someone would be sure to dig up my bf's criminal past, so no. (I take your point but there are ppl much better qualified that I'd rather support to get my politics into power!)

I am also tooootally not interested in how transactional your relationships have to become in order to run for office--you have to mine the resources of every friend and family member you have, and look them straight in the eye while you do it. Let's say that at least at this point in my life I don't feel compelled to do that in order to work on my issues.

http://brooklynmovementcenter.org/post/art-losing-election/

The best politicians embody ideas, represent the will of many, and walk with humility. At the same time, political campaigns and elected offices are almost by definition narcissistic pursuits. Unlike other public service enterprises, a single personality is ultimately the raison d’être and focus of the apparatus that surrounds them. As a result, people running for office become captives of, as the Working Families Party’s’ Bill Lipton likes to call it, their own “candidate bubble,” an often detached universe in which you can lose touch with outside reality.
...
As you hunt for dollars, institutional support and individual votes, the relationships you develop on the campaign trail grow increasingly transactional. And unless you are the clear favorite, potential allies who have their own political capital at stake will hedge their bets against you. You could be sure of someone’s support one day, and catch a picture of him cuddling up to your opponent on Facebook the next.

I'm not ready for this, and may never be.

That's a great post.

yeah i hear that
i've seen the nature of public office change a lot in my lifetime and i know it's an unappealing prospect. i'm not sure your bf's criminal past would factor in, but i know very well how it can consume one's entire life/self/existence and how that would not be an appealing concept. i was just wondering.

I would be a bad activist bcz I would like to throw shit at 98% of politicians, on sight.

(tangentially, about 4 summers ago i had to suffer thru Chuck Schumer introducing Grizzly Bear)

City Councilman Big Hoos aka the Steendriver would be honored to be tomato'd by the Dr

speaking of militant despair someone reminded me of this dumb photo of me yesterday

http://i.imgur.com/UnOcrGx.png

Also wrestling with the issue of armed self-defense is NOT the same thing as rejecting non-violence, nor is it a crucial of the most important and influential rights movement in history.

I'm not being glib, failing to pay regard to Dr. King and others is a serious mistake. This is NOT what the Black Panthers were about, though. They were upset about violent abuse of defenseless, ordinary black people - like youths and the elderly.

― SCOTTISH PEOPLE ONLY (I M Losted), Friday, January 16, 2015 11:47 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there are sections of inner cities all across america that they still haven't rebuilt after the riots that burned them down. this isn't just about the panthers. nor is your assessment of "what the black panthers were about" that solid -- you're describing one element of one group of them for one span of time, unless you want to convince me that everyone took "off the pigs" purely as a metaphorical/metaphysical statement. in any case, reconciling "armed self defense" with nonviolence in any sense is more mental gymnastics than i care to follow.

in any case i don't want to argue about violence vs. nonviolence or anything of the like. i'm just stepping up for a more accurate sense of history here.

had a big post-action meeting at my house friday night that went remarkably well--had about 50 people sardine'd into the living room, including some local luminaries in trans & queer activism who basically just showed up to offer us direction, blessings and keys to their offices.

we had an agenda planned out, but one of the elders was like "that's great--i've been doing this for 30 years, here's what i think you can make the biggest impact on: access to shelters for trans people, enforcement of trans employment laws, getting MPD to implement their own recommendations on relations with trans people." we said "ok" and happily threw away our agenda and formed working groups. i'm excited to see where this goes.

!!!!!

Sounds exciting!

lol we're only 5 emails into the life of this listserv and i'm already annoyed

So various updates from me here:

- Momentum around the group I mentioned above has stalled. I think the problem can be traced to leadership that threw a bunch of ideas on the table and then walked away. There was a dynamic of "everyone go ahead and continue work without me, I have to step back...but wait, I don't like the way this is going anymore, let's do it differently." A loosening grip followed by a sudden clench for control that confused, frustrated, and squeezed out a lot of people, I think. The elders that reached out to us before still very much want us involved as, I think, kind of shock troops on their behalf to give their advocacy a little more bite--but I'm not sure that's where this group is going anymore.

- A second group built around concern for the same issues, but with a much more direct approach to addressing them, has sprung up. It's been instructive to compare the politics and approaches of the two groups as they both make claims to anarchist politics, horizontalism, intersectionality, and direct action, but they play out *very* differently in practice. Some of the difference goes back to what I mentioned upthread about the leadership of the former group mainly coming out of undergrad organizing, whereas the core of this group mainly comes out of a kinda traveler-kid/oogle culture that's more directly engaged in the recent lineage & tactics of large scale protests.

- I got me a job doing digital organizing with workers. I'm stoked as hell.

I'm having ish right now w the non-profit industrial complex, as it's sometimes called. I think I didn't see those effects for a while bc my home organizing place is mercifully ACTUALLY grassroots and doesn't have certain problems that crop up a lot? I think because all the people who formed it were experienced in those things and wanted to get away from them.

Anyway I interviewed for a job with a supposed "grassroots" org that turned out to want a press secretary for the price of a mid-level coordinator, and their greatest concern was that my previous experience was volunteer (instead of paid) and that I didn't have experience writing press releases. Never mind that I'm on the board of their sister organization, so maybe they shouldn't start questioning the value of volunteerism just now. Also, 24yos can write press releases, I'm sure I can learn it somehow.

And while I would like to beef up some of the skills they wanted, I also got the sense that they value style over substance: ie, they're concerned with building a loyal "twitter brigade" that will retweet things at the same time to try to make something trend, but they couldn't (or wouldn't) share their strategies for what constituencies they're focusing on organizing this year.

More and more I wonder if finding a career outside the biz and continuing to do 100 volunteer things would be preferable or at least an equally valid life choice. I mean personally I feel like I bring a lot to an org, and I'd rather give my time to them than to corporate masters, but the more I get passed over for BS reasons the more I wonder if they're more about consolidating power than doing the work. Fine line.

The elders that reached out to us before still very much want us involved as, I think, kind of shock troops on their behalf to give their advocacy a little more bite--but I'm not sure that's where this group is going anymore.

Do you feel okay sharing any feelings about this? Reminds me of Chepe and Alexis Goldstein reviewing Selma on their podcast Criticize After Dinner, and talking about how it left out certain complexities, one of which was it made one guy seem like an adversary of King's instead of what he was, which was a smart organizer who knew that you have to have a far fringe to force power to deal with the less far left as the lesser of two threats, etc.

they couldn't (or wouldn't) share their strategies for what constituencies they're focusing on organizing this year.

― Orson Wellies (in orbit), Wednesday, February 25, 2015 3:54 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is so, so weird to me

I know! I mean, ASK ME about my organizing goals, I can't shut up about them! But I was like, Can you tell me something about your organizing strategies and who you're focusing on this year?" And their primary advocacy person started explaining the definition of "community outeach" to me instead: "First we go into the community, then we talk to people..."

That is...not what I asked you, so either you think I'm too stupid to understand the real answer, or...????

It's kind of a "top down" environment, I think, so they don't really understand a) what actual grassroots organizing should be like, although I find this hard to believe and overall just confusing, and b) they think volunteering is a vastly different level of performance from employment because in their org, the work that achieves their goals is done by paid staff, not by community members.

More and more I wonder if finding a career outside the biz and continuing to do 100 volunteer things would be preferable or at least an equally valid life choice.

I deeeeeeeefinitely think it's equally valid to go this route--I have friends who say they're happy to do service industry & similar forever because it gives them the bandwidth & freedom to only do organizing on things they really think are worthwhile.

I mean personally I feel like I bring a lot to an org, and I'd rather give my time to them than to corporate masters, but the more I get passed over for BS reasons the more I wonder if they're more about consolidating power than doing the work. Fine line.

― Orson Wellies (in orbit), Wednesday, February 25, 2015 3:58 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I totally hear where you're coming from on this--with the radio stuff I've been doing we found ourselves in a lot of situs where we had to jump through extra hoops to get the attention of purportedly community-focused, community-based orgs, who'd inevitably wind up passing their grants off to orgs they'd historically partnered with anyway.

I think also that frankly a lot of this work can get very insider-y. Yes, it's the skills I learned three and half years of doing this stuff in my free time that made me a worthwhile candidate for this job I just got--but I only knew about the job because a friend in a similar org sent it to me. And I had a friend who already worked there who was able to print out & walk my resume over. Etc etc.

All this stuff is why some people I know even turn their noses up at any talk of new grassroots "organizations" or prematurely-hatched "movements," when so often they wind up being vehicles for careerism.

the work that achieves their goals is done by paid staff, not by community members.

oh well there you go

they're building for instead of with