forest babies - strike the intertia

this is an essay/zine my friend david wrote about electoralism, voting, and the RNC/DNC protests. its a good read. i didnt write it.



*************************************************************************

STRIKE THE INERTIA! or
how i learned to stop worrying about electoralism
and start taking steps towards dismantling it...

by spoonboy

=============================================================

VOCABULARY:


ALIENATION [(āl'yə-nā'shən, ā'lē-ə-)] n.

1. A separation of individuals from control and direction of their social
life.
2. The state of being withdrawn or isolated from the objective world, as
through indifference or disaffection.

ELECTORALISM [(i-lek-tor-uh-liz-uhm)] n.

1. The election of representatives who create a priest-class of political
administrators while disempowering and alienating the general public, for
whom voting is a highly mediated form of political engagement that diverts
energy away from more effective means of political and social reform (or,
for some anarchists, revolution).

THE SPECTACLE [(spek-tuh-kuhl)] n.

1. In a consumer society, where social life is not about fulfilling human
needs but obtaining commodities; the spectacle is a series of images that
promotes imaginary necessities to dictate what people need and must have.
2. Where commodities achieve an ideological autonomy from the process of
their production, images and objects rule the producers instead of being
ruled by them.

INERTIA [(i-nur-shuh)] n.

1. In physics, the tendency for objects at rest to remain at rest, and for
objects in uniform motion to continue in motion in a straight line, unless
acted on by an outside force.
2. Resistance or disinclination to motion, action, or change: the inertia
of post modern capitalist lifestlyism.

MOMENTUM [(moh-men-tuhm)] n.

1. The force or speed of movement; impetus, as of a physical object or
course of events.
2. The tendency of a person or group to repeat and build upon success and
inspiration.

POLITICS [(pol-i-tiks)] n.

1. The process by which groups of people make decisions.

EMPOWERMENT [(em-pou-er-ment)] n.

1. Increasing the capacity of individuals, communities or institutions to
gain control over their lives.
2. The process of transferring decision-making power from influential
sectors to communities and individuals who have traditionally been
excluded.

=======================================================



“A HIGHLY MEDIATED FORM OF POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT...”

Every four years it becomes mildly fashionable to discuss politics. I
have to admit, it's something I look forward to. What might normally be
untouchable conversation topics are suddenly the stuff of celebrity gossip
and small talk. I find myself explaining personal philosophies to people
with whom I would normally share no more than a comment about the weather.
And amazingly enough these conversations again and again move towards the
theme of general distrust towards the government!

I'm not just talking privileged suburban punk kids. I'm talking about the
firemen who eat lunch down the block, the local rappers freestyling about
why they're not voting, the young urban professional I went to high school
with, the drunk homeless guy on the stoop, and my friend's conservative
step-dad. He's as pissed about the bureaucracy and the lobbyists as your
average leftist is about the corporations.

I'm talking about the football fan who shrugs "I don't care," not out of
apathy, but out of understanding.

It's the woman at the bus stop who asked me "who do you like? Obama?"
And when I was like "I guess I like him better than the others..." (but
after an awkward pause added) "I don't think any of them are really gonna
represent me," she says, "You KNOW that's right! Ain't none of these
politicians lookin' out for me!"

It speaks to my own insular suburban mindset, but somehow I'm only now
realizing that cynicism about the government isn't reserved for snotty
CRASS punk kids like me. It's middle aged white collar workers who are
pissed about politicians' ties to lobbyists, it's non-profit
environmentalists who trace the money flow to the oil conglomerates, and
it's leftists who see the undeniable financial control exerted by big
corporations. The theme, of course, is that politicians are accountable
to money, and not people.

(And nowhere is that better evidenced than the strong tradition of
people's votes simply not being counted. How often do you hear this?
"I'd vote if I thought anyone actually gave a damn.")

It's undeniable that this year's election is vastly different from any
other election in our generational memory. More people than ever are
turning out to vote, and the choice between McCain and Obama is far more
dramatic than, say, Kerry and Bush. Issues of race, gender and identity
have become common public discussion points as they never have been in my
lifetime. The results of the Democratic primaries saw folks so
emotionally invested in these candidates that people broke down in tears
when Hillary conceded. All of these things indicate that people are
actually more interested in elections this year, but after years and years
of corporate influence in the government I'm hearing more and more:

"It doesn't matter who wins."

"It's a bureaucracy. Politicians can't change anything anyway."

"They all have the same economic interests."

"We're all getting screwed one way or another."

I know it's just the sampling of people I interact with, and granted, I
live in a big east coast city and not rural mid-America, but I think it's
representative of something. If the majority of the people in this
country are sick of a government that doesn't represent them, why don't we
fucking do something about it?

****************************************************************************
The proof is in the pudding, but the answer lies in the inertia. We don't
change shit, because we don't believe it's possible.

More and more people feel unrepresented by our government, but the
resounding sentiment is more of an "oh well" than a "goddammit! I demand
something better!" And let's face it. We don't demand shit, because we
don't believe it's possible.

Why the hell should we feel so powerless?

It comes from the top down. We grow up believing in representative
democracy. We're told that the representative system is unquestionably
the most effective form of governance, and we learn from a young age to
give our power away to other "better qualified" decision makers.
Throughout our lives we are simply never encouraged to practice
self-empowered community organizing, so the idea that we could be
self-organizing and exerting our own power as participants in communities
is completely foreign to us.

So the inertia begins. We allow the spectacle of a representative
government to supplant our own self-determination. We reinforce the
inertia, and it keeps us stuck where we are. Who can resist the glow of
the mass media? Who can resist politicians who promise change, even when
we know that the change we need can't come from above, it needs to come
out of the self-determination of common people? It's all too easy to kick
back and let somebody else take care of it. But we lose something
important in the process.

We lose sight of the reality that social movements are made up of
individual people exerting their power on a day to day basis, and that the
concentrated power at the top can only react to and try to accommodate
those movements. We lose sight of the fact that nothing is more
personally empowering than seeing the results of your own actions. When
we are able to focus on the power we have as individuals, the power at the
top become irrelevant.

**************************************************************************

The electoral spectacle is just one piece of a larger puzzle. The puzzle
is culture, and specifically it's a culture that encourages a constant
condition of alienation between people, a culture that distracts us from
discovering our own ability to affect our surroundings.

What are the other pieces of the puzzle?

Baby, it's all about capitalism.

When we're raised in a capitalist economy (as we Americans are), it's
impossible not to develop a capitalist philosophy. The capitalist
philosophy is one of individualism, but an unaccountable individualism.
The emphasis is on every person's undeterred right to dominate and exploit
anyone else, and never on our ability to respectfully interact within our
communities. Communities, actually, are conceptually antithetical to
capitalism (in spite of the fact that we humans are... well...communal
animals). In order to function, capitalism must constantly expand and
find new markets. Where communities fulfill people's needs, capitalism
sees them as an obstruction to market expansion. When people meet each
others' needs mutualistically, there are that many fewer needs to be
filled through the consumption of commodities, and we can't have that...
can we?

So our culture is in the active business of destroying communities. I
grew up without knowing any of the people in my neighborhood at all. I
took the bus to a school 15 miles away and when I got home every day I
watched tv and went on the internet until it was time for bed. The laugh
tracks to the stupid sitcoms I watched simulated the experience I craved
of being around people, even when I wasn't. Instead of striving for real
social interaction, I consumed television. Instead of exploring and going
on adventures, I consumed movies and video games.***

Our post-modern consumer society offers fewer and fewer opportunities for
people to interact that don't involve buying shit. People move from
neighborhood to neighborhood, following the real estate market. Because
of gentrification, neighborhoods where folks have lived for decades become
unaffordable and people move out. With all this moving around we don't
develop relationships with our neighbors. We can't build communities made
up of perfect strangers. The more alienated we are from each other, the
easier it is to dehumanize and compete with each other, and so capitalism
thrives.

Should I wax on? I buy food at the grocery store and have no idea how it
was produced, who produced it, under what conditions it was produced,
where it was made, how it got there, etc. etc. etc. I have absolutely no
connection to the most basic sustenance I consume to stay alive. How
bizarre and post-modern is that? Instead of planting community gardens
and learning to grow food for ourselves, we are completely alienated from
the control we could have over even the most integral elements of our
lives. Likewise, when it comes to determining the shape of our own
communities, we abide by laws created by people to whom we have as little
connection to as the avocado in the grocery store.

Politicians fit nicely into the picture. As long as we are content with
these people controlling the laws, we are satisfied to be alienated from
the most basic things we could have control over. And politicians (like
good capitalists should) will prioritize the economy over community every
time. The cycle of alienation and disempowerment will continue, and we
will never feel we can change anything as long as they keep telling us
with a charismatic wink, "don't worry about it... that's our job..."

*** P.S. This is just my white male story of suburban alienation. I've
never had the experience of racial profiling. I've never experienced
police brutality in my neighborhood. I'm not harassed on the street every
day and I don't have to fend off potential assaulters just for being a
woman. Patriarchy, institutionalized racism, xenophobia and
heteronormativity are all ways that people are encouraged to strip power
away from each other and consequentially obstruct the development of
communities. Marginalized groups have infinitely more reason to feel
powerless.

**************************************************************************

So we're just fucking stuck. We're all lost in this inertia, we're
drowning in it and the only thing that can pull us out is movement,
because it's movement that creates counter-momentum.

...Movement... momentum... where do we find it?

Every time someone breaks with their sense of powerlessness it creates
movement. When people stand up, create change and say "fuck it, if this
falls short of revolutionary, so be it," they provide inspiration for
anyone who's struggling to figure out how to change the world they live
in. We take that inspiration, stand up one by one, and make our own
statements.

It's direct action. It's taking matters into your own hands, and finding
out how empowering it can be to see the consequences of your own work. We
create moments that prefigure the world we'd like to live in. We attempt
microcosms of the communities we'd like to see. If it's planting a garden
or shutting down a huge corporation, we take note of the movement, and
with it we create momentum.

I find myself looking for signs wherever I can find them. I keep up my
own sense of empowerment by existing from moment of inspiration to moment
of inspiration, and taking what I can get.

I look for the moments that say, "I won't settle for this dehumanizing
culture."

"I'm not satisfied with wage slavery and debt."

"I won't stand aside while capitalism destroys our communities."

I look for the moments when friends say, "I will not fall back on my
privilege and indulge my hipster lifestyle."

When people say, "things are going to have to change."

**************************************************************************

As the hype around the primary elections started to put electoral politics
on the public mindset, I began to look to where people were realizing the
power that they have themselves, rather than focusing on who they could
elect to (not) represent them. Though it's not a new idea, I found signs
of movement where people were organizing to counter the major spectacles
of electoralism at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.
Both conventions will be multi-million dollar celebrations of what is a
fundamentally disempowering political structure. It's gonna be a big
sparkly mass media glamorization of representative democracy and
capitalism. While it's dangerous to get too caught up in these displays
of glamor, (that's just how the mass media keeps us from interacting with
our own lives), it's also an opportunity to take all the hype around these
politics and offer a counter example.

The Situationists talked about the concept of "detournement," which is
basically the idea of flipping the spectacle on its head. When all this
attention is focused on this one specific model of politics, shouldn't we
use this as an opportunity to call attention to the fact that there are
plenty of other politics that could be practiced? Shouldn't this be our
opportunity to say "Democracy is not the responsibility of the government.
That's our business, step off!"

Demonstrating at the DNC and RNC should hopefully do just that. The
demonstrations won't be run by any centralized organization, but instead
by anarchists who are planning decentralized direct actions that are
autonomous but also coordinated. We're organizing non-hierarchically and
making decisions through consensus. By employing methods which are
egalitarian instead of top-down, everyone's voice is heard instead of just
the people on the top. By using direct action we can feel empowered and
realize concretely the ability we have to affect our worlds. We can
practice and employ the ideas we'd like to build our communities around.
The idea is to subvert the spectacle through direct action, and in doing
so, have the means reflect our desired ends. Our message should be, in
the words of Montel Jordan, "this is how we do it."

***************************************************************************

I've been to my share of protests and mass mobilizations, and I share a
lot of the criticisms and disillusionment I've heard from people who are
tired of having their voices call out in a vacuum. This time feels
different. This feels like a culmination. It feels like it could be a
boiling point. There's been a lot of self-reflecton in the anarchist
movement as of late and a lot of good things have been written. Folks
who've participated in mass mobilizations of years past have had good
things to say about how we can learn from those times and move forward.
The organizers of the demonstrations at the DNC and RNC have payed
attention to this advice, and they've been working to plan these events
for almost two years. A lot of thought and preparation has gone into them
and there are a lot of signs showing that this year will be different.

One point where they've shown signs of growth is where anarchist
organizers have built bridges with other activist organizations in their
hometowns and with the people in their local communities. In Denver there
have been various coalition groups with a strong emphasis on connecting
their critique of the Democrats (and their lavish conventions) with
struggles to oppose racism and gentrification locally. In St. Paul the
RNC Welcoming Committee initiated an agreement between various groups of
all different political backgrounds that are organizing around the
convention. It's called the "St. Paul Principles" and it's a commitment
to respect a diversity of tactics. Those participating in militant
actions will be conscious that their actions don't interfere with the work
of non-violent organizers, and non-violent organizers won't condemn folks
who chose more confrontational tactics. It's an agreement to settle
differences internally rather than publicly, to abstain from cooperation
with the police, and to not condemn any action based only on it's
illegality.

Another way the organizers in Denver and St. Paul have reached out has
been by communicating with radical groups all over the country.
Organizers of both events went on tours to visit radical communities in
dozens of cities, and appeared at anarchist conferences to exchange ideas
and build support for their actions. There have been trainings and
meet-ups all over the country for people to gain knowledge towards
planning effective actions. In St. Paul, there were a series of consultas
where direct action planners from all over the country came and helped
form the strategies that are being employed to blockade St. Paul. So the
organizing bodies in these cities aren't acting as centralized
instructors, but instead are taking the input of people from all over the
country and using it to coordinate their actions. With these coordinating
bodies in place, people who have autonomous actions can come to town and
plug into the expertise that local folks have, and not step on the toes of
other organizations or autonomous direct actionists.

This is also an interesting moment historically so for that reason it's
exciting to be a part of it.

At the Democratic National Convention in Denver, we are facing what for
many people will be a celebration of one of the most progressive political
candidates the country has seen in a while, not to mention the first black
nominee in American history. In spite of its lack of depth, Obama's
emphasis on grassroots organizing has motivated thousands of people to get
involved politically, even if that just means campaigning for the
Democrats. This will be a unique opportunity for those of us with
progressive and radical politics to reach out to newly politicized people
and emphasize that the power is in THEIR hands, to remind them that even
Obama will not change anything unless we fucking demand it. To this end,
there are going to be a series of themed days of marches and actions in
Denver, each day calling attention to one of the following issues:

- Ending White Supremacy as it relates to racism, police brutality, the
prison industrial complex and gentrification.
- Instating full rights for immigrants and an abolition of borders because
no person is illegal.
- Putting a stop to global warming and climate change, where our culture
of excess is destroying our environment.
- Dismantling militarism, stopping imperialism, and putting an end to the
war in Iraq.
- And freedom for all political prisoners.

For many, the DNC will be an opportunity to make a fuss about these issues
in hopes of influencing the politicians who are (maybe...) (slightly...)
more likely to listen. But if this is a moment where people are more
likely to put their faith in and allocate their power to what looks like
the political party that could bring change, anarchists should speak
louder than ever about the fundamental problems with this system. The
Democrats are a part of the same sham "democracy" that protects a culture
that perpetuates all those problems listed above.

The Republican National Convention in St. Paul, I have to say, is looking
like it's going to be pretty fucking sweet. The reasons for radically
inclined folks to oppose the Republicans tend to be self-evident. These
are the people who brought us the illegal war and occupation of Iraq.
They're the ones who brought us tax breaks for the upper crust, the
consolidation of Presidential power, and unrestricted liberties for
corporations in the business of destroying our planet. These people have
stripped away our civil liberties, opposed women's rights, immigrants'
rights and gay rights. It's not hard to paint them as the "bad guys."
The point, though, isn't to portray the political parties as a binary of
good and evil. In some ways the Republicans are more radical than the
Democrats in their supposed opposition to big government. The point is
that both parties are part of a bigger picture where our lives are
controlled by a class of elite politicians who cannot and will not
represent us.

The reason the mobilization in St. Paul is so exciting is because the city
provides a number of tactical advantages for radicals interested in the
strategy of shutting things down to open things up. St. Paul is a small
city in Minnesota known more commonly as a part of "the Twin cities," (the
other twin being Minneapolis). There is a strong pre-existing radical
community in Minneapolis and they've been preparing for the RNC to hit
their home town for a long time now. St. Paul is much smaller than most
cities that host events of this size. There are only a few hotels in the
city and because of the sheer number of people coming to town, most of the
delegates will have to stay at hotels in Minneapolis and the surrounding
suburbs. The anarchist organizing body in the Twin Cities is called the
RNC Welcoming Committee and they've put out a call for a coordinated
series of blockades to directly shut down the city and prevent the
convention from taking place. Since there are only a few bridges linking
Minneapolis to St. Paul, and literally hundreds of buses and thousands of
people who will need to cross between the cities, this is a serious
opportunity to create transportation trouble, shut things down, and open
up space to make a statement that cannot be ignored.

"You see that, you bastards?!" we'll say, "that's what movement looks
like! That's momentum!"

Another tactical advantage towards that goal is that the police department
is under-equipped to deal with a well-coordinated day of actions. There
isn't a very large police force to begin with in St. Paul and the officer
in charge of convention security, Matt Bostrom issued a statement calling
for minimum force, saying that police would not take the streets in riot
gear and that arrestees would be processed and released within four hours.
In reference to the aggressive policing tactics used in Miami at the FTAA
protests of 2003, he said "We are not Miami. We want to develop a St.
Paul standard." Because of the many lawsuits against the state that have
followed aggressive policing of mass mobilizations in years past, the St.
Paul police department has had to take out an insurance policy to cover
future lawsuits. The amount budgeted apparently wasn't enough to make
other police departments in Minnesota feel financially sound sending their
police as backup to St. Paul, and consequentially the police force is
under-equipped by several thousand police officers.

***************************************************************************

So maybe this kind of shit bores the fuck out of you. Fair enough.

I'm sorry. Really.

The face of politics, (talking heads, legal mumbo jumbo, party lines,
etc.) largely consists of things so far removed from our day to day
experience that most people will shy away from conversation at the first
inklings of political jargon. Even the great spectacle of the electoral
season can only capture people's attention by sensationalizing the
presidential competition, reporting on it as if it were a sporting event,
with analysts comparing whose political strategy is most likely to earn
the candidate "the win." (I found myself sitting in a room full of twenty
somethings with Washington D.C. internships when Hillary conceded the
Democratic primary race. You should have seen these people maniacally
yelling at the television like it was the fucking Superbowl.)

I'm writing this because politics should be more than what you see on
CSPAN. Politics doesn't even have to be about government. It's about the
ways people structure their communities and their interactions. It's
about the decisions we make collectively to affect the worlds we live in.
That's why the DIY punk show is political, and the community garden is
political. It's why talking to the people in your neighborhood is an
empowering political idea when you grow up in a world that wants to keep
people alienated from each other.

I'm writing this because amidst all the forces of inertia, I'd like to
share the signs of movement and inspiration that I've found. I'd like to
see as many people as possible get involved in what will potentially be a
very powerful and empowering moment.

We can take a broad and sensational moment like this one and use its
inspiration to build cultures of resistance, movements for momentum that
envision a world where politics have been completely re-thought. We can
take the structures we build and work to create those worlds. I'd like to
see as many people as possible in the streets of Denver and St. Paul this
summer, and I'd like to see every one of them taking that momentum back to
their home towns and local community projects.

This is a moment that's historically exciting, and I'd like to invite you
to be a part of it. We can get together and show how much power there is
in people acting autonomously AND in solidarity towards creating
fundamental change. We can experience how empowering it can be for a mass
of people to directly accomplish things through the use of our own power.

So when the lights come on and the cameras are primed and ready to
broadcast the Republican National Convention, there won't be a delegate or
stuffy Republican to be shown. The confused corporate media will scamper
to find out where the spectacle has gone, and they'll be forced to turn
their attention to the people on the street. And when the world turns
their attention to us, our message should read loud and clear...

"NUH-UH! You thought the whole world would be celebrating your flagrant
display of bullshit top-down politics, but now you're looking at us. We
organized this. We did this ourselves without leaders, and we did it
through direct action and consensus and without hierarchy. We learned
from the process and we did it well. This is what the politics of the
future will look like. The politics of representative government are no.
longer. relevant."

***************************************************************************

Here is the text that goes on the back cover:

WHAT DO WE WANT??? complete control...
WHEN DO WE WANT IT?Huh uh...

I can't speak for everyone, but I think there are a good number of people
out there these days looking for fundamental change. That means a lot of
different things to a lot of different people, but personally I'd like to
see the root problems in our culture getting addressed. We could slap
band-aids on the U.S.of A. until the chickens come home to roost, but that
ain't gonna cure the fundamental sickness. As an anarchist, I want the
change that goes all the way down, and I don't see any reason to demand
less. It might not happen over night, but it won't happen at all if we
don't demand it.

The politicians know we want change, but all they can offer us is
spectacle of change. In this election more than any other, they are
marketing themselves as the true catalysts for change, but it's a
superficial image. Barack Obama has successfully branded his campaign as
America's "hope," but the hope he offers is at best a PR friendly America,
an America whose hegemonic military and economic practices are less
flagrantly displayed, but still intact. At worst his campaign is an
appropriation of our deep rooted desires to exert control over our lives.
What hope can there be if our longing for self-determination is taken and
directed towards support for a government that protects the systems of
oppression that keep us from achieving our autonomy?

In this historical moment when there is so much potential for movement
building, we would be doing ourselves a disservice if we only focus on the
superficial change that's offered by the electoral spectacle.

NOW is the time to demand FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE.

NOW is the time to create it ourselves.