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north america / mexico / anarchist movement / opinion / analysis Wednesday August 02, 2023 03:38 byI-5AF
Like Black Rose/Rosa Negra, we also see new possibilities arising for the development of Popular Power by combining the organized forces of the exploited, dominated, and oppressed classes together. The I-5AF supports "Turning the Tide". Just like Black Rose/Rosa Negra (BRRN) in their recently released political program “Turning the Tide: An Anarchist Program for Popular Power”, in our own regional organization – the I-5AF – we have often compared general strategy to a compass. Strategy serves as our north star. It helps us get to where we’re going, but it isn’t the actual destination, just a tool to help us triangulate our position and approximate our heading. A long-term political project on the international level is not at all in opposition to establishing anarchism as an influential force in the US and, concerning our own project, more specifically along the I-5 corridor. Because of this, we are in full agreement with BRRN that our longest-term strategies must be oriented by our ends and that our shortest-term, most immediately relevant strategy must always be framed by time and place. As organized anarchism continues to grow internationally, it becomes even more necessary for political organizations to have methods for adapting general strategies to current conditions locally. It is this flexibility and dynamism to respond to specific demands which allows an org to stay focused on its final objectives and long-term strategy. Because periods of upheaval and deadly crises will continue, our movements need to be supported by dependable organizations, the kind of orgs capable of maintaining a revolutionary perspective during both ebbs and flows.Today, most leftist organizations are limited by capacity, both of membership and of stamina. The countless repetitions of protests, followed by burnout and fatigue, have erased not only the know-how but also our desire to "move together". And activists are only propagating individualism when they don’t concern themselves with chronicling and promoting the collective history of struggle. Like BRRN, we too see flaws in this endless cycle of activism motivated by nothing more than moral outrage, and we completely agree that the coordination of militants involved in social struggle is essential for the development of effective political strategy. Beyond mobilizing, for popular movements to effectively confront the ruling class, there is a need to organize the active minority. This means a steady flow of militants from various orgs towards a unified perspective, in the form of a grouping of tendency or a social-political organization. This is with the medium-term goal of unifying different sectors of society into a broader movement by politically and strategically connecting real sites of struggle. We see this as the role of theory, and it is why we think that theory must be developed in context, while doing politics, not idealistically, and definitely not just online. In our own especifismo current of anarchism, of which BRRN is currently the largest org in the US, the political organization assists in bringing movements together, forging solidarity through struggle amongst a broad spectrum of organized, emancipatory social forces. For this reason, we support non-ideological mass movements. Autonomous movements that employ direct action instead of representation and direct democracy of the rank-and-file, not cults of personality or demagoguery. Movements that are militant, self-managed, and federalist. Movements that are engaged in struggle and reach beyond both localism and nationalism. We want to see anarchism plant its seeds and grow its politics in rural, suburban, and urban locales across the entire continent. But the limited strategies necessary in these contexts will have to be based on immediate, specific conditions. And as things stand, while the two-party system continues, unthreatened by the ebbing tides of “progressive” candidates, the socialist movement in the US has stalled. The democratic socialism of the Bernie Sanders movement and the DSA never sufficiently grappled with the fact that it is impossible for elected representatives to change the State's policies enough to avert catastrophes that are already occurring globally. We need a revolution! Nevertheless, we must admit that libertarian socialism is itself entirely overshadowed by the pervasiveness of dem soc rhetoric in the US left. Today, anarchists are rarely organized politically. This is why anarchism doesn't usually have an explicit presence in leftist spaces, unions, or community organizations. In most of the country, there is no political organization raising the strategic question: how do we popularize social movements that produce grassroots organizations and militant culture that endures beyond mobilizations and protests? As BRRN says, our movements lack the “muscle memory” required to work together and develop political lines through open debate. And though this is an ever-increasing problem given the multiple systemic crises whose effects are already overlapping in our daily lives, like BRRN, we see new possibilities arising for the development of Popular Power. But it will only be possible by combining the organized forces of the exploited, dominated, and oppressed classes together. A counter power protagonized by the social movements themselves depends on broad social influence, not on opportunistic leadership from a party, a church, a corporation, or the State. ¡PROTAGONISMO POPULAR! ¡POPULAR POWER!
north america / mexico / workplace struggles / opinion / analysis Tuesday August 01, 2023 14:09 byBRRN Labor Committee
In May of 2023 several Black Rose / Rosa Negra (BRRN) militants organizing in the healthcare sector attended the Health Autonomy Convergence (HAC) in Durham, North Carolina. This is their collective reflection on and analysis of the event and of the prospects for radical labor organizing in healthcare more generally. Last May, 200 anti-authoritarian healthcare workers gathered together in Durham, North Carolina for the first Health Autonomy Convergence. With many more healthcare workers wanting to attend but unable to, because capacity was reached within a day of registration opening, this event speaks to a huge desire for radical political approaches among healthcare workers. This is unsurprising, given what we have been through since the beginning of the pandemic, and the failures of the racist capitalist system we see everyday as we try to provide care in this broken world.The fact that this was a conference specifically for healthcare workers, rather than a gathering to discuss healthcare abstractly or theoretically, was an important feature. We believe it is critical to encourage an organizing orientation among radicals, which means shifting the focus from the WHAT (like the issue of healthcare), to the WHO (like healthcare workers). As healthcare workers, we need spaces to connect with others who share the same needs and struggles as us, and who face the same healthcare industry bosses that we need to build power against. Among anarchists in the US, an organizing orientation is rare. It is more common for anarchists and the anarchist-adjacent to be oriented toward the activist world of issue-based projects and ideologically-closed collectives. This is neither surprising nor limited just to anarchists, given that most communities in the US today are cut off from any memory of sustained and transformative collective struggle. The norm in the US left is spectacle: protests or marches, often organized by professional activists, that appeal to the media or “the public” without a critical engagement with who has the power to meet our demands. US anarchists may take these protests up a notch on the street, but many still lack a coherent sense of how a demonstration might build power for the mass of people. More recently, anti-authoritarian political projects are largely internally focused, with emphasis on how we speak and how to decolonize our individual thoughts and social relations. There is an unquestioned sense of resignation that the thing we need — an actual anarchist social revolution — is a hopelessly unrealistic vision to be invoked only as rhetoric, rather than something toward which we can make practical progress here and now. Among anti-authoritarian healthcare workers, political projects tend toward street medic collectives, DIY herbalism projects, efforts to change the way we speak with our patients, or maybe a writing and propaganda project with other radical healthcare workers. These kinds of activist projects made up the majority of the sessions at HAC as well. These projects can indeed make useful contributions, but without a conscious plan for how to connect them with a broader movement that builds and wields the power of healthcare workers, and without an active process for reaching out to and bringing in previously unpoliticized healthcare workers, these projects often end up creating an insular subculture: separated from society, rather than engaged in struggle within it. Without a mass movement that can actively embrace the vast swaths of dissatisfied health workers by offering a genuine strategy to challenge the horrific conditions we face and, more broadly, to attack the murderous capitalist healthcare system that creates these conditions, we will remain isolated and largely powerless. As BRRN members, we were motivated to participate in HAC to share what an organizing perspective within healthcare can look like. We wanted to show that there is an alternative to the default activist model, and share how healthcare workers can take simple steps toward organizing — a necessary step in a strategy for systemic change and ultimately social revolution. At HAC, the slogan chosen by the conference organizers was: “Seize the Hospitals”. We agree wholeheartedly, both in sentiment and real practical terms. We agree because seizing hospitals is something that we actually can do, if we are powerful and organized enough to pull it off. If we are going to liberate our healthcare system and turn it into something that is controlled by the workers, patients, and neighborhoods, then as healthcare workers we do need to physically seize the hospitals. But at HAC we unfortunately did not see how this slogan could become reality, outside of a couple historical discussions of past movements. The idea of radical change, of mass collective action, of seizing the hospitals, of revolution, remains an abstract slogan if there isn’t an explicit connection to what we are doing in the here and now. To build our vision of collective organization in healthcare, we put together a panel for the convergence during which healthcare workers shared their experiences with organizing at work. With panelists speaking to a range of experiences — a unionized nurse in a major urban hospital striking and organizing to transform the union, a non-union nurse in a home care setting talking about her first steps in organizing, a social worker discussing a successful campaign to unionize in a right-to-work state, and a nurse talking through the challenges of a stalled campaign at an academic hospital in the south — our hope was to give practical examples of what organizing in healthcare can look like and motivation to start something similar. From the conversation during the workshop and responses after, it seems to have worked: people were able to make connections to their own workplace experiences and asked for advice on dealing with their own challenges. After seeing how other healthcare workers managed to build power and make changes in their hospitals, they said that they felt more inspired and capable to take action themselves. We paired this panel on organizing experiences with a workshop breaking down the steps of workplace organizing in healthcare and showing how it is an essential part of revolutionary struggle. Workplace organizing is outside of most healthcare workers’ experiences in an era when unionization is near rock-bottom lows and online activism often takes the place of rooted social movements. We believe it is important to re-introduce workers to basic tools like workplace mapping, one-on-ones, and building an organizing committee, and to practice these together so we can work through the anxieties of doing this challenging work with our co-workers. This workshop landed a little more unevenly. A couple of people in the workshop expressed discomfort with the model of organizing one-on-ones, when we have intentional conversations with our co-workers to listen, agitate, and invite them to take action. Their concern was that it felt manipulative to go into a conversation with a goal and with the intention of asking somebody to join an organizing campaign. Since we can’t do much in life without asking other people to do things with us, this felt like a disempowering and disappointing response. But other workshop participants said they found the organizing skills to be useful and practical. Not only are these skills often not available to radicals, but when they are available, they are usually disconnected from any revolutionary project. Unions use and teach organizing skills, but most often to grow their own top-down bureaucracies, and they pointedly separate these practical skills from any kind of political content. Our intervention at HAC aimed to demonstrate how organizing skills can be used to build democratic self-organization, and how they can be combined with political education and class-wide fights to create movements that challenge the state and capitalism. Participating in HAC was also an opportunity for us to understand the conditions of healthcare workers across the country, as well as opportunities and challenges for organizing. We learned there is a strong desire for radical and militant organizing from within healthcare. We saw that a group of healthcare workers were willing to put in months of labor to create this three day conference, and that hundreds were excited to travel from across the country to participate. We met a few comrades who do movement organizing with unions or campaigns like the Do No Harm Coalition and DPH Must Divest. However, the majority of anarchist-sympathizing conference attendees were not oriented toward mass organizing, or strategically building power, whether for lack of interest or lack of opportunity. We see this orientation as reflecting a huge unmet need to build structures for mass organizing, for organizing outside of our narrow social circles, for organizing that aims to build power. We believe we should continue to develop and promote real-world examples of radical organizing models in healthcare, so that we can show how organizing can be both a more sustainable way of developing supportive culture and a way to build and wield our own power. Relatedly, the relatively small number of attendees who were union members speaks to the low union density in healthcare (even though it is higher than in many industries). We need to organize in spaces like this where we reach non-union healthcare workers, along with organizing within union member spaces like Labor Notes. Approaching the convergence with our orientation toward mass organizing for power, we saw the trends in left and anarchist activism reflected at HAC concerning and sobering. At the same time we see the existence of such a conference, and the work the organizers and participants were willing to put in to make it happen, to be a hopeful sign of the potential for healthcare workers to fight together for a revolutionary future. We hope that HAC is part of a growing and developing trend toward militant organizing in healthcare.
north america / mexico / anarchist movement / opinion / analysis Tuesday April 25, 2023 02:18 byI-5AF
There is a difference between strategic divergence and ideological opposition. Nevertheless, even in tendencies that have relatively high ideological affinity, this misunderstanding can be found and has consistently led to splits in both anarchism and in popular movements. Some tendencies do not aim to organize on the political level, and in our current context, it makes sense to elaborate on the particular organizational and strategic problems with this kind of anarchist politics because, for us, part of our role as a small engine within a growing Popular Power is to keep generating and dissipating liberatory theory and practices. In the history of anarchism, tactical and strategic lines have often been confused for ideological lines. However, there is a difference between strategic divergence and ideological opposition. Nevertheless, even in tendencies that have relatively high ideological affinity, such as social anarchism, this misunderstanding can be found and has consistently led to splits in both anarchism and in popular movements. Some in these tendencies are not concerned with unifying strategically or holding an explicitly revolutionary line. In other words, they do not aim to organize on the political level, and in our current context, it makes sense to elaborate on the particular organizational and strategic problems with this kind of anarchist politics.Anglophone anarchist-communists have progressed these polemics, but the tactical and strategic aspects of their critiques are often overlooked due to misplaced ideological defensiveness. Our position is that organizational dualism must be practiced in order to maintain and develop an anarchist strategy and political line that is applicable to a variety of situations and can adapt as contexts change. Militancy like this requires the grouping together of an active minority that is interested in developing a common political program, a program built on trust, ethics, and revolutionary objectives. It is about putting everyone on the same page strategically in order to progress the political line. The social level is more popular and massive than the political level. It is a pluralistic environment that can wash out, dilute, and co-opt revolutionary movements. On the social level, only the most organized and well defined political tendencies are distinct. Everything else can start to seem the same. Taking this into account, Tommy Lawson lays out the main problems that organizational dualism attempts to address, explaining that the: "concept of the ‘social’ and ‘political levels’ aims at clarifying confusion and mistakes in previous anarchist theory. The conflation of the two has led to not only theoretical, but organisational errors amongst other currents of anarchism, in particular anarcho-syndicalism [...] The social level is where basic class struggle occurs. Struggles at this level are popular, wide ranging and mobilise significant numbers of not only the working class, but periphery and intermediate classes around immediate demands [...] In contrast the political level is where individuals, organisations and parties operate with particular frameworks and ideologies, aiming to achieve particular goals." (from “Foundational Concepts of the Specific Anarchist Organization”) In a Brazilian context, the Anarchist Federation of Rio de Janeiro (FARJ) also mentions syndicalism when addressing an absence or lack of organizational dualism among anarchists: "Even the concept of anarcho-syndicalism, at various times, sought to suppress [the] difference between levels of activity, blending anarchist ideology with trade unionism. These and other attempts to ideologise social movements, in our understanding, weaken both the social movements – which no longer operate around concrete issues like land, housing, employment etc. – as well as anarchism itself, since it does not allow for the deepening of ideological struggles, which occur in the midst of the social movement. It also weakens, since the goal of these anarchists to turn all the militants of the social movements into anarchists is impossible, unless they significantly reduce and weaken the movements. In this way, or even on seeing that it is natural to find people of different ideologies in social movements that will never be anarchists, these anarchists get frustrated, and often shy away from struggles. As a consequence of this anarchism is often confined to itself." (from Social Anarchism and Organisation) What is needed is a specific anarchist organization, something distinctly different from an affinity group or unique squadron of tactical specialists engaged in fronts of struggle on their own. Without political organization, anarchists allow sectarians to perpetuate virtue signaling and divisiveness in pluralistic spaces. This drains the capacity of the people who make up the movement: “a mutual aid project - perhaps as part of a general strategy of “base” or simply party building - grants [a] sect a positive reputation, as well as a means to recruit. Well-meaning people get sucked into front groups, and the sect has a ready-made defense against all critics: unlike you who are all talk, we’re actually out there, serving the people! The masses are hungry, and the party is here to help.” (from “Socialism is not charity: why we’re against “mutual aid””) These organizations are satisfied by mere affiliation or association, amassing members and supporters but never cultivating militancy. While it is certainly true that militancy means “getting your hands dirty” and “doing the real work”, it also means opening yourself up to explicit culpability when plans are not executed correctly and have unanticipated consequences. Militancy requires being responsible for mistakes and committing to continue working them out. In our own context, we also see that: "there are anarchists who conceive of the anarchist organisation as a broad grouping that federates all those who call themselves anarchists, serving as a convergence space for the realisation of actions with complete autonomy. In anarchism, broadly speaking, this division between the social and political levels is also not accepted by all the currents, which understand the anarchist organisation in a diffuse manner, it being able to be a social movement, an organisation, an affinity group, a study group, a community, a co-operative etc." (from Social Anarchism and Organisation) A real weakness of politically strategizing around large parties and organizations is that they require the one organizational space to serve for social debate and for political unification. Often, the minimal amount of formal unity around "anarchistic" tactics is considered a political movement and begins down the one-way road of seeking popular recognition while at the same time carrying a lot of ideological baggage into popular spaces. This spectacle is not what we mean when we talk about anarchist militancy. Because anarchism is a politics of direct action aimed at transforming society through class struggle and self-management, we understand the specific anarchist organization, not the popular assembly or the union, to be the primary factor for revolutionary strategy and orientation. Mass organizations and social movements are terrains of struggle, not concentrations of ideological unity. Still, it is not uncommon for already-existing groupings to act as blockades to both political organizing and popular organizing. They alienate people from revolutionary movements and prevent politics from getting specific enough. On the political level, this happens by limiting the debate and mistaking tactical agreement for ideological unity. All of this usually occurs without ever explicitly discussing strategy, some people even taking offense when certain militants attempt to take up the task. For this reason, we think that: “[tactical] allegiance is insufficient for organizing revolutionaries because there must also be a place, in addition to the activism, for revolutionaries to cultivate militancy [...] This avoids confusion and debate about fundamental positions in the future, making the established line easier to hold over time, something which is necessary when collaborating and compromising with a popular coalition.” (from “How do you say especifismo in English”) Here, it is important to point out that we do not take issue with the forms of struggle advocated by different anarchist groups and activists. Participating in different places in the struggle is not necessarily a critique of other forms of radical engagement; it is a positive program of direct action. For us, their tactics are not problematic in and of themselves. We agree with FARJ that: "Although we never question whether these organisations are anarchist (for us, they all are), they do not, in most cases, converge with our way of conceiving anarchist organisation." (from Social Anarchism and Organisation) We also see strategic and theoretical problems with their political practice and its revolutionary potential: “It should go without saying that providing meals for the homeless is never itself a bad thing to do, whether you’re a Catholic or a Stalinist [...] The basic mistake in our view is to approach improvements in conditions as ends in themselves, nullifying any serious strategy. They’re only strategically valuable insofar as they strengthen the working-class and allow it to move forward in the fight against capitalism.” (from “Socialism is not charity: why we’re against “mutual aid””) In North America, anarchism is not stuck in the “affinity group” model; it's more like our affinity groups are isolated in tactical stations. When we use terms such as "tactical anarchism", "stations”, and “forms", we are referring to the practices of anarchists who are firmly rooted in their own projects and either don't want to or don't know how to get out. They continue to force their particular form of engagement in spite of its limitations: “To make an organization mutual is not an easy task, particularly when most people only approach such organisations in order to solve a problem that they are currently experiencing, whether it’s a lack of food, unpaid wages, or whatever. Once the problem is solved - or if the group is unable to help - people have a tendency to withdraw.” (from “Socialism is not charity: why we’re against “mutual aid””) The people who don't withdraw remain stuck but wrongfully pride themselves in their unquestioning commitment to their station, but resisting movement does not bode well for revolutionaries who are supposedly working toward social transformation on a massive scale. Beginning from the premise that tactics lead to other tactics, we can understand any use of a single tactic as the result of a distinction from a previous tactic and a move toward another tactic. For us, acting with strategy means connecting the movements from one tactic to another in a way that makes this movement as intentional as possible. A collective action could be a repetition of a previous tactic, or it could be drastically different from it. Either way, none of these small units of action serves as a strategy on its own. If only a single tactic is needed to successfully accomplish an objective, then the strategy would be to repeat the tactic a certain number of times, or to execute the tactic and wait for the eventual result, or even to wait and only employ the tactic if the situation does not develop the desired way on its own. This means that even the most simplistic and minimal conception of tactics requires strategy to inform the temporal aspect of action. When do we employ a tactic? When do we stop? Anarchists have developed and employed many tactics to achieve short and long term goals. It is not this diversity of tactics that is the problem. In the workplace, we are without a doubt part of the syndicalist project, supporting the worker’s organizations in the class struggle. And during uprisings, let us take part in the insurrections. In struggles for the neighborhood and the city, let us assemble as members of our communities. We want anarchist ideas to be influential in worker’s cooperatives, schools, militias, the military, prisons, and mutual aid collectives. We consider direct action an absolutely fundamental aspect of anarchist militancy. However, direct action occurs on the social level, and: "is at its core both strategic and tactical. It attempts to link the means and ends of struggle. [It] is working class people taking action to achieve a particular goal by themselves, bypassing bourgeois representational and legal means. [...] Anarchist-Communists seek to avoid the fetishisation of small scale and individual actions as ‘direct action.’ This is not to say that we do not support individuals fighting against oppressive circumstances, but that direct action should be understood [...] as a transformative practice of mass, collective and class based action." (from Foundational Concepts of the Specific Anarchist Organization) So, above all, we need to foster these values and liberatory practices among the people themselves. Let us not hold on to our favorite, most cherished and familiar tactical forms, as the closely guarded jewels of anarchism. The purpose of the specific anarchist organization is: “[resolving] the contradictions between the need for unified militancy and the need for pluralism in mass movements [...] It must meet anarchists at the political level, with a unified strategy. And it must meet oppressed peoples, in their struggles on the social level, with liberatory political practices that meet the immediate needs of the community.” (from “How do you say especifismo in English”) We do not consider it our task to lay foundations for tactical stations, attract other people to fill them, and then, eventually, lead these same people to revolution proper. This kind of politics, practiced without respect to context, is vanguardist, and can easily slip into sectarianism. Anarchism comes from, and is meant to be, where the people are. It evolves out of their struggles. Therefore, it has to be able to articulate itself in multiple forms, attempting to connect instances of struggle, by organizing as an active minority inside of a larger Popular Power. This requires federalism, which: "is one of the most distinguishing features of anarchist politics. It is at the same time a theory of how anarchist organisations ought to be structured, and a model for revolutionary social organisation." (from “Foundational Concepts of the Specific Anarchist Organization”) We have to organize ourselves. And we have to federate with each other. It is not the task of anarchists to build the new world within the shell of the old; that would be the task of the people themselves, through struggle and self-management. As for the political organization, its role is to act as a small motor that nurtures revolutionary momentum toward the new society, through its innumerable gestational stages and forms. Anarchism in North America does not currently reflect this intention. Much of what are considered anarchist and libertarian currents, today, position themselves somewhere along rigid tactical lines. Each camp holds a position that, implicitly or explicitly, requires allegiance to their chosen tactical form, persistently and dogmatically upholding it as the most effective method, the most appropriate site, the most prefigurative model of a free society: “At times, loyalty can be so dependent on employing and defending the use of a single tactic that questioning the strategy behind it seems like a political attack. But truly revolutionary politics must be based on deeper and more developed interpretations of current events and situations. Tactics alone cannot define political lines.” (from “How do you say especifismo in English?”) Questions of strategy cannot be answered from the perspective of a single, fixed position in the struggle. Tactics themselves are rigid, sharp, and situated, whereas their employment can, and must, be dynamic. The political organization must persist through the complex multiplicity of crises and specific struggles that exist on the social level, and this must happen regardless of: “[the] challenging reality [...] that different sectors of society have vastly different needs. If a political organization aims to engage in different movements within society, these movements will require their own knowledge, study, theory, and strategy [...] giving them the full respect and genuine effort that they deserve and require to become effective social forces. By organizing their activities into “fronts” of engagement, a specific group can stay acutely aware of its organizational capacity and its positionality within popular struggles.” (from “How do you say especifismo in English?”) Yet, certain tactical forms, which verge on the sectarian, are often held up by their adherents, including anarchists, as sufficient revolutionary strategies in themselves. Black Flag Sydney criticizes what they call “service-provision approaches”: “a sort of practice whereby small groups of volunteers gather together to provide some kind of philanthropic service [...] The rise of this sort of tactics forces us - organisationalist, social anarchists - to critically reflect. Whilst we are sympathetic with the desire to break out of lefty bubbles and “do something more”, our concern is that the gradual rise in enthusiasm for these approaches may not be sustainable, precisely because they function as a kind of political dead end - particularly when they are taken in isolation from broader social politics.” (from “Socialism is not charity: why we’re against “mutual aid””) In our own North American context, these forms include: syndicalism (revolutionary and trade unionism), insurrectionism (activism, spontaneism), communalism (autonomism, utopian socialism, and libertarian municipalism), mutualism (cooperatives and libertarian socialist reformism), philanthropy (rhetorically referred to as mutual aid), educationalism (infotainment, homeschooling and unschooling), religious anarchism, as well as military and anti-fascist formations (anarchist gun clubs, proto-militias, antifa). This list could no doubt be extended, but as Matt Crossin writes, the staunch sectarians who are exclusively focused on these tactics: “believe that anarchists - being opposed to bosses and governments - should, as our primary strategy, create parallel, self-managed institutions, such as worker co-operatives, community assemblies, mutual aid groups and so on. The argument goes that as such organisations proliferate, they will constitute a form of a Popular Power which not only provides an attractive vision of another world, but leaves the capitalists without workers and the State irrelevant.” (from “Anarchists and Dual Power: Situation or Strategy?”) While these strategic arguments are commonly accepted, we see three distinct problems with being too focused on formalistic approaches and overlooking the risks of anarchist sectarianism. First, these projects are driven by minoritarian ideological beliefs and therefore risk ideologizing social level struggles, mass organizations, and popular movements. This will inevitably deprive the social level of a mass base: "It is not uncommon, particularly in North America, to see anarchism defined as an ideology rooted in ‘direct democracy’, consensus decision making, and the maintenance of ‘horizontal’ (i.e. ‘non-hierarchical’) social relations, particularly in autonomous zones or public spaces [...] it places at the centre of its definition an adherence to very specific forms of procedure and interpersonal behaviour while downplaying the political ends a ‘horizontal’ movement should be trying to establish.” (from “Anarchists and Neo anarchists: Horizontalism and Autonomous Spaces”) This does little to advance social movements. Instead, it produces an intermediate, third rail objective, discarding strategy in favor of expedient, politically correct tactics and the development of a level of organization which is neither wholly political nor social. This creates an organization whose only function is to emit a strict set of tactical practices, in defense of a "movement" that is lacking dynamism. For dissidents and activists, the objective may be the creation of a network, a general assembly, a counterculture, or a protest movement. For socialists, it may mean “building the Left”, growing a politically compliant base for the Party. Radical liberals funnel efforts into coalitions of socially progressive capitalists and reformist NGOs. In each case, this ideologically-minded construction diverts energy away from the formation of Popular Power, resulting in an opposition which, whether it wants to or not, mirrors the system it aims to overthrow. Second, these tactics commit to a course of action which may or may not be appropriate for a particular time and place, unnecessarily limiting the engagements of a political organization. We agree with the Federación Anarquista de Rosario (FAR) who describe their own organizational method as something that: “respects the specificity and the dynamics of each space of struggle, making it so that social spaces stay open to compañerxs of different ideologies, combined with the fact that the political organization can function cohesively by not staying tied to the dynamic of the social struggle.” (translated from “Qué es el anarquismo?”) If (or when) a particular struggle wanes (assuming the choice of tactical form is appropriate) without insertion into multiple fronts, organizations focused on the perpetuation of a single tactical station will lose the social vector of their anarchism and will have to start over from scratch. Avoiding this dilemma is the reason for emphasizing the social vector of anarchist practice: "All of our actual reflection aims to think of a strategic model of organisation that enables a recovery of the social vector, in that this points to our objective of overcoming capitalism, the state and for the establishment of libertarian socialism. What we seek, in this context, is only a station in the struggle: as we emphasised at our foundation: "Here we present the FARJ, without asking for anything other than a fighting station, lest righteous and profoundly beautiful dreams die." (From Social Anarchism and Organization) The social vector is fundamental for revolutionary transformation, but it is made up of multiple stations that are not always strategically oriented. The political organization is a unified station in the struggle. It is a “fighting station”, specifically aimed at progressing toward libertarian socialism in a strategic way. This means adapting to the demands of a given situation while staying independent of social movements. Third and finally, by devoting all anarchist militancy to isolated tactical stations, there is an insufficient political organization of anarchists, leaving people to assume ideological and theoretical unity when there has been no work put into developing them. This, again, is insufficient since, for anarchists, organization: "is both socially and politically necessary for revolutionary action and for the building of a communist society." (from Foundational Concepts of the Specific Anarchist Organization) An absence of political organization leads to what may seem practical but are, in fact, overly simplified conclusions about how strategy and theory don’t really need to be discussed. According to critics of specific anarchist organizing: “ideas should arise spontaneously. They denounce discussion, persuasion, convincing, exchange, influence as external to social movements and, therefore, authoritarian.” (from Social Anarchism and Organisation) This usually means that the people who appear most committed hold a powerful sway when new questions are raised. Never talking about strategy has the unintended effect of creating a soft-power hierarchy within an organization since: "[the] establishment of such ‘centralism’, usually in the name of efficiency, has a tendency to stifle initiative and freedom. It can often exaggerate inequalities in an organisation by granting privileges to small minorities." (from “Foundational Concepts of the Specific Anarchist Organization”) For us, it is correct to use the terms “authoritarian” and “centralist” to refer to anarchist organizations that refuse to question the course of action so long as it remains committed to the primary, foundational tactic of the group. As we have already said, tactical unity is necessary but insufficient, and it too often serves as the basis for every kind of organizing work, even on the political level. It is in this way that tactics are mistakenly understood as strategic positions. For people defending their own lowest common denominator forms of organization, critiques of tactics are wrongfully interpreted as ideological threats. But strategically speaking: “there is no way to fully ‘prefigure’ anarchy and communism through ‘directly democratic’ spaces of ‘autonomy’. Anarchism requires a specific anarchist movement and anarchist practice. Though we must certainly organise ourselves from the bottom up, with a consistent federalist structure, we can not simply bring about our ideal by ‘living anarchisticly’ or relating to one another as ‘horizontally’ as possible. Similarly, the content of anarchism can not be limited to the structure of our movement - its content of revolutionary class struggle must be maintained.” (from “Anarchists and Neo-anarchists: Horizontalism and Autonomous Spaces'') So, from a revolutionary perspective, we are critiquing the "constructionism" of anarchists who unquestionably and constantly insist on these tactical forms. Similarly to FARJ, in discussing: "the “specific anarchist organisation” from this particular perspective, we are not speaking about any anarchist organisation." (from Social Anarchism and Organisation) The political organization necessary for revolutionary militancy must be engaged in multiple fronts, not limited to a single station in the struggle. The specific anarchist organization has to be responsive and agile enough to meaningfully work toward a revolutionary point of rupture. By insisting on prefiguring the ends, anarchist stations can become too focused on the perfection of their own tactic, preventing the possibility for collective strategy which is the link between means and ends. Failing to effectively federate leads tactical expertise to become cumbersome, dogmatic, and idealistic. Federalism serves to prevent: "the growth of domination in social relations and the creation of a leadership clique separate from the mass of members. [...] formal structures and accountability actually do more to prevent degeneration than to create it." (from “Foundational Concepts of the Specific Anarchist Organization”) Additionally, persistent tactical forms often require too much militant effort to sustain in the long term. They drain organizations and reproduce a cycle of burnout. Most of all, they prioritize prefiguration at the expense of building up Popular Power. This relates to FAR’s point that: “[the] objective of Federalism is a new institutionality, where there is no place for any kind of privileges, whether economic, social, or political.” (translated from “Qué es el Anarquismo?”) Here, we could make a distinction between a dynamic "institutionality" that could be applied, practiced, and spread to many different fronts as opposed to a more fixed, ideological institution which has an uncompromising character and an evangelizing outlook. In a more concrete sense, a situation composed of multiple dual powers is likely to create regional privileges, so organizing federally through (and beyond) these different forms is not only ideal but necessary for the abolition of the world-wide system of domination. We are not making a simple argument about local versus international focus. Rather, we see the focus on prefigurative, tactically inflexible forms and the details of their construction as a flaw in what is often referred to as a “dual power strategy”. This is the course of action proposed by multiple libertarian socialist currents today, especially in the US: “the proponents of Dual Power argue that we can improve our position under capitalism, and ultimately achieve anarchy, by cobbling together whatever resources we can muster and managing them in an autonomous, cooperative manner. In practice, this would mean the better off among us providing goods and services to those of us who are worse off (a form of service provision often confused with the concept of ‘mutual aid’) and cooperative businesses competing with traditional firms on the market.” (from “Anarchists and Dual Power: Situation or Strategy?”) This problem could be avoided relatively simply, but it would require greater strategic understanding from anarchists, both in their social analysis and in their militancy: “[...] through actively encouraging people with common affinity to organize themselves, the strategy of especifismo, which is based on unity on the political level, becomes a tool that can be used by a political grouping within a mass movement. And through mobilizing week after week to define a political program, an ideologically unified group can simultaneously provide safe social space for people who are not accepted by contemporary popular culture. These people could be outcasted politically, culturally, racially, etc. and for them, ideological and theoretical unity may provide a continuity of support that is not possible in other groups. This has value for the individuals as well as the political agenda since continuity will make the flow of militants and radical ideas as obvious and as open as possible.” (from “How do you say especifismo in English?”) This flow of political militants complements and interacts with social movements, but anarchist political movements cannot allow their own organizing objectives to be dissolved inside of the social level. Betting everything on the revolutionary potential of a single sector of society is a mistake. Organizational dualism is different than communalism and syndicalism, which sometimes refer to a “third sector”, arguing that a dual power institution, built outside of the system, would be capable of overthrowing other institutions, inside of the system. But theoretically, where can we locate this potential dual power if not on the social or political levels? This is a theoretical and strategic flaw of these kinds of projects and an example of the constant need for the production and dissemination of theory by a political organization. If a dual power project is an intermediate level of organizing, then a strategy for social transformation would have to encourage movement outward, developing from the dual power center, in two distinct but complementary tracks: toward political organization and toward popular organization. Since social revolution depends on the development of a mass movement, the development of a single dual power might make sense tactically, but it will always need to fit inside of a larger strategy involving multiple dual power centers and anticipating the challenges created by such a situation. Again, any strategy attempting to build power must emphasize federalism. It must be practiced at every level of organization, even locally, in the present not the future. Self-managed power, without federalism on the local, regional, national, and international levels and without federalism across different sectors of society, will only mean more work for the people of the community. This could even be to the benefit of the State and capitalism since without strong federations, alternative powers built outside of the system will simplify the tasks of the State. This means that dual power and self-management are not revolutionary forces, on their own. They need federalism and its “new institutionality” to give the alternative power a revolutionary potential. A dual power is something potentially created outside of and away from the struggles produced by the dominant forces. In some cases, they may be entirely divorced from struggles. There is even the risk of a single dual power becoming too successful, breaking away towards full autonomy only to find itself isolated and without any leverage inside of the system it opposes. In this way, for example, a highly organized sector of workers could stand to benefit more from the threat of taking their workplace and its existing power relations hostage than from immediately transforming it into a self-managed cooperative. Class society reproduces inherently conflictual spaces, full of contradictions that cannot be avoided by alternatives attempting to position themselves "outside" of it. Capitalism can only be destroyed by engaging its contradictions. Bolstered by the refrain that it’s “part of a dual power strategy”, the insistence on a single tactical form (by communalists, syndicalists, etc.) leaves the actual strategy ambiguous and open-ended. In the interest of our revolutionary objectives, we must be willing to talk about community assemblies, and other tactical forms as tools, instruments that have the potential to be used wrongly or badly, equipment that is not universally applicable and can be made to be redundant. We have to be ready and willing to put a lot of work into stations for various durations of time and still be able to abandon them as the strategic situation requires. There is a significant difference between “creating assemblies” and “assembling”. The former is the prefigurative building of institutions, and the latter is the grouped mobilization of people for the purpose of decision-making. We should be trying to develop Popular Power out of the struggles occurring in society today. Though this power comes from the exploitative, dominating conditions of the capitalist system, its objectives are for a new society, managed by the people themselves. A truly self-managed and federalized Popular Power is able to mobilize freely towards ends which no single group or individual can dictate or direct. Anarchists should not be concerned with a strategy for growing a political sect because anarchism is not the practice of prefiguring societal institutions. Our emphasis on being present in social struggles will sometimes mean that we choose to leave behind our preferred tactical stations and projects, ensuring that we proceed with strategy. For anarchists practicing organizational dualism, our focus should be on organizing our militancy so that people may move more easily and consistently between stations, and so that stations can find a suitable position within active fronts of struggle. To reiterate, we are specifically critiquing a non-strategic employment of and dogmatic allegiance to tactics. When they are used with strategy, tactical stations are helpful and necessary, serving as entry points for social insertion and training grounds for militant formation. Tactical stations can be groupings that organize the most active people at a particular site of struggle. In this way, a station could be a point of social insertion for the political organization and an opportunity for others to have contact with its political line. For example, in a struggle around housing, it could make sense to organize the most agitated residents of an apartment complex for self-education and information sharing purposes. And there could be lots of reasons to keep these sessions going, to "hold the station". The mutual aspect of mutual aid could be more frequently accomplished if we positioned aid stations at specific points of struggle. They could serve as sites of recovery and consistent support during struggles, especially if they are ongoing. But these sites should be additions to strategic engagement in more massive, popular movements on the social level. They cannot realistically help everyone, and they lose their revolutionary potential in moralism and indiscriminate application. Between events in a struggle, there will always be times when debriefing and evaluating the course of action are required. Militants will depend on tactical stations being up and running for this exact purpose, but it is common to overlook their preparation and maintenance until they are needed in a crisis or uprising. It is wrong to assume that any place can effectively serve this impromptu function. For the successful longevity of the revolutionary movement, political organizations will need these specific kinds of outposts, and the militants of the organizations will need to know where to find them. Finally, a strategic tactical station could also serve a training, regrouping, and preparation function. These kinds of stations are the farthest away from active struggle but are no less relevant to a successful long term strategy. Part of our role as a small engine within a growing Popular Power is to keep generating and dissipating liberatory theory and practices. Tactical stations for learning and development could be internal, serving members of an organization in order to train them for political militancy, or they could be external, serving as an educational resource for radicalizing people coming from the social level. Afterall, this is the essence of organizational dualism: strategically and organizationally developing in two complementary directions.
north america / mexico / education / opinion / analysis Friday March 24, 2023 13:59 byJacob Hutchison
What Is Sky Anarchy? Premise Anarchism is a rich tradition filled with nearly endless volumes on theories of how to create a better world. Millions of pages, in hundreds of languages, from virtually every country on earth have contributed to this library of work. So many futures, so many ways to organize humanity, many ways in which talents and affinities have contributed, limitless possibilities. All of that said, very little has been said of one of humanity's greatest achievements; aviation. There are many reasons for this I'm sure; aviation has an admittedly bloody history, it's most memorable accomplishments have been defined by war. Reasonable concerns about climate change have put airplanes in the crosshairs of environmentalists. In a world where carbon emissions are rising, airplanes have come to symbolize post-imdustrial excess, something contributing to a seemingly inevitable catastrophe. I hope to address these concerns and open up a discussion in anarchist circles about aviation. This is not meant to be comprehensive, but ongoing. I hope this helps stimulate a wider project to incorporate aviation, air travel, aircraft, and air infrastructure into out visions of an anarchist future. Does anarchism have a history in aviation? Like much of aviation, the anarchist connection to flying has its roots in war. In 1917, a revolution that overthrew the Czar and led to a civil war in Russia, saw the rise of one of the most successful anarchist movements in history; the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, also known as, the "Black Army." Very quickly this army seized large swaths of territory in Eastern Ukraine and very rapidly collectivized land for the peasants. The Russian Empire was in retreat and in its path a whole host of possibilities opened up, these would eventually lead to the formation of the Soviet Union. This small army made a lot of progress in large part to the collapsing institutions around them. Like guns, trains, wagons, fortifications, and ships, the revolutionaries seized airplanes as well. The Red Army established the Workers' and Peasants' Red Air Fleet in May of 1918. The Russian Empire didn't have a large air force during the First World War, so much of this history is overshadowed by the battles on land and at sea. However, extensive air operations also took place with bombing and reconnaissance being carried out by all sides. This included the anarchists; by 1920 even the Black Army had gotten its hands dozens of airplanes. Between 1918 and 1920, they had acquired several Nieuport 23s, Anatra DS Anasals, Farman HF.30s, DeHavilland D.H.5s, and Sopwith 2½ Strutters. The force consisted of over 20 aircraft at its height and was able to carry to out effective reconnaissance for the Black Army. While the anarchist movement in Ukraine was eventually defeated, it showed anarchists have an aviation tradition. One that should be remembered. How do we create aviation safety with a central regulatory authority? The fact is, safety regulations have made aviation today one of the safest industries in the world. Extensive maintenance, minimum standards of training, manufacturing requirements have made flying so safe we largely take it for granted when we board an airline. While this is true, as anarchists we have to consider this is true of many things and yet we know we can do better. Currently there are multiple national and international regulatory bodies that govern aviation. Organizations such as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), and multiple Civil Aviation Authorities (CAA) around the world. These organizations write the rules and create policies that establish minimum safety and competency standards for every aspect of aviation. All of them have an origin in the early 20th century when aviators and passengers demanded a more responsible aviation industry. What is wrong with how things are? Like so many industries, things that may come from sincere intentions to make it better, safer, and more efficient often become bureaucratic bloat. The FAA in the United States is a massive organization with tens of thousands of employees. Unelected officials, only accountable to cabinet secretaries are who author and enforce aviation regulations. These regulations are often of very little relevance and do little to make aviation either safer or more efficient. The people creating them are usually not pilots, mechanics, or air traffic controllers and their only experience is in managerial work. Another huge problem is the graft that comes with the profit motive. There have been frequent complaints of regulatory capture. Federal aviation regulations often favor large airlines. Fines and penalties that can be easily covered by the big carriers are burdensome and prohibitive to general aviation (GA) pilots and mechanics. This has overall driven down the level of safety, drive up costs, and lowered the overall confidence in the airline industry and in aviation as a whole. This is by no means an exhaustive list of problems in aviation regulatory governance, but these are arguably the most important. In both cases we have unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats collaborating with unelected, unaccountable business executives, neither of which have any experience in aviation outside of managing the industry. So what's the alternative? The possibilities are many. Perhaps a good question to start with is, who better to regulate aviation than the people with the most "skin the game"? Pilots, aircrew, mechanics, air traffic controllers, and even passengers have as much stake in making aviation as safe, efficient, environmentally clean, and comfortable as possible. In an anarchist society, aviation could be governed by affinity groups and spokes councils of people who are enthusiastic for aviation. Democratic accountability is a major concern that could be addressed through local, regional, and confederal councils of delegates recallable at any time that hash out rules and regulations. The various levels could create standards both on a universal basis and also that conform to local conditions. Under the current regime, regulations are often passed with very little oversight or input from industry experts. They often ossify into fixed rules, even when technology and experience has evolved beyond them. They are done frequently from an attitude of trying to avoid liability than to keep people safe. With horizontally organized, worker and affinity managed, and democratically accountable institutions, we can achieve so much more. How do we reconcile aviation with climate change? It shouldn't be controversial to state that aviation isn't carbon neutral. Airplanes, helicopters, and even balloons burn fossil fuels just as cars, ships, and trains do. They contribute to climate change like any of the above. As aviators we need to be mindful of this and recognize the crisis we're facing. This does not mean engaging in individual moralizing or playing the blame game. We, like everyone else, have a stake in the future of our planet and we should contribute to the solutions. Can we do better than fossil fuels? The goal is a future beyond fossil fuels. Aviation is part of that future. It's been 240 years since humanity first took flight in a balloon and 120 years since we flew our first airplane. We've made so much progress since then, as far as fuel efficiency and efforts to grow beyond fossil fuels. This is not something to hang our laurels on; we have much work left to do. As previously stated with regulations, this is better done democratically than hierarchically. It's no mystery one of the biggest roadblocks keeping us tied to fossil fuels is that the capitalist mode of production keeps us tied to it. The profit generated, the rejection of alternatives due to cost, and the disregard for life on earth are reasons why, despite many alternatives already existing, there has been pitifully little investment in alternatives to fossil fuel. This is by design and by extension it means that liberating ourselves from fossil capital is the abolition of capitalism itself. Anarchists are largely aware that is the ultimate and lasting solution to the prison of fossil capital (and capital in general). That means air anarchy will need to work with wider revolutionary movements as a whole and not just imagine its future in a vacuum. Social revolution is necessary to the survival of our species. What are the alternatives to fossil fuels? The aviation sector as a whole has made statements and commitments to using alternatives to fossil fuel. The shackles of fossil capital have made it difficult to follow through on this, and has slowed progress, but there are solutions both hypothetical and existing. Getting into the details isn't the goal of this, but there are several existing alternatives. Electric power has been the subject of much research and development, especially for short haul and urban air mobility. The rise of biofuels and hydrogen have also been promising in the realm of breaking us free of fossil fuel dependence. Sailplanes and motor gliders can operate with very little powered flight. Blimps have been explored as an option for passenger travel. There's growing work as mentioned above electric aircraft, particularly electric vertical take off and landing (evtol). Ekranoplan (Russian for "screenglider"), is a form of flight that utilizes ground effect, a form of high efficiency lift that happens close to the ground. These are especially useful on seas and ocean along coastlines and between islands. This concept has been tested in Singapore as a possibly viable means of intercoastal travel. All of these are existing technologies, all of them are technologies trapped behind the demands of capital. The capitalist aviation industry cannot pursue these alternatives due to the economic risk to investment. That means we need to. What does anarchist aviation look like? Let's dream about the possibilities for a moment. The short history of aviation has brought us all kinds of forms. Only a few have become mainstream in the capitalist mode of production. As we've also seen, anarchists have an a rich aviation history as a tool of liberation. There have been hypothetical proposals in the solarpunk artistic scene, of an anarchist future where air travel is done by blimps. Imagining a slower paced society, where travel is easy to access and delays are no trouble. Possible futures where electric aircraft are used regularly in short distance travel. Solar powered planes, gravity planes, and hoverbikes criss-crossing the sky. Of exploring a borderless, stateless, classless world by air. There are also things we can do right now to incorporate anarchism into aviation. We can organize anarchist flying clubs, pilot's associations, and unions. There are non-anarchist organizations that can act as a template, like the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) and many flying clubs around the world. In addition to creating our own organizations we can join these existing formations to promote anarchism within them as well. Another avenue is to join radicalize the airline unions. In addition to existing airline unions we can help organize other unions within aviation, such as charter pilots, corporate pilots, air medical, and others. Labor organizing has long been a path of agitation within anarchism there's no reason aviation should be an exception. These organizations in addition to focusing on aviation education, training, and safety, can also use their collective power for agitation and mutual aid. It would be a way of attracting anarchists to aviation and aviators to anarchism. Most importantly it would get more people in aviation invested in contributing to the social revolution we need to fight climate change and liberate ourselves from fossil capital. Conclusion Aviation is not incompatible with anarchism. Flying is part of anarchist history and of humanity's pursuit for ultimate freedom. Anarchists should embrace aviation as both a tool of revolution and as revolutionary itself. This is only the beginning of what is hopefully a larger project. The hope is to get the input of other anarchist aviators and aviation enthusiasts. Like every other institution we can do better and the answer is always solidarity! Yo
Βόρεια Αμερική / Μεξικό / Αναρχική Ιστορία / Γνώμη / Ανάλυση Friday January 20, 2023 19:00 byΓιάννης Βολιάτης
Παρ’ όλες τις διώξεις και τις παρενοχλήσεις από τις αρχές, η Πάρσονς συνέχισε και κατά τα τελευταία χρόνια της ζωής της να δίνει φλογερές ομιλίες σε απεργούς εργάτες, να στηρίζει αγώνες και να καλεί σε κατάληψη των μέσων παραγωγής. Χαρακτηριστικά είχε δηλώσει πως “Η αντίληψή μου για την απεργία είναι πως δεν πρέπει να καλούμε σε μια απεργία, ώστε να απεργήσουμε απλά, να βγούμε (από το εργοστάσιο) και να πεθάνουμε της πείνας, αλλά να παραμείνουμε μέσα (στο εργοστάσιο) και να καταλάβουμε τα μέσα και την ιδιοκτησία που είναι απαραίτητα για την παραγωγή“. Η Λούσι Πάρσονς και οι διαδηλώσεις ενάντια στη πείνα στο Σικάγο (17/1/1915)Σαν σήμερα, στις 17 του Γενάρη του έτους 1915, η μαχητική συνδικαλίστρια, αναρχοκομμουνίστρια και φεμινίστρια Λούσι Πάρσονς ηγήθηκε μιας μεγάλης διαδήλωσης ενάντια στην πείνα (Hunger Demonstration) στο Σικάγο των Η.Π.Α. Η Λούσι Πάρσονς Η Πάρσονς γεννήθηκε ως Lucia Carter στην Βιρτζίνια των Η.Π.Α. το 1851. Η μητέρα της ήταν σκλάβα και ο πατέρας της ήταν πιθανότατα ο ιδιοκτήτης της, ένας πλούσιος λευκός Αμερικανός, ο οποίος μάζεψε όλο του το βίος και τους υπηρέτες του και έφυγε για το Τέξας κατά την έναρξη του Αμερικανικού Εμφυλίου, για να γλυτώσει από τις επιπτώσεις του αγώνα εναντίον της δουλοκτησίας. Ωστόσο, η ίδια η Πάρσονς δεν επιβεβαίωσε ποτέ την πλήρη καταγωγή της και αυτοπροσδιοριζόταν ως Ισπανο-Μεξικανο-Ινδιάνα γεννημένη στο Τέξας, αρνούμενη να δώσει παραπάνω πληροφορίες. Αφού εργάστηκε ως ράφτρα και μαγείρισσα σε σπίτια πλούσιων λευκών στο Τέξας, παντρεύτηκε έναν πρώην σκλάβο και συνέλαβε μαζί του ένα παιδί, το οποίο όμως έχασε στην γέννα. Μετά τον πρώτο αποτυχημένο γάμο της, γνώρισε και παντρεύτηκε τον λευκό πρώην στρατιώτη της Συνομοσπονδίας και προσφάτως υπέρμαχο των δικαιωμάτων των απελευθερωμένων σκλάβων, Άλμπερτ Πάρσονς, του οποίου το επίθετο και υιοθέτησε, ενώ άλλαξε και το όνομά της σε Λούσι από Λουσία. Ο “μεικτός” γάμος τους προκάλεσε αντιδράσεις στην συντηρητική κοινωνία του Τέξας και αναγκάστηκαν να μετοικήσουν βορειότερα. Εν τέλει μετακόμισαν στο Σικάγο, όπου και ενεπλάκησαν με το αναβράζον εργατικό κίνημα, αλλά και τους αναρχικούς κύκλους. Το ζεύγος ασχολήθηκε ενεργά με τους εργατικούς αγώνες, τα δικαιώματα των μαύρων και των κρατουμένων, ενώ η Λούσι ήταν τακτική αρθρογράφος σε σοσιαλιστικές, αναρχικές και εργατικές εφημερίδες. Η αστυνομία του Σικάγο την περιέγραφε ως “πιο επικίνδυνη από χίλιους ταραχοποιούς“, ενώ ήταν και μια εκ των ιδρυτών του αμερικανικού τμήματος της “Μαύρης Διεθνούς”, δηλαδή της αναρχικής Διεθνούς Ένωσης των Εργαζομένων Ανθρώπων (International Working People’s Association), που είχε δημιουργηθεί στην Αγγλία στα 1881. Ο σύζυγος της Πάρσονς, Άλμπερτ, ήταν ένας από τους Μάρτυρες του Σικάγο, του περιβόητου περιστατικού των Ταραχών στο Χέιμαρκετ, όπου 8 αναρχικοί κατηγορήθηκαν άδικα από τις αρχές, για το μακελειό που συνέβη σε μια συγκέντρωση ενάντια στην κρατική και παρακρατική καταστολή, η οποία είχε λάβει χώρα κατά την διάρκεια απεργιακών συγκεντρώσεων στα πλαίσια των διεκδικήσεων για το οκτάωρο. Επτά από τους συλληφθέντες εν τέλει εκτελέστηκαν, ανάμεσά τους και ο Πάρσονς. Η Λούσι Πάρσονς συνέχισε να ασχολείται δυναμικά, τόσο με το αναρχικό κίνημα, όσο και με τους εργατικούς αγώνες. Γνώρισε μεγάλες προσωπικότητες της εποχής, όπως ο Πέτρος Κροπότκιν αλλά και η Έμμα Γκόλντμαν, με την οποία μάλιστα διαφώνησε επάνω στην προτεραιότητα του ταξικού ζητήματος, ως κομβική τομή στις υπόλοιπες αναλύσεις επάνω στα κοινωνικά ζητήματα και κυρίως στον φεμινισμό. Η Πάρσονς πρωτοστάτησε στην ίδρυση των Βιομηχανικών Εργατών του Κόσμου (Industrial Workers of the World) στα 1905, μιας μεγάλης επαναστατικής συνδικαλιστικής ένωσης, αρκετά επηρεασμένης από τον αναρχο-συνδικαλισμό. Τα επόμενα χρόνια το ενδιαφέρον της επικεντρώθηκε σχεδόν αποκλειστικά στους ταξικούς αγώνες και ιδιαίτερα αυτούς που είχαν να κάνουν με την ακραία φτώχεια και την ανεργία. Με βάση αυτό, ήταν μια εκ των κύριων διοργανωτών των Διαμαρτυριών Ενάντια στην Πείνα στο Σικάγο (Chicago Hunger Demonstrations), στα 1915. Η Πάρσονς και οι Διαμαρτυρίες Ενάντια στην Πείνα στο Σικάγο (Chicago Hunger Demonstrations) Στις 17 Γενάρη του 1915 η Λούσι Πάρσονς ηγήθηκε μιας μεγάλης Διαμαρτυρίας Ενάντια στην Πείνα στην πόλη του Σικάγο. Η φλογερή συνδικαλίστρια είχε καταφέρει να ενώσει στον κοινό αγώνα ενάντια στην εξαθλίωση της εργατικής τάξης τους IWW, την ρεφορμιστική και σχεδόν ολοκληρωτικά εργοδοτική Αμερικανική Ομοσπονδία Εργασίας (American Federation of Labour), αλλά και το Σοσιαλιστικό Κόμμα και άλλες οργανώσεις της Αριστεράς και αναρχικούς της ταξικής πάλης. Σε φλογερά άρθρα της στον επαναστατικό τύπο, τις ημέρες πριν την διαδήλωση είχε γράψει μεταξύ άλλων τα εξής: “Κάθε βρώμικος, εξαθλιωμένος αλήτης ας οπλίσει τον εαυτό του με ένα περίστροφο ή ένα μαχαίρι, και ας περιμένει στα σκαλιά των παλατιών των πλουσίων και ας μαχαιρώσει ή ας πυροβολήσει τους ιδιοκτήτες καθώς βγαίνουν. Ας τους σκοτώσουμε χωρίς έλεος, και ας είναι αυτός ένας πόλεμος εξόντωσης“. Την ημέρα της διαδήλωσης σχεδόν 15.000 αποφασισμένοι εργάτες και άνεργοι κινήθηκαν στους δρόμους της πόλης, με σημαίες και πανό που ζητούσαν “Το ψωμί της ημέρας, σήμερα!” και άλλα αιτήματα σχετικά με τις άθλιες συνθήκες διαβίωσής τους. Η πορεία δεν είχε καλά-καλά ξεκινήσει όταν της επιτέθηκαν οι αστυνομικές δυνάμεις με γκλομπ, πιστόλια και ξιφολόγχες. Η Πάρσονς συνελήφθη και κατηγορήθηκε για υποκίνηση σε ταραχές μέσω της δράσης και των άρθρων της. Ο Ralph Chaplin, μουσικοσυνθέτης, μέλος της IWW και σύντροφος της Πάρσονς συνέθεσε το πασίγνωστο τραγούδι “Solidarity Forever” ως φόρο τιμής στις Διαδηλώσεις Ενάντια στην Πείνα: Τα τελευταία της χρόνια και ο τραγικός της θάνατος Παρ’ όλες τις διώξεις και τις παρενοχλήσεις από τις αρχές, η Πάρσονς συνέχισε και κατά τα τελευταία χρόνια της ζωής της να δίνει φλογερές ομιλίες σε απεργούς εργάτες, να στηρίζει αγώνες και να καλεί σε κατάληψη των μέσων παραγωγής. Χαρακτηριστικά είχε δηλώσει πως “Η αντίληψή μου για την απεργία είναι πως δεν πρέπει να καλούμε σε μια απεργία, ώστε να απεργήσουμε απλά, να βγούμε (από το εργοστάσιο) και να πεθάνουμε της πείνας, αλλά να παραμείνουμε μέσα (στο εργοστάσιο) και να καταλάβουμε τα μέσα και την ιδιοκτησία που είναι απαραίτητα για την παραγωγή“. Προς τις δυο τελευταίες δεκαετίες της ζωής της είχε προσεγγίσει περισσότερο το κομουνιστικό κίνημα, συνεργαζόμενη σε διάφορες εργατικές επιτροπές με την αριστερά, ενώ λέγεται -χωρίς να εξακριβώνεται ασφαλώς- πως είχε γίνει μέλος του Κομμουνιστικού Κόμματος των Η.Π.Α. λίγα χρόνια πριν τον θάνατό της. Η Λούσι Πάρσονς πέθανε στις 7 Μαρτίου του 1941, όταν το σπίτι της στο Σικάγο τυλίχθηκε στις φλόγες. Ο τότε σύντροφός της, George Markstall, προσπάθησε αποτυχημένα να την σώσει και πέθανε και ο ίδιος την επόμενη μέρα από τα εγκαύματά του. Η Λούσι Πάρσονς ήταν 91 ετών. Θάφτηκε στο κοιμητήριο Waldheim του Ιλινόις, δίπλα στο μνημείο των Μαρτύρων του Χέιμαρκετ. Οι αστυνομικές αρχές του Σικάγο, σε μια τελευταία εκδικητική κίνηση απέναντι σε αυτή την μεγάλη αγωνίστρια της εργατικής τάξης, κατάσχεσαν τις επόμενες μέρες του θανάτου της την τεράστια βιβλιοθήκη της, με πάνω από 1500 βιβλία και προσωπικά αρχεία. Όσο όμως και να προσπαθούν το κράτος, τα αφεντικά και τα τσιράκια τους να την θάψουν στην λήθη του χρόνου, η Λούσι Πάρσονς παραμένει για πάντα ζωντανή στις μνήμες της αμερικανικής -αλλά και της διεθνούς- εργατικής τάξης, ως η γυναίκα που ήταν “πιο επικίνδυνη από 1000 ταραχοποιούς“. Πηγές: www.peoplesworld.org wikipedia.org Derry Anarchists *Αναδημοσίευση από εδώ: https://www.alerta.gr/archives/12971?fbclid=IwAR1Q9xLRwvyCKPNcTjaRXM6gksjoaEOicGxwUfNoD8xJrtX22D2w17mTVAA |
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