On this episode of It’s Going Down, we speak with Lakota ‘Black Elk’ Maroon, an Indigenous organizer in so-called Minnesota and the author of a recent piece on resistance to the Line 3 pipeline. Recorded as the pipeline neared completion, we discuss the scope of the various resistance camps, the role of non-profits, the impact and legacy of Standing Rock, moving social movements beyond pressuring Democrats, and how anti-pipeline struggles could serve as the launch pad for greater self-organization, mutual aid, and action in Native communities.
After nearly 8 years of fierce resistance, we learned that Line 3 will become operational this weekend.
This fight is not over, only shifted, so it’s a good time for a refresher: what is Line 3, why should it be stopped, and how can you help? A thread 🧵 (1/9)#StopLine3pic.twitter.com/kCNpCna7wV
Content Warning: This essay focuses on a social justice movement and therefore discusses police violence against black people, sexual assault, and self-defense against the police in the context of protests.
This essay is part one of two pieces Irruptions will be releasing regarding the Fall 2021 anti-FIJI protests in Lincoln, Nebraska. This is a continuation of our work from the Summer of 2020, in which we examined the correlation between the arrival of activist leadership onto protest scenes and the subsequent dissipation of political energy within those protests. This pattern has now repeated itself on UNL’s campus in the wake of what appears to be another successfully defeated movement. Emphasizing the importance of study for those engaged in political action, we aim to offer a lens by which to understand this cycle of defeat in which people in Lincoln are trapped.
Here in Part One, we record the trajectory of the anti-FIJI protests that occurred in Lincoln and draw a few conclusions with the goal of challenging the hegemony of middle-class activism in this city. In Part Two, we will further develop aspects of the following analysis to explore the interactions of class, race, and gender within the crowds throughout the protests. Importantly, some vital events are being elided in Part One because they require deeper analysis in Part Two.
Across both parts, we aim to demonstrate the following theses:
1) Many people in Lincoln wish to do more than submit themselves to institutional reformism in response to violence, but they are always already countered by an entrenched counterinsurgency in the form of a clique of middle-class activists.
2) Lincoln’s middle-class activists alienate more militant elements from protests by cultivating atmospheres of suspicion and distrust, thereby discouraging direct action.
3) Speech-giving, petitioning, scheduling meetings with people in power, and “calling your friends out” (these being the endlessly recycled tactics deployed by the middle-class activist clique) ultimately alienate protest attendees and are the primary reason for the chronic dwindling of every movement in Lincoln.
4) The various police agencies in Lincoln rely on middle-class activism as part of their highly effective “get scarce” approach to counterinsurgency.
What follows is a synthesis of, on the one hand, a timeline of events that occurred in Lincoln and, on the other, our analysis of the forces at play in line with the above theses. But first, we must clarify one of our terms.
What Is Middle-Class Activism?
What we lay out in this section considers events through a primarily class-based lens, though the broader analysis will also consider the operations of other identity categories in the dynamics of the anti-FIJI protests (particularly in Part Two). We adopt this class-based lens because we believe that class allegiances and property relations are a primary force at play in the disarticulation of movements in Lincoln.
For the purpose of this essay, we define middle-class activism as follows: A political disposition which emphasizes institutional power as the exclusive means by which to create social change. Middle-class activism can be wielded by people from a variety of social backgrounds, including working-class ones. A person participates in middle-class activism when their attitudes and strategies regarding social change reflect a petty-bourgeois class interest.
Lincoln “organizers” can’t even run a campaign to call out a literal rapist. Why are we listening to these people? https://t.co/e3ZcHSlwDs
Middle-class activism protects the interests and property of the powerful. This effect derives from its core assumptions: 1) that corporate and state institutions are capable of rendering “justice” if the oppressed can obtain a voice in the halls of power, and 2) that any direct attacks on corporate and state institutions will make these entities less likely to listen to the demands of the oppressed or admit them into positions of power. At its core, therefore, the logic of middle-class activism rests on the hope that the oppressed can gain entry into the system as it currently exists. Of course, middle-class activists tend to think they are the best candidates for this elevation to power. Therefore, they defend the existing property relations from which they hope to benefit.
These assumptions come into conflict with the historied proletarian impulse toward property destruction. Those who have no hope of and/or do not aspire to join the mythical, propertied middle-class feel no qualms about breaking a window or two if it strikes enough fear in the hearts of landowners to improve the conditions of life. Because many people (whatever their class position) understand that oppression itself is rooted in the present social conditions, they do not see these conditions as aspirations to be guarded, but rather as the very vehicles of their oppression.
This contradiction between middle-class activism and proletarian liberation continually arises within social movements both in Lincoln and abroad.
Night One: Autonomous Action in Lincoln, Nebraska
On Tuesday, August 24th, the University of Nebraska—Lincoln (UNL) was entering its second day of classes. Throughout the day, allegations spread that a female undergraduate student had been violently raped the night before at the Phi Gamma Delta (colloquially known as “FIJI”) fraternity house on campus. FIJI was already considered by students to be a bastion of rapists among the Greek houses. A brief history of FIJI includes more than fourteen allegations of rape on the property since 2017, repeated suspensions and probations by the university, and a vocal right-wing political orientation.
Within hours of the allegations spreading among undergraduate students, calls were circulating within local social media ecosystems for both the alleged rapist and the house itself to be expelled from UNL.
On the same night as the allegations had proliferated, a demonstration was called outside the fraternity house. No clear leaders emerged in the run-up to the protest, and, as the night set, a crowd of approximately one thousand assembled.
At first, the protest was highly decentralized and autonomous. The crowd positioned itself directly in front of the FIJI house, with those leading chants rotating in and out from the front. Whoever was leading chants at a given point stood on a stout wall that bordered the fraternity’s lawn, in close proximity to the line of half a dozen UNL police guarding the fraternity house just beyond the wall.
Objects were thrown at the house, and the police perimeter was violated. These actions were met with mixed responses from the crowd, divided between encouragement and remonstrations to “be peaceful.” When the perimeter of the lawn was breached by a protestor, they were ejected from the area by police, but not arrested.
At some point, a megaphone appeared. This changed the tenor of the demonstration, immediately drawing the focus of the crowd to individual speakers on the wall. Convergent with this development, a prominent Lincoln activist who leads the Black Leaders Movement (hereafter referred to as BLM, not to be confused with “Black Lives Matter”) arrived and became the primary possessor of the megaphone. This particular activist appeared repeatedly as a counter-insurgent force last year and has been previously mentioned in our analyses of the George Floyd Rebellion and its subsequent disarticulation. Immediately upon the arrival of this BLM activist, the autonomy of the crowd became overshadowed by peace-policing as the megaphone began to dictate the necessity of a “peaceful protest.”
Analysis of Night One
Just as the George Floyd Rebellion revealed, the unfolding of the first night of anti-FIJI protests demonstrates that, when people feel empowered to respond to structural violence in their communities, they do so. The inclination of many in the crowd on August 24th was to attack the house. They expressed this by lobbing projectiles toward the structure where the alleged rapist had been harbored. Moreover, they demonstrated courage in the face of police repression, openly defying the cops’ attempts to keep them off the lawn. At this point, the crowd was testing the waters, building their courage, seeing how far they could push things. What would they have accomplished if they had been allowed to continue along this course?
An approximate answer may have played out in nearby Iowa City, where, on August 31st, thousands got into the streets to protest an alleged rape at another FIJI fraternity on the University of Iowa campus. The FIJI house was graffitied with prominent tags of “RAPISTS” on the front of the house. Windows were shattered, and several cars were overturned and damaged by the crowd. Additionally, it is our understanding that an entrance to the house was breached by individuals and the interior was damaged.
Here is a Twitter thread of some of the raw footage captured at the Protest outside of the Phi Gamma Delta (Fiji) house at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. pic.twitter.com/G1nNAtzkkt
The difference between Lincoln and Iowa City is that the apparatuses of liberal, middle-class activism were slower to activate in the latter city. This tells us that middle-class activism here in Lincoln is always at the ready to quell unrest. As such, the forces of middle-class activism are the frontline of counterinsurgency, which people must find ways to preemptively circumvent if they wish to exercise their autonomy.
As a postscript to this section, we will mention that a struggle over the megaphone occurred between the activists and a black man from the crowd, which concluded with the man being arrested by the police to the cheers of the activists. We find this incident to be highly disturbing as well as indicative of the relationship between middle-class activism and the police. We will explore this relationship more fully in Part Two.
Nights Two and Three: Passivity Takes the Reins
Going into the second night of protests (Wednesday, August 25th), the middle-class activists had solidified their control. The process resembled the well-oiled machine that was witnessed during the previous summer: a demonstration was called; a peaceful, police-escorted march of pre-determined chants on silent, traffic-free campus streets ensued; more chants were performed outside the fraternity house; and roughly two hours of aimless speaking by the self-proclaimed “revolutionary” BLM activist were delivered through the megaphone.
Unapproved displays of frustration, even those as simple as chucking a water bottle towards the FIJI house, were now met with the swift movement of police towards the point of origin and immediate disapproval from the activists who demanded “respect for the survivor”—according to their definition of “respectful behavior,” of course.
New video on recent events in Lincoln, NE!
Protests continue tonight at 8pm at Nebraska Union. #ShutdownFiji
Testimony became the primary mode of protest at this point. Survivors (pre-selected by the activists) stepped up to recount their traumas for the crowd and demand that something be done by university administration. During intermissions in the speeches, the activist-leaders would address the crowd (who had just born witness to some of the worst violences inflicted upon their peers), and tell people that the solutions were petitions, emails, and adding one another on Snapchat to build the movement.
More of the same (though without even so much as a police-escorted march this time) followed on the third night (Thursday, August 26th).
Analysis of Nights Two and Three
Truly, we were shocked by the rapidity with which the middle-class activists stifled the anti-FIJI uprising. The past year and a half had been practice. Every time a movement popped up, middle-class activists—most prolifically the aforementioned BLM founder—would show up and take control. The assumption of control by any member of the middle-class activist clique was inevitably accompanied by the reign of megaphones and police escorts. Wherever they appeared, protestors were told to look out for “outside agitators” and “clout-chasers,” so that suspicious eyes were suddenly upon anyone who looked as though they were about to do anything at all.
The pestilential atmosphere enforced by these activists negated any potential for camaraderie within the crowd. Like cult leaders, the activists positioned themselves as the only ones you can trust, the only ones who are looking out for you, warning the crowd to beware the evil “agitators” who “want to lead you astray.”
The equivocation between, on the one hand, attempts by the crowd to damage the alleged rapist’s property and, on the other, disrespect to the person who was violated at this same property underscores that these activists are coercing crowds into institutional reform as the be-all, end-all. Not even the hackneyed “diversity of tactics” compromise (which operates mostly as an excuse for those who do not want to risk anything to avoid doing so) can be reached when the activists unilaterally ensnare any potential action in these institutional binds.
We propose that, in these so-called safe spaces of civility and high-roadism, where people’s traumas are trotted out like a list of dangers from which the activists “are here to save you,” many felt alienated, disengaged, and alone. Many felt crushed by the weight of the violence of this world and the seeming impossibility of doing anything more than petitioning the powerful to please stop.
Perhaps, this is a better explanation for why these protests repeatedly fizzle out and die. This opposed to the tired script produced by the activists that “people just aren’t committed enough.”
Night Four: The Activists Protect the Police
Night four (Friday, August 27th) was marked by more pacified liberal “action,” now on the steps of the Student Union and away from the fraternity. The crowd had dwindled. The old pattern was strictly maintained: There were calls for officials to be held accountable, organized speeches, calls for petition-signing, and no action by the crowd allowed other than the repetitious chants doled out by the activists.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln students form a protest against the fraternity “Fiji” for a member allegedly raping a student on the first day of school! pic.twitter.com/aNVk3EkN1O
Toward the end of the night, on O Street (a major street near UNL’s campus), Lincoln Police performed a traffic stop on a black man for allegedly violating a traffic signal. As the stop unfolded, he was tazed by the police. A crowd of passersby formed, and the nearby UNL protestors were alerted to the tazing. Not long after the UNL protestors arrived, people were in the streets, blocking cop cars from leaving and bringing their anger to bear against the police. Eventually, the police retreated in the face of the crowd’s anger, at which point the middle-class activists ordered everyone back onto the sidewalk with their megaphone and, eventually, made everyone go home.
Analysis of Night Four
This is another incident which we must elide in Part One so that we can attend to it more fully in Part Two. For now, let it be said that this eruption was the revival of spontaneous crowd solidarity, which, as will be shown below, was swiftly tamped down. Keep an eye on our blog for the more detailed analysis of this incident in Part Two.
Beyond Night Four: The Movement Defeated
Following the confrontation with police on O Street, the activists barely acknowledged the event. The activists, instead, resumed calling for the same type of actions as before, i.e., inaction. The crowd dwindled each subsequent night.
On Sunday, August 29th, news broke that a separate UNL fraternity, Sigma Chi, was placing itself on suspension for a rape that was reported internally. Regardless, the demonstration of Monday, August 30th, was the smallest yet, numbering barely one hundred. The protesters no longer gathered in front of the FIJI house. They were, instead, moved to the other side of the Student Union, entirely out of sight of the fraternity. The demonstration consisted of a candlelight vigil, with more speeches from activists and survivors, followed by a silent march on the traffic-less streets of the campus. The frustration and fatigue of many protestors was palpable, even during the silent march, and several groups did not bother to return to the Union. It should be noted that several of the speech-givers and activists also did not participate in the march, but instead waited at the Union, prepared with their megaphone to funnel the crowd back into repeating the same-old set of chants when they returned.
On Monday, August 30th, only a small handful of protesters arrived at the Student Union, and the low turnout motivated the activists to move the event to a discussion on Zoom, the goals and details of which remain unclear.
On the afternoon of Tuesday, September 1st, the BLM activist who had assumed leadership of the protests posted on Facebook that all scheduled demonstrations were cancelled for the following two weeks (whether protests will resume remains to be seen). The justification given was that the organizers needed to regroup and perform self-care. This has so far been the end of anti-FIJI action in Lincoln. Although some parties attempted to resuscitate the movement following September 1st (using the same top-down, institution-oriented tactics), no significant actions have taken place since that date.
Also on September 1st, a letter surfaced on several social media pages, first appearing (from what we can tell) in a Facebook group for anti-FIJI organizing in Iowa City. This letter purported to be penned by survivors who denounced the cooptation of the Lincoln protests and the silencing of their anger. Although many on the Internet both in Lincoln and Iowa City expressed agreement with the letter’s sentiments, and another middle-class activist (who, previously, had labelled those who attempted to attack the FIJI house “reactionaries”) posted on Facebook an attempt at reflection in their role in stifling the movement, nothing more came of this letter.
Analysis of Night Five and After
The suppression by activists of the anti-police actions of August 27th emphasizes the questionable separation of police from the discussion of sexual violence that occurred on UNL’s campus. Moreover, it is especially confusing considering that the BLM activist who coopted the anti-FIJI movement began their career by imposing themself upon the local expression of the George Floyd Rebellion. Yet, this activist did not once, to our knowledge, mention the countless untested rape kits in police departments around the country. Neither did they draw the clear connection to the staggering rates of rape committed by police officers. No, they were more than happy to have the cops roaming with impunity through a crowd of young women, with no consideration for the fact that, as the protests thinned, the cops would have increasing opportunities to corner these people alone. Women are far from defenseless, but have we not seen what depravity the police are capable of one million times over?
Additionally, it bears mentioning that, despite another rape occurring on UNL’s campus within the same week—an incident that would have instigated full-on rioting in many places—we saw a continued diminishment of protest attendance in Lincoln. Although the middle-class activists continually whine that people are not committed enough to “doing the work,” we think this series of events paints a stark picture of how they are the very problem. Every protest they come to swiftly dies. The fact that they could not mobilize people around a second alleged rape shows, even by their own metrics, that they are not capable of anything other than destroying movements. These activists are the heart of counterinsurgency in Lincoln.
Protests against Fiji Fraternity in Iowa City have exploded, as many denounce their rampant sexual abuses of young women on and off campus. This follows a week of protests in Lincoln, NE against the same frat following the r*pe of a minor the first night of class. https://t.co/KEADTPgpev
Lastly, we turn our eye to the letter from survivors. Its appearance at the end of the campus’s protests should be taken as a clear diagnosis: Middle-class activism is not the Great Advocate of the Oppressed. Rather, it functions to funnel and silence people’s anger and to annihilate people’s autonomy. Middle-class activism not only implements hierarchical domination of professional activists over lay protestors, and not only does this imposition drive people away in the literal hundreds, but it leaves survivors of sexual assault and other marginalized people more vulnerable to violence because the activists have assured everybody that they are “taking care of it” in the halls of power, where nothing ever changes. Meanwhile, rapists prowl from dozens of fraternities and hundreds of dorm rooms and in every police department. The people who care, the people who are desperate for something, anything, to be done, those who keep coming to the activists because the activists have driven everybody else away—these people walk home from these protests, alone and disempowered, with predators all around them.
People could have built something. But, instead, they were told to sign a petition and go home.
Conclusion
We think the conclusion is clear: Middle-class activism cannot be abided. Any well-meaning liberal in Lincoln and abroad needs to think seriously about what it means to tell people that, when they are attacked, they cannot attack back; that their hurt and anger must be expressed through institutional channels only. Middle-class activism asks that people simply get used to dying while the speech-givers and the influencers jot down on their resumés that they did something, though it is never clear what.
We echo the letter that we published prior to this piece: Go around the forces of middle-class activism. When your autonomy is denied you, experiment with ways to enact it. You do not have to listen to megaphones. You do not have to listen when people tell you your reactions are wrong. The only thing that each of us must do is better equip ourselves to protect one another.
This is dire. The continued failure to cancel rent payments in the pandemic on Biden’s watch means people will die, families will be separated, and the carceral system will act to claim both parents and children. How? Families with small children are more likely to be behind on their rent, especially Black families. The moratorium did not eliminate rent payments but simply halted them, meaning those families will now have to pay impossible sums or face eviction from landlords who have been chomping at the bit for this moment to present itself. When families are evicted–forced into being unhoused or . . .
The very real danger that former President Donald Trump would attempt a violent coup to stay in power following his electoral defeat has been confirmed by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley.
Milley is quoted extensively by Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker in their new book “I Alone Can Fix It.” Milley was appointed to the nation’s highest military position by Trump and sworn in on September 30, 2019.
CNN.com reviewed an advance copy of the book on July 14. Some of the revelations follow:
“Milley was so shaken that … Trump and his allies might attempt a coup or take other dangerous or illegal measures after the November election that Milley and other top officials informally planned for different ways to stop Trump…
“Milley and the other Joint Chiefs discussed a plan to resign, one-by-one rather than carry out orders from Trump that they considered to be illegal, dangerous or ill-advised.
“Milley viewed Trump as ‘the classic authoritarian leader with nothing to lose,’ the authors write, and he saw parallels between Adolph Hitler’s rhetoric … and Trump’s false claims of election fraud.
“’This is a Reichstag moment,’ Milley told aides …. ‘ The gospel of the Fuhrer.’
“Ahead of a November pro-Trump ‘Million MAGA March’ to protest the election results, Milley told aides he feared it ‘could be the modern American equivalent of ‘brownshirts in the streets,’ referring to the pro-Nazi militia that fueled Hitler’s rise to power.
It was clear that Trump was building up momentum for months prior to the November election to challenge what was becoming clear – that he would lose to Democratic candidate Joe Biden. General Milley only confirms what many feared, and some progressives tried to prepare for, the possibility of a violent overthrow of the capitalist “democratic” government.
As early as September 30, 2020 the online newsletter Fighting-Words.net printed “A Call to Create People’s Committees to Defend Democratic Rights” in the spirit of a united front against fascism. The proposal specifically called for labor unions to start popularizing the idea of a General Strike and the formation of units prepared to confront fascist bands in the streets.
In the following weeks several central labor bodies (Rochester, NY, Seattle, WA among others) did call for a general strike if Trump tried to seize power. This did get some notice in the national media. However the highest levels of the American Federation of Labor/Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) refused to support the local calls. In Michigan a leading member of the state AFL—CIO told this writer “we don’t want to anger the Republicans in Lansing with that kind of talk.”
And where was the leadership of the Democratic Party during all of this? They certainly were aware of Trump’s threats to overturn the election by force, but prepared no mass action in case Trump carried out his threat, which he did on January 6th. They then responded with the Constitutional impeachment framework, which they knew was futile.
Congressmen Eric Swalwell and Benny Thompson then launched legal suits against Trump using the “Ku Klux Klan Act”, enabled by Section 3 of the Reconstruction era 14th Amendment.. These lawsuits would prevent Trump and other “insurrectionist” politicians from continuing in office and ever holding office again. But Pelosi and Schumer have offered no support at all to their efforts.
A grass-roots community organization based in Detroit, the Moratorium Now Coalition, picked up the idea and mass distributed a “Call to Organize People’s Committees … to Defeat Trump’s Plan to Steal the Election.” Even in this group a struggle broke out with ultra-left forces who thought it didn’t matter what happened between Trump and Biden as it was “just a squabble among the ruling class.” The majority of the organization, while not giving support to Biden, did believe that confronting a fascist threat did matter, that Trump’s campaign to disregard the votes of millions of oppressed and working people would lead to the destruction of all the hard-won gains of the union and Civil Rights struggles.
Moratorium Now later issued a “Call to U.S. Military Personnel to Refuse Illegal Orders.” This leaflet was ready to distribute in case Trump sent troops into cities to back a coup.
Progressive forces in Michigan did unite in the formation of Michigan Action Councils that met through October online (the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing). Eighteen Action Councils were established around the state which discussed opposing Trump’s threat to not abide by the election if he were defeated.
The Detroit Action Council had many meetings of over 100 progressives from many organizations, including several unions. Rallies and marches were held. These demonstrations, however, were always scheduled far from the site of ballot counting in downtown Detroit where ultra-rightwing Trump supporters gathered and threatened to disrupt the official count in the days following November 3.
A demonstration was held on November 7 when it was clear that Biden won the national election, as well as Michigan. The Detroit Action Council didn’t meet again or prepare further mass actions after this, revealing that the top leadership did not really grasp the threat. It was precisely in the months following November 3 that Trump and his minions amplified their false claims and presented the greatest fascist danger. This peaked in the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.
So what did prevent Trump’s coup from succeeding? This question is important. For no one should believe that the racist, fascist, anti-union forces have been decisively defeated in the United States. It isn’t just a matter of Trump, the individual, but broad sections of the populace as well as military and police forces and ruling class elements who have no hesitancy to impose a fascist-style regime.
Perhaps General Milley and others in the top ranks of the armed services did plan some forms of resistance. But the snail pace response of the National Guard and other Pentagon brass to the seizure of the Capitol on January 6 shows that many at the top would just as well go along with Trump and a coup.
During the Vietnam War there were organizations inside the military and veterans organizations that had mass support of the rank and file soldiers who opposed the war. This ultimately made it impossible for the military machine to continue the imperialist aggression. This does not exist today.
The trade union leadership has deteriorated to the point where it can barely protect the living standards of its own membership. With notable and laudable exceptions, the union movement did not step forward to utilize its still considerable strength to stop Trump and his forces.
The Black Lives Matter movement, which rocked the country for over a year after the brutal police murder of George Floyd has mainly focused on local issues of police misconduct. It has not, as of yet, come together as a nationwide political force.
The socialist and revolutionary parties did not play much of a role to mobilize resistance to a fascist Trump threat. In the past even small militant revolutionary groups have played a role much greater than their number would suggest possible.
Trump’s success before, on and after January 6 broke on several fronts. First, Donald Trump himself was a coward. He had been slinging bombastic lies to his followers for months. They gathered around him in Washington, D.C. on January 6. He whipped them up and called on them to march on the Capitol with him. Then he ran and hid inside the White House, leaving them to their fate.
This might not have been fatal to the coup. But Trump’s supporters were and are a diverse crew. They have no unified program or organization. Even the most military minded of them are in different organizations. They were not able to coordinate decisively on the ground, even though they did come close to seizing the Senators and Representatives.
Most of all, an overthrow of the government was not welcomed by the largest sections of the ruling class. Wall Street bankers and corporate heads have been getting much of what they want in the way of tax breaks, relief from environmental and safety regulations and military support for their imperialist interests overseas. They were not facing a crisis in class relations where their class interests could only be saved by brutal military means. The political system has been working quite well for the rich and powerful. Trump’s adventure was not attractive to them, at this time.
The CNN book review did, however, make one mistake. They wrote “… for the first time in modern US history the nation’s top military officer … was preparing for a showdown with the commander in chief because he feared a coup attempt …” This statement is inaccurate.
In the political crisis of the U.S. Civil War, General George McClellan who served as head of the Army secretly plotted with others to oust President Lincoln in a coup. This did not take place, and McClellan was replaced.
In 1933 retired Marine Corp General Smedley Butler testified before a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives that Wall Street businessmen had approached him to lead a coup to oust President Franklin Roosevelt. The mass media dismissed this and no one was ever prosecuted.
More recently there was a fear that President Richard Nixon would try to use the military to stop his impeachment. It was later revealed that the Secretary of Defense notified all military commanders to refuse orders from their Commander in Chief if those orders were not co-signed by the Secretary. This was not legal, but the ruling class was making sure that Nixon would not be able to stay in office via a coup.
This “democratic” government (what Marxists call “bourgeois democratic” because it is run by and for the capitalist class with only the thin trappings of rights for the masses) is based on exploitation and oppression of hundreds of millions of people in this country and billions more abroad.
Defending the few “democratic rights” granted to the masses is necessary but only insofar as it gives us some room to build a revolutionary movement that can and will overturn the capitalist economic system, end exploitation and institute a socialist system. Then the vast wealth of this country and the world will be used for the benefit of the many instead of enriching the few.
“If our actions result in the system believing it has to arrest us, then so be it. Civil disobedience is a badge and banner we will proudly wear,” said Rev. William Barber.
In his article on developments in the Democratic Socialists of America as the organization approaches its 2021 convention, Andrew Sernatinger states: “A priority campaign over immigration received overwhelming support from delegates [at the last convention, two years ago] but never . . .
Report from so-called Minneapolis, where a non-profit funded by the City attempted to evict and shut down George Floyd Square. from stolen Dakota Land Since the murder of George Floyd, while radicals continue to struggle for liberation, we have also seen a disturbing yet albeit predictable wave of counter-insurgency fronts in the Minneapolis area. The… Read Full Article
Universalizing Blackness as a flat experience allows Amazon to proclaim #BlackLivesMatter, create a Black-owned business page but crush the unions organized by its Black workers. It allows the NBA to paint BLM on its hardwoods, highlight Black business during the NBA finals but pay its predominantly Black and temp workers dirt wages. Universalizing Blackness distorts Blackness itself. It is decorating at its worst. . . .
When we are in periods of highly-charged organizing, we often lose the lessons of the past. This is why Emily Hobson and Dan Berger, both historians of activism, started working on a collection of primary documents from social movements during the right’s ascension after the “long ‘60s.”
“Remaking Radicalism” collects hundreds of pieces of writing from one of the most underrepresented periods of left-wing organizing. The depths it probes are profound: speeches from rallies, clippings from movement newspapers, pamphlets that were handed out on the street, and dozens of organizations and social movements from ACT UP to the Clamshell Alliance to the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee. What it offers is a picture of movements both in crisis and managing to persevere, which can teach lessons about how to approach movement building in our present chaotic time.
With that in mind, I interviewed Emily Hobson and Dan Berger about their book, the lasting impacts of some of the social movements it features and the lessons we can learn from them today.
What was the idea behind “Remaking Radicalism,” and how did you approach putting it together?
Hobson: Ten years ago I initially approached Dan with the idea, which came from the fact that I wanted this kind of resource when teaching. I had the sense that it could be useful for ongoing organizing, but also the recent past was very distant to my students, and this period was not represented in the more easily accessible narratives about social movements. Similar anthologies ended with the 1970s and were conceived of as anthologies of the “long ‘60s.”
Berger: There were a few things already published about the time period, but in general, there was this lacuna — not only in the scholarship, but even in talking to students or to our generation of activists — about what happened between the ‘60s and whenever they got active. Some people were lucky enough to be mentored and come up in a way that connects those dots. But for a lot of people, whatever struggle got them politicized, whatever they are doing now, is reinventing things. I was excited about this project because it seemed like a way to really connect the generations and sort of fill in a lot of the silences that exist because we don’t have a strong inter-generational connection left.
Immediately, we decided we didn’t want to do a linear chronology. It’s like recurring themes that come up, whether it’s about tactics or strategy or even about political ideology. So we wanted to be able to frame a kind of evolving left and series of conversations, and we are approaching the time period thematically rather than chronologically.
There’s a sense of disagreement in the volume. Some of the people in the book would be opposed to each other’s politics. Some people might even be shocked to see certain ideas included in left spaces. How did you make some of these selections?
Berger: This is where the framework of “usable past” really guided us. We were really motivated by organizing documents that were written in a way that would be conversant with the present — that still spoke to the present, even if the campaign or organization were long defunct. But the particular issues and strategies highlighted are still very much alive. So we looked for documents that highlighted the innovation or ingenuity from the time period, but still resonated with our present.
What are some of the factors that are unique about this period and separated it from earlier and later history?
Berger: There are several things that overshadow the period. The U.S. war in Vietnam and 9/11 bookend the period. Then we have the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. So within that sort of reshuffling of the world system, you have a lot of social movements responding to historical weaknesses in the left. Intersectionality is one attempt, or breakthrough, at that. I would see that as fitting within a larger series of attempts by social movements to figure out a way to fight for change in the context that is heavily out-maneuvered by the right.
We can look back at things like the civil rights movement as successful, and we encounter them only retrospectively when we think they succeed. And we all know that that’s not the way to think about movements. That’s why we need to take the coup attempt that happened on Jan. 6 so seriously, because the right often wins a lot even if they don’t win the whole pie [such as overthrowing the government]. In this time period we were trying to think about how people are continuing to struggle and what they’re learning and figuring out and experimenting with in the process of that struggle, even if they’re not winning the whole pie.
There were a lot of world historic challenges and national political and economic shifts that presented different challenges in this time period. I think this has led many people to consider that period as primarily about the right’s ascension, or for the left it’s just a period of falling apart or eating itself. But we knew that this was not the case, and we still have an obligation to learn from the movements even when they aren’t winning. Those are moments of realignment, of reinterpretation, of expansion, of intellectual and strategic experience that sets the terrain for the next period of struggle.
The book discusses the rise of the New Right in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and how movements responded. And now we have just experienced our own kind of rise of the right with Trumpism, national populism and white nationalism. What kind of innovations or lessons from that period can we apply to this current rise of the right?
Berger: The urgency with which Black radicals were calling out incarceration — the conversation that became mass incarceration — was deeply connected with the role that the Klan and Nazis were playing within law enforcement. One thing being explored in this time period is the severity of state violence and how that is a project of, or aligned with, far-right movements that want repressive aspects of the state, even if some of them go to war with that same state.
Hobson: Another place that I see innovations across the book is the kind of repeated engagement with questions of new necessary forms of coalition, and also critiques of unwanted bedfellows. In the first section of the book, “Bodies and Lives,” there is a section on fighting the right that includes critiques around the “sex wars” and a piece from the Feminist Anti-Censorship Task Force. This is a kind of critique of the ways that laws against pornography brought feminists into bed with the Christian right.
But even more dramatically to me, and sort of a productive innovation, is the effort to build power through unexpected kinds of coalitions. That’s the work I get excited by, and it pushes back on the easy narrative that you can write the history of “X” movement and it will always be easily distinguishable from all the others, as opposed to actually having to respond to the right and the state and to economic and environmental circumstances. I also love the ways that you see a lot of critiques of unwanted bedfellows from inside communities of color, particularly the Asian American documents pushing back on anti-affirmative action and “colorblind” politics.
We saw a sort of “putting down of arms” on the left over the course of the book’s time period, but are we experiencing a type of re-armament?
Hobson: I would say to a degree yes, but I think it goes along with a broader shift from this era to our own, which is the decline of vanguardism and the massive growth of anarchist politics. Across the period of the book you see the decline of armed activity tracks with the decline of vanguardism. In the last 10 years, maybe longer, I don’t see the increased investment in armed activity being expressed in a vanguardist way, but in a decentralized and mutual aid, type of way.
Berger: [It’s] a sort of defensive posture — a Black Panther-style display of weaponry more than their usage. I think the kind of street fights we have had all summer, particularly in Portland but other places as well, happens in Europe and Latin America all the time. There is more of a history of street-fighting politics rather than gun politics around the world. However, instead of a street brawl it is an armed street brawl because we are in the United States, which I think is a terrifying prospect.
Hobson: It’s less acts of sabotage against the state or corporate targets and more about defense against heavily armed white nationalist militias. [This] in part comes out of the clinging to the Second Amendment as a left tool, which has the danger of alignment with the state’s definition of violence.
How do you think people captured identity as a point of struggle and why did that happen in this period?
Berger: The book starts in 1973 and at that point you have almost two solid decades of not only Black radical organizing, but just Black civic organizing, where there is a profound sense of identity. It’s not narrow, but expansive and holistic. And out of that comes a variety of other moments that similarly tried to project identity outward as a way of organizing an expansive political vision. The Puerto Rican independence movement is increasingly important by 1973. Chicano and Latinx organizing, and Indigenous organizing, and so on. The nature of inequality in the United States is already organized through identity — so it is not surprising that resistance would be politicized in the language of identity. Part of the significance of starting with the Combahee River Collective statement about intersectionality was the way that identity is explicitly linked to a socialist politics, which a number of pieces outline.
There are also other kinds of identity that are an entree to political orientation, like Joel Olson’s “Why the Masses Ain’t Asses,” which is from the punk scene. We often think of it as a subculture rather than identity, but it is still an identity-based orientation to politics. There are lots of debates in the period about the role of subculture, who’s being organized and in what way.
What are the key disagreements in the book, and what are the bigger disagreements of the period?
Berger: I think the debates in the book are largely around strategy and tactics and the role of certain types of confrontation — certainly around violence, but also there’s a lot of debate around how much the left should appeal to the state versus fight the state. How much should you fight to get control or appeal for some kind of reform versus trying to eliminate the state. And there are debates around whether to engage in electoral politics, such as the debate from the Center for Third World Organizing.
Hobson: I think there are also some debates in the book around the question of what is the scope, extent and nature of state violence. How is environmental degradation a form of state violence or state-sanctioned violence, for example? Or how is the threat of nuclear war — interwoven with actual “hot” war or prisons — a form of state violence?
Berger: I think the debate is not only about whether the left should engage in violence and what that means, but what kind of nonviolence do we mean. We had a strong emphasis on groups or documents that reflect a pursuit of radical or revolutionary transformation. That debate on the left is usually presented as violence or nonviolence, but in fact a more generative debate is about the divide between revolution and reform. So we have a number of documents from pacifists that are about revolutionary transformation, and are really clear about it being more of a strategic choice than a moral one. But many people in these groups were conversant with groups that had a different take on this and were still able to be in coalition with them. I think there are a number of people on the “diversity of tactics” left today that would benefit from that emphasis — the dynamic being a question of revolution versus reform, rather than violence versus nonviolence.
How do you hope social movements will use this book?
Berger: One thing is being able to recognize all of the issues and documents in the book as part of a shared movement and left. There has been a lot of commentary on Medicare for All and the leading edge of demands in the progressive left are all very national, and stop at the U.S. border. One thing I hope the book can do is be a reminder that issues of colonialism and imperialism and Indigenous sovereignty are and should be a part of what the left is about. And the conversations in the books have corollaries and successors in movements today. They are part of making the left and fashioning radicalism today.
Hobson: I hope that people and organizations can look to the book and find multiple forerunners that they may not have known about before and can trace back their own influences. I hope it can help people think about building inter-generational movements and organizations in new ways. I hope it not just reminds people of the centrality of anti-imperialism and decolonization and Indigenous politics, but also points towards some ways to resuscitate the internationalist left that has been lost in the post-2008 era.
Berger: Some of our framing is older than we might realize. One thing I learned in doing the book is that prisoners in North Carolina in 1974 used the phrase “prison industrial complex.” So I hope the book can be a source of inspiration for people so they can draw on the deeper past for all the issues we are fighting for today. And that it can be an affirmation of a kind of need for experimentation, or at least the need for solidarity. We can’t be in every single movement or campaign, but we can expand our coalition and our sense of who and what we are in solidarity with.
Andreas Malm’s call for minority violence is eloquent and sincere, but self-defeating
