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Very smart thread on the often-invisible labor anarchists perform in larger movements. 👇🏾 @magpiekilljoy/1558439158439354369Permalink On twitter.com
♻️ 1 Retweets ❤️ 4 Favorites Mood +1 🙂
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Four resonant thoughts from something I wrote about the 2003 antiwar mobilizations in the SF Bay Area… scribd.com/document/65408090/Shattering-Consensus-and-Disrupting-Downtown-New-Urban-Resistance-to-War-and-EmpirePermalink On twitter.com
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1. Quite simply, a belief that society needs long term, fundamental change inspires people to stick with the tedious work of calling allies, setting up voicemail, and hosting meetings.Permalink On twitter.com
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Revolutionary traditions…offer a strategic narrative of ways to do something more than endlessly confront the system’s wars, atrocities and disasters. They envision a time when we not only challenge the cruelties of state power, but when we unmake, remake, or reclaim that power.Permalink On twitter.com
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2. Revolutionary politics and activist traditions provided alternatives to despair and defeat as established systems of power (Congress, street lobbying, the United Nations, and the dissenting imperial powers of Europe) acquiesced in or failed to prevent the invasion.Permalink On twitter.com
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3. Totally seconding what @magpiekilljoy wrote about Portland… "anarchist organizing methods underlay the structure … Affinity groups, networked through spokescouncils based on consensus, and committed to both autonomy and solidarity carried out direct action."Permalink On twitter.com
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4. The obvious issues around power and agendas raised by the differences between those doing the work of organizing and [the larger numbers of people] who opposed the war are real.Permalink On twitter.com
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I would argue that they are lessened by an open organizing structure, direct democracy, and the possibilities of autonomy within solidarity. Conversely, closed or hierarchical organizing structures tend to amplify these problems.Permalink On twitter.com
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We revolutionaries who want a democratic society have a special obligation to check ourselves on seizing power while expressing ourselves brilliantly in calling for more than minor, temporary changes.Permalink On twitter.com
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P.S. I had a lot of hardworking fun writing several pages bridging the anarchist/socialist/Marxist/Third World Communist divides into a single section on "revolutionaries." The desire to do so was born of material cooperation in the streets.On twitter.com
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"This paragraph attempts the near-impossible task of remaining neutral on the question of whether power is to be taken or destroyed, seized or exercised. Bear with me."Permalink On twitter.com
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For those seeking context… "We Interrupt This Empire" documents the Bay Area antiwar mobilization in 2003: archive.org/details/we_interrupt_this_empire "Shutdown: The Rise and Fall of Direct Action to Stop the War" tells a more inside story: vimeo.com/57710595Permalink On twitter.com