FAIR USE NOTICE

FAIR USE NOTICE

A BEAR MARKET ECONOMICS BLOG


This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. we believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

FAIR USE NOTICE FAIR USE NOTICE: This page may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This website distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for scientific, research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107.

Read more at: http://www.etupdates.com/fair-use-notice/#.UpzWQRL3l5M | ET. Updates
FAIR USE NOTICE FAIR USE NOTICE: This page may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This website distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for scientific, research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107.

Read more at: http://www.etupdates.com/fair-use-notice/#.UpzWQRL3l5M | ET. Updates

All Blogs licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

Sunday, May 31, 2009

What would Alinsky do? If he had Twitter...


Usually the early adopters of technology are businesses and later on it trickles down to government, non-profits and yes politics. In the last two elections, presidential candidates started using technology to gain an advantage over their opponents, especially during the primaries. Howard Dean and Barrack Obama used technology effectively and intelligently and the results speak for themselves.

These days, everybody is talking about Twitter but Twitter is so new that people are still trying to figure out how to use it beyond the basics.

This article is based on the book ‘Long John Twitter‘ that goes to great length to go beyond the basics of Twitter and help a reader comprehend the power of Twitter when combined with other emerging technologies. This article is intended to help politicians and activists figure out how to use Twitter and its sister applications to get ahead or at the very least not fall behind a smarter more tech. savvy rival.

Instead of mentioning current politicians and ruffling the feathers of one or the other, we will use the names Alinsky and Goldwater for this article.

If Alinsky had Twitter and its sister Apps, this is probably how it would go:

1. Alinsky would first go to http://www.twitalyzer.com and get an idea of where he stands in Twitterverse. Details like Influence, Signal Strength, Generosity, Velocity and Clout would give him useful insight.

2. Then he would go to an App called Twist and do a head to head comparison. Twist can tell him how often he is talked about in Twitterverse versus Goldwater. If Goldwater is ahead, Alinsky better giddy up.

3. Time to point his browser to Tweetstats and get some insight into his own and Goldwater’s tweeting habits. Is he tweeting at some ungodly hours? If so, those messages are most likely never getting read. Ideally he would like to spread his tweets evenly at times when his followers are more likely to read them.

4. Time to find out who has more followers, Alinsky or Goldwater. Pretty easy to do. Just type http://www.twitter.com/username and you have the details.

Armed with the above information, Alinsky and his team now needs to get down to work. They have current statistics. The objective is clear - win the election. The technology is there. How to leverage this technology to tilt the odds in favor of Alinsky.

Team Alinsky has to increase Alinsky’s followers and increase his influence with the followers. They need to show to Alinsky’s followers that he understands the issues of the day, has better solutions and can lead the way towards a better society.

Now if Alinsky has amateurs running his show, they would bombard his followers with his statements all day long till they are sick of it and tune him out. That would be a total disaster.

For a politician, having constituents and followers is great but it is quite a challenge to stay in touch, keep them engaged and motivated without wearing yourself and your team down.

Alinsky and his team are professionals so they decide to create a micro news agency. The news agency would:

1. Identify the issues that matter to his constituents.

2. Develop filters around those issues to identify relevant news.

3. Scour local, national and international news / media sites and pick news stories according to the filters set in step 2.

4. Abridge the headlines and include the URL / links to the stories while making sure they fit the 140 character limit of twitter.

5. Run the URLs / Links through a link tracking system. Without that, they wouldn’t know which news story was widely read and circulated. Metrics and Analytics are very important. Without them, you wouldn’t know if you are being effective or not.

6. Intersperse regularly scheduled communiqués from Alinsky linked to his blog.

Doing all this would require considerable manpower unless they use technology. Technology is meant to save on manpower and provide speed of delivery. Using the applications detailed in ‘Long John Twitter‘, Alinsky and his team would set up their systems to create the micro news agency using the guidelines above. Then they would let it run without human intervention. No allocation of human resources on a daily basis at all.

The team would periodically sit down and analyze the metrics. If things need to be adjusted, they would do so. If a new issue has surfaced, they would add that to the filters and start feeding related news to the followers.

As time goes by, Alinsky’s followers would know that he is in touch with the issues that matter to them. After all, he is the one feeding them information every day. They would trust him and also re-tweet / circulate his information to other people. That would further increase Alinsky’s clout / circle of influence. Day by day, Alinsky would gain strength and that could eventually tilt the scales in his favor at the ballot.

Summary: Twitter by itself is a very basic application. Combined with it’s sister applications and human ingenuity, Twitter can be a very potent message and content delivery mechanism. Use it to your advantage.

Good Luck!

###

Filed Under (Twitter) by Najee on 20-05-2009 as

What would Lincoln do?

If he had Twitter

Unheralded Battle: Capitalism, the Left, Social Democracy, and Democratic Socialism


By Sheri Berman / Dissent Magazine


THE current financial and economic crisis has once again placed the dangers of capitalism at the forefront of our collective consciousness. The left, which until relatively recently had seemed adrift across much of the Western world, lacking in coherent and convincing responses to globalization and neoliberalism, appears once again poised for a comeback, as citizens yearn for stability and security in difficult times. That the left’s fortunes should ebb and flow with capitalism’s is nothing new. Indeed, capitalism is both the reason for and the bane of the modern left; the left’s origins and fate have always been inextricably intertwined with capitalism’s. There is much, therefore, that the left can learn from its past about how to approach the problems of the present.

The Backstory
The emergence of capitalism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries led to unprecedented economic growth and personal freedom, but it also brought dramatic inequality, social dislocation, and atomization. Accordingly, a backlash against the new order soon began. During the early to mid nineteenth century, a motley crew of anarchists, Lassalleans, Proudhonians, Saint Simonians, and others gave voice to the growing discontent. Only with the rise of Marxism, however, did the emerging capitalist system meet an enemy worthy of its revolutionary power. By the late nineteenth century an orthodox version of Marxism had displaced most other critiques of capitalism on the left and established itself as the dominant ideology of the international socialist movement.

Part of Marxism’s appeal came from the embedding of its scathing critique of capitalism in an optimistic historical framework that promised the emergence of an even newer and better system down the road. Crudely stated, Marxism had three core points: that capitalism was a great transforming force in history, destroying the old feudal order and generating untold wealth and productivity; that it was based on terrible inequality, exploitation, and conflict; and that it would ultimately and naturally be transcended by the arrival of communism.

We don’t always remember that Marx thought capitalism had amazing qualities. “[It] has accomplished wonders,” he wrote, “far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades.” But its extraordinary accomplishments, he argued, came at a fearsome human cost. Capital was like a vampire that “lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.” And in the end, having fulfilled its historically “progressive” function of destroying the old order and releasing humanity’s productive potential, it would collapse. Marx was convinced that just as the internal contradictions of feudalism had paved the way for capitalism, so the internal contradictions of capitalism would pave the way for its successor. It was, as he once put it, “a question of . . . laws . . . tendencies working with iron necessity towards inevitable results.”

Everyone on the left agreed with Marx on the first two points. By the late nineteenth century, however, some of its sharpest minds began to disagree on the third. For instead of collapsing, capitalism was showing great resilience. It emerged stronger than ever from a long depression in the 1870s and 1880s, and then revolutions in transportation and communication led to a wave of globalization sweeping over not just Europe but the world at large. Several advanced bourgeois states, meanwhile, had started to enact important economic, social, and political reforms, and, for most of the public, life was actually getting not worse but better (however slowly and fitfully).

In response to these conditions, the left effectively splintered into three camps. The first, best symbolized by Lenin, argued that if the new social order was not going to come about on its own, then it could and should be imposed by force—and promptly set out to spur history along through the politico-military efforts of a revolutionary vanguard. Many other leftists were unwilling to accept the violence and elitism of such a course and chose to stick to a democratic path. Standard narratives of this era often leave the analysis here, focusing on the split between those who embraced and those who rejected violence. In fact, however, an additional split within the democratic camp was crucial as well, centering on the future of capitalism and the left’s proper response to it.

One democratic faction believed that Marx may have been wrong about the imminence of capitalism’s collapse, but was basically right in arguing that capitalism could not persist indefinitely. Its internal contradictions and human costs, they felt, were so great that it would ultimately give way to something fundamentally different and better—hence the purpose of the left was to hasten this transition. Another faction rejected the view that capitalism was bound to collapse in the foreseeable future and believed that in the meantime it was both possible and desirable to take advantage of its upsides while addressing its downsides. Rather than working to transcend capitalism, therefore, they favored a strategy built on encouraging its immense productive capacities, reaping the benefits, and deploying them for progressive ends.

The real story of the democratic left over the last century has been the story of the battle between these two factions, which can be thought of as the battle between democratic socialism and social democracy. It is this battle, and in particular the incomplete victory of the latter in it, that has constrained the left’s ability to respond to political challenges up through the present day.

Heirs or Doctors?
The most important and influential of the fin-de-siècle proto-social democrats was Eduard Bernstein. Bernstein was an important figure in both the international socialist movement and its most powerful party, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). He argued that capitalism was not leading to the immiseration of the proletariat, a drop in the number of property owners, and ever-deepening crises, as orthodox Marxists had predicted. Instead, he saw a capitalist system that was growing ever more complex and adaptable. This led him to oppose “the view that we stand at the threshold of an imminent collapse of bourgeois society, and that Social Democracy should allow its tactics to be determined by, or made dependent upon, the prospect of any forthcoming major catastrophe.” Since catastrophe was both unlikely and undesirable, he argued, the left should focus on reform instead. The prospects for socialism depended “not on the decrease but on the increase of social wealth,” together with socialists’ ability to generate “positive suggestions for reform” that would improve the living conditions of the great masses of society: “With regard to reforms, we ask, not whether they will hasten the catastrophe which could bring us to power, but whether they further the development of the working class, whether they contribute to general progress.” Perhaps Bernstein’s most (in)famous comment was, “What is usually termed the final goal of socialism is nothing to me, the movement is everything.” By this he simply meant that talking constantly about some abstract future was of little value; instead socialists needed to focus their attention on the long-term struggle to create a better world.

Because the issues raised by Bernstein and other revisionists touched upon both theory and praxis, it is not surprising that the international socialist movement was consumed by debates over them during the fin-de-siècle. Karl Kautsky, the standard-bearer of orthodox Marxism, attacked Bernstein, commenting, “He tells us that the number of property-owners, of capitalists, is growing and that the groundwork on which we have based our views is therefore wrong. If that were so, then the time of our victory would not only be long delayed, we would never reach our goal at all.” Similarly, Wilhelm Liebknecht, one of the leaders of the powerful German SPD, noted, “If Bernstein’s arguments [are] correct, we might as well bury our program, our entire history, and the whole of [socialism].” And Rosa Luxemburg, perhaps Bernstein’s most perceptive critic, urged socialists to recognize that if his heretical views were accepted, the whole edifice of orthodox Marxism would be swept away: “Up until now,” she argued, “socialist theory declared that the point of departure for a transformation to socialism would be a general and catastrophic crisis.” Bernstein, however, “does not merely reject a certain form of the collapse. He rejects the very possibility of collapse . . . . But then the question arises: Why and how . . . shall we attain the final goal?” As Luxemburg recognized, Bernstein was presenting socialists with a simple question: Either “socialist transformation is, as before, the result of the objective contradictions of the capitalist order . . . and at some stage some form of collapse will occur,” or capitalism could actually be altered by the efforts of inspired majorities—in which case “the objective necessity of socialism . . . falls to the ground.”

These debates simmered for more than a generation, until events reached a critical juncture during the 1920s and early 1930s. Now in power in several major European countries, the democratic left found itself responsible for actual political and economic governance, not simply for agitation and theorizing. The onset of the Great Depression in particular forced socialists to confront their relationship to capitalism head-on. In the hour of what seemed to be capitalism’s great crisis, what should socialists do? Should they sit back and cheer, seeing the troubles as simply the start of the transition that orthodox Marxism had long promised? Or should they try to stanch the bleeding and improve the system so that such disasters could never happen again? Fritz Tarnow, a leading German socialist and unionist of the day, summed up the dilemma in 1931:

Are we standing at the sickbed of capitalism not only as doctors who want to heal the patient, but also as prospective heirs who can’t wait for the end and would gladly help the process along with a little poison? . . . We are damned, I think, to be doctors who seriously want to cure, and yet we have to maintain the feeling that we are heirs who wish to receive the entire legacy of the capitalist system today rather than tomorrow. This double role, doctor and heir, is a damned difficult task.



In fact, it was not just difficult, it was impossible. And recognizing this, more and more socialists understood that the time had come to choose. One result was that during the early 1930s, reformers across the continent developed policies that, while differing in their specifics, were joined by one key belief: the need to use state power to tame and ultimately reform capitalism. In Belgium, Holland, and France, Hendrik de Man and his Plan du Travail found energetic champions; in Germany and Austria, reformers advocated government intervention in the economy and proto-Keynesian stimulation programs; and in Sweden, the Social Democratic Party initiated the single most ambitious attempt to reshape capitalism from within.

By the end of the 1930s, therefore, the longstanding debate on the democratic left had come to a head. On the one side stood social democrats, who believed in using the power of the democratic state to reform capitalism. And on the other side stood democratic socialists, who believed that leftists should not do anything about capitalism’s crises because ultimately it was only through the system’s collapse that a better world would emerge.

The Postwar World
During the interwar years, social democrats generally lost these battles, except in Scandinavia and, particularly, in Sweden. But in the wake of a second world war brought on by tyrannies that had come to power thanks in part to the interwar era’s economic and social turmoil, the social democrats’ ideas and policies ultimately triumphed, both on the left and across much of the political spectrum. After 1945, Western European states explicitly committed themselves to managing capitalism and protecting society from its more destructive effects. The prewar liberal understanding of the relationship among capitalism, the state, and society was abandoned: no longer was the role of the state simply to ensure that markets could grow and flourish; no longer were economic interests to be given the greatest possible leeway. Instead, after the war the state was generally seen as the guardian of society rather than the economy, and economic imperatives were often forced to take a back seat to social ones.

These changes seemed so dramatic at the time that contemporary observers were unsure how to characterize them. Thus, C.A.R Crosland argued that the postwar political economy was “different in kind from classical capitalism . . . in almost every respect that one can think of.” And Andrew Shonfield similarly questioned whether “the economic order under which we now live and the social structure that goes with it are so different from what preceded them that it [has become] misleading . . . to use the word ‘capitalism’ to describe them.”

But of course capitalism did remain—even though it was a very different capitalism than before. After 1945, the market system was tempered by political power, and the state was explicitly committed to protecting society from its worst consequences. This was a far cry from what Marxists, communists, and democratic socialists had hoped for (namely, an end to capitalism), but it was equally far from what liberals had long advocated (namely, a free rein for markets). What it most closely embodied was the worldview long espoused by social democrats.

Putting into place this new understanding of politics and markets allowed the West to combine—for the first time in its history—economic growth, well-functioning democracy, and social stability. Despite the obvious success of the postwar order, however, the triumph of social democracy was not complete. Many on the right accepted the new system out of necessity alone; once their fear of economic and social chaos (and the radical left) faded, their commitment to the order also faded. But more interestingly, even many on the left failed to understand or wholeheartedly accept the new dispensation. Some forgot that the reforms, while important, were merely means to an end—an ongoing process of taming and domesticating the capitalist beast—and so contented themselves with the pedestrian management of the welfare state. Others never made their peace with the loss of a post-capitalist future.

A LEADING light in the second camp was Michael Harrington, putative heir to the mantle of Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas, one of the American left’s most inspiring and influential figures, and a long-time contributor to this journal. Harrington supported reforms that alleviated the suffering of America’s poor and marginalized (whom he famously termed “The Other America”), but he did not believe that such reforms or the welfare state more generally could ever eliminate suffering or injustice. These were ultimately inherent features of capitalism itself. He argued, for example, that the “class structure of capitalist society vitiates, or subverts almost every . . . effort towards social justice.”

Even the unprecedented economic growth of the postwar era did not fundamentally change Harrington’s views. He described such growth as “misshapen” and “counterproductive,” arguing that no matter how economically successful it was, capitalism was incapable of “meeting the needs of the people.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, he was also convinced that capitalism was on its way out. In 1968, he opened his bookToward a Democratic Left with the proclamation that the “American system [didn’t] seem to work any more.” In 1976, he wrote a book called Twilight of Capitalism. In 1978, he asserted that “capitalism was dying.” And in 1986—just three years before the collapse of communism and in the middle of a lengthy economic boom—he wrote that “the West is living through an economic and social crisis so unprecedented in its tempo, so complex in its effects, that there are many who do not even know it is taking place.”

The problem with such statements and the larger worldview that lay behind them is not merely that they were wrong, but also that they were counterproductive. Convinced that a better world had to await capitalism’s demise, Harrington devoted much of his intellectual and political energy to convincing his readers that capitalism’s apparent triumphs were fictional and that the system was really on its way out. And he sought to persuade the left that its chief task was not to reform and humanize capitalism but rather to press for its passing.

One result of the mismatch between Harrington’s worldview and reality was that his attempts at practical guidance were highly impractical. Indeed, reading Harrington today one is struck by two things: the sharp and amazingly empathetic eye he brought to his descriptions of the American poor and the utopian irrelevance of most of his policy proposals for improving their lot. Harrington knew what he disliked about the existing capitalist order, but had trouble describing concretely how a post-capitalist world would actually work or how to get to it. Like other democratic socialists, he placed a lot of faith in “democratic planning.” Yet aside from the emphasis on democracy and public participation (to differentiate it from the heavy-handed state planning of the Eastern bloc), there was little description about what such planning would involve or how it would achieve its goals. Other recommendations for building a socialist order included the socialization of investment, some form of “social” ownership, shorter working hours, and limits on the private setting of prices. But one looks in vain for details about how such measures could be implemented, what their likely results would be, and how they would relate to each other and to existing institutions so as to produce more efficient or just outcomes.

It is hard not to conclude, especially with hindsight, that the democratic socialist view was ultimately a dead end. Although Harrington and others in his corner were very often correct in their scathing criticisms of capitalism, they consistently played down not only its extraordinary accomplishments but also the changes it went through over time—changes that were, to a large degree, the achievement of the left itself. By insisting that true justice could come only with capitalism’s elimination, democratic socialists implicitly (and often explicitly) denigrated efforts at taming it—thus limiting the left’s cohesiveness and appeal and its ability to offer practical benefits to suffering populations in the short and mid term.

The Fierce Urgency of Now
These arguments are anything but academic or merely historical. For the left today faces a globalized capitalism in the midst of a serious crisis. How the left thinks about capitalism and its own mission will affect its ability to deal with this crisis as well as its chances for electoral success. Although currently chastened, contemporary neoliberals of the right and center have long argued for leaving markets as free as possible and have long dismissed concerns about globalization’s individual and social costs. Large sectors of the left, meanwhile, downplay the adaptability of markets and dismiss the huge gains that the global spread of capitalism has brought, particularly to the poor in the developing world. Such debates resemble nothing so much as those taking place a century ago, out of which the social democratic worldview first emerged. Then as now, many liberals see only capitalism’s benefits, while many leftists see only its radical flaws, leaving it to social democrats to grapple with a full appreciation of both.

Participants at the two extremes of today’s economic debates need to be reminded that it was only through the postwar settlement that capitalism and democracy found a way to live together amicably. Without the amazing economic results generated by the operations of relatively free markets, the dramatic improvements of mass living standards throughout the West would not have been possible. Without the social protections and limits on markets imposed by states, in turn, the benefits of capitalism would never have been distributed so widely, and economic, political and social stability would have been infinitely more difficult to achieve. One of the great ironies of the twentieth century is that the very success of this social democratic compromise made it seem routine; we forget how new and controversial it actually was. As a result, by the end of the twentieth century the West had begun to gradually abandon this compromise, moving in a more neoliberal direction, freeing markets and economic activity from some of the oversight and restrictions that had characterized the postwar settlement. The challenge to the left today is to recover the principles underlying this settlement and to generate from them initiatives that address today’s new problems and opportunities. Many of the specific policies that worked during the postwar era have run out of steam, and the left should not be afraid to jettison them. The important thing is not the policies but the goals—encouraging growth while at the same time protecting citizens from capitalism’s negative consequences.

Building on its best traditions, the left must reiterate its commitment to managing change rather than fighting it, to embracing the future rather than running from it. This might seem straightforward, but in fact it isn’t generally accepted. Many European and American leftists are devoted to familiar policies and approaches regardless of their practical relevance or lack of success. And many peddle fear of the future, fear of change, and fear of the other. Increasing globalization and the dramatic rise of developing world giants such as China and India, for example, are seen as threats rather than opportunities.

At its root, such fears stem from the failure of many on the left to appreciate that capitalism is not a zero-sum game—over the long run the operations of relatively free markets can produce net wealth rather than simply shifting it from one pocket to another. Because social democrats understand that basic point, they want to do what they can to encourage trade and growth and cultivate as large a net surplus as possible—all the better to pay for measures that can equalize life chances and cushion publics from the blows that markets inflict.

Helping people adjust to capitalism, rather than engaging in a hopeless and ultimately counterproductive effort to hold it back, has been the historic accomplishment of the social democratic left, and it remains its primary goal today in those countries where the social democratic mindset is most deeply ensconced. Many analysts have remarked, for example, on the impressive success of countries like Denmark and Sweden in managing globalization—promoting economic growth and increased competitiveness even as they ensure high employment and social security. The Scandinavian cases demonstrate that social welfare and economic dynamism are not enemies but natural allies. Not surprisingly, it is precisely in these countries that optimism about globalization is highest. In the United States and other parts of Europe, on the other hand, fear of the future is pervasive and opinions of globalization astoundingly negative. American leftists must try to do what the Scandinavians have done: develop a program that promotes growth and social solidarity together, rather than forcing a choice between them. Concretely this means agitating for policies—like reliable, affordable, and portable health care; tax credits or other government support for labor-market retraining; investment in education; and unemployment programs that are both more generous and better incentivized—that will help workers adjust to change rather than make them fear it.

JUST AS important, however, is that the left regain its old optimism and historical vision. And here, interestingly, is where Harrington still has something to teach. In his writings, he insisted on the left’s need for some larger sense of where it wanted the world to be heading. Without this, he argued, the left would be directionless and uninspiring. Despite current disillusionment with capitalism, this is precisely the situation the left finds itself in today, given the loss of its vision of a postcapitalist society. Many of its parties win elections, but few inspire much hope or offer more than a kinder, gentler version of a generic centrist platform.

Given the left’s past, this is astonishing. The left has traditionally been driven by the conviction that a better world was possible and that its job was to bring this world into being. Somehow this conviction has been lost. As Michael Jacobs has noted, “Up through the 1980s politics on the left was enchanted—not by spirits, but by radical idealism; the belief that the world could be fundamentally different. But cold, hard political realism has now done for radical idealism what rationality did for pre-Enlightenment spirituality. Politics has been disenchanted.” Many welcome this shift, believing that transformative projects are passé or even dangerous. But this loss of faith in transformation “has been profoundly damaging, not just for the cause of progressive politics but for a wider sense of public engagement with the political process.”

As social democratic pioneers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century recognized, the most important thing that politics can provide is a sense of the possible. Against Marxist determinism and liberal laissez-faire, they developed a political ideology based on the idea that people working together could make the world a better place. And in contrast to their democratic socialist colleagues, they argued that it was both possible and desirable to take advantage of capitalism’s upsides while addressing its downsides. The result was the most successful political movement of the twentieth century, one that shaped the basic politico-economic framework under which we still live. The problems of the twenty-first century may be different in form, but they are not different in kind. There is no reason that the accomplishment cannot be developed and extended.

Sheri Berman is associate professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her latest book is The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe’s Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Rules for Radicals


In 1971, Saul Alinsky wrote an entertaining classic on grassroots organizing titled Rules for Radicals. Those who prefer cooperative tactics describe the book as out-of-date. Nevertheless, it provides some of the best advice on confrontational tactics. Alinsky begins this way:
What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.

His “rules” derive from many successful campaigns where he helped poor people fighting power and privilege

For Alinsky, organizing is the process of highlighting what is wrong and convincing people they can actually do something about it. The two are linked. If people feel they don’t have the power to change a bad situation, they stop thinking about it.

According to Alinsky, the organizer — especially a paid organizer from outside — must first overcome suspicion and establish credibility. Next the organizer must begin the task of agitating: rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy. This is necessary to get people to participate. An organizer has to attack apathy and disturb the prevailing patterns of complacent community life where people have simply come to accept a bad situation. Alinsky would say, “The first step in community organization is community disorganization.”

Through a process combining hope and resentment, the organizer tries to create a “mass army” that brings in as many recruits as possible from local organizations, churches, services groups, labor unions, corner gangs, and individuals.

Alinsky provides a collection of rules to guide the process. But he emphasizes these rules must be translated into real-life tactics that are fluid and responsive to the situation at hand.

Rule 1: Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. If your organization is small, hide your numbers in the dark and raise a din that will make everyone think you have many more people than you do.

Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people.
The result is confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of an opponent. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. “You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”

Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.

Rule 6: A good tactic is one your people enjoy. “If your people aren’t having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic.”

Rule 7: A tactic that drags on for too long becomes a drag. Commitment may become ritualistic as people turn to other issues.

Rule 8: Keep the pressure on. Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period for your purpose. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this that will cause the opposition to react to your advantage.”

Rule 9: The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself. When Alinsky leaked word that large numbers of poor people were going to tie up the washrooms of O’Hare Airport, Chicago city authorities quickly agreed to act on a longstanding commitment to a ghetto organization. They imagined the mayhem as thousands of passengers poured off airplanes to discover every washroom occupied. Then they imagined the international embarrassment and the damage to the city’s reputation.

Rule 10: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. Avoid being trapped by an opponent or an interviewer who says, “Okay, what would you do?”

Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.

According to Alinsky, the main job of the organizer is to bait an opponent into reacting. “The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.”

Activism 101


by Mickey Z. / May 30th, 2009 / Dissident Voice

Okay, short attention span crowd: Grab your remote (or mouse) and get ready to click, click, click…

“How much can you know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight? I don’t wanna die without any scars.”
– Tyler Durden (Fight Club)

Click…

William Burroughs once wrote about how we humans—like the bull in a bullfight—tend to focus on the elusive red cape instead of the matador. Indeed, we are all-too-easily distracted from real targets by an attractive image or illusion.

Of course, some bulls see right through the red cape, uh, bullshit…and quite justifiably introduce the matador to the business end of their horns. Before you mistake that for a lesson and/or inspiration, don’t forget that such bulls are promptly killed while the matador is mourned as a brave hero.

Here’s my question: If every bull in every bullfight were to gore everymatador, how long would it be before bullfights were a thing of the past?

Click…

Malcolm X sez:

“It is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.”

Click…

In the late 1960s—thanks to Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW)—deciding whether or not to buy grapes became a political act. Three years after its establishment in 1962, the UFW struck against grape growers around Delano, California…a long, bitter, and frustrating struggle that appeared impossible to resolve until Chavez promoted the idea of a national boycott. Trusting in the average person’s ability to connect with those in need, Chavez and the UFW brought their plight—and a lesson in social justice—into homes from coast-to-coast and Americans responded.

“By 1970, the grape boycott was an unqualified success,” writes Marc Grossman of Stone Soup. “Bowing to pressure from the boycott, grape growers at long last signed union contracts, granting workers human dignity and a more livable wage.”

Through hunger strikes, imprisonment, abject poverty for himself and his large family, racist and corrupt judges, exposure to dangerous pesticides, and even assassination plots, Chavez remained true to the cause…even if meant, uh…”stretching” the non-violent methods he espoused:

Once in 1966, when Teamster goons began to rough up Chavez’s picketeers, a bit of labor solidarity solved the problem. William Kircher, the AFL-CIO director of organization, called Paul Hall, president of the International Seafarers Union.

“Within hours,” writes David Goodwin in Cesar Chavez: Hope for the People, “Hall sent a carload of the biggest sailors that had ever put to sea to march with the strikers on the picket lines…There followed afterward no further physical harassment.”

Click…

To me, the following quote reads like a poem…so that’s how I’ll present it:

You’ve got to learn
that when you push people around,
some people push back.
As they should.
As they must.
And as they undoubtedly will.
There is justice in such symmetry.

– Ward Churchill

Click…

When early American revolutionaries chanted, “Give me liberty or give me death” and complained of having but one life to give for their country, they became the heroes of our history textbooks. But, thanks to the power of the U.S. media and education industries, the Puerto Rican nationalists who dedicated their lives to independence are known as criminals, fanatics, and assassins.

On March 1, 1954, in the gallery of the House of Representatives, Congressman Charles A. Halleck rose to discuss with his colleagues the issue of Puerto Rico. At that moment, Lolita Lebrón alongside three fellow freedom fighters, having purchased a one-way train ticket from New York (they expected to be killed) unfurled a Puerto Rican flag and shouted “Free Puerto Rico!” before firing eight shots at the roof. Her three male co-conspirators aimed their machine guns at the legislators. Andrés Figueroa’s gun jammed, but shots fired by Rafael Cancel Miranda and Irving Flores injured five congressmen.

“I know that the shots I fired neither killed nor wounded anymore,” Lebrón stated afterwards. With the attack being viewed through the sensationalizing prism of American tabloid journalism, this did not matter. She and her nationalist cohorts became prisoners of war for the next twenty-five years.

Why prisoners of war? To answer that, we must recall that since July 25, 1898, when the United States illegally invaded its tropical neighbor under the auspices of the Spanish-American War, the island has been maintained as a colony. In other words, the planet’s oldest colony is being held by its oldest representative democracy—with U.S. citizenship imposed without the consent or approval of the indigenous population in 1917. It is from this geopolitical paradox that the Puerto Rican independence movement sprang forth.

This movement is based firmly on international law, which authorizes “anti-colonial combatants” the right to armed struggle to throw off the yoke of imperialism and gain independence. UN General Assembly Resolution 33/24 of December 1978 recognizes “the legitimacy of the struggle of people’s for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination and foreign occupation by all means available, particularly armed struggle.”

Prison did not dampen Lebrón’s revolutionary spirit as she attended demonstrations and spoke out to help win the long battle to evict the US Navy from the tiny Puerto Rican island of Vieques in 2003.

Click…

Emma Goldman sez:

“No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law.”

Click…

In her excellent 1995 book, Bridge of Courage, Jennifer Harbury quotes a Guatemalan freedom fighter named Gabriel, responding to a plea to embrace non-violent resistance: “In my country child malnutrition is close to 85 percent,” he explains. “Ten percent of all children will be dead before the age of five, and this is only the number actually reported to government agencies. Close to 70 percent of our people are functionally illiterate. There is almost no industry in our country—you need land to survive. Less than 3 percent of our landowners own over 65 percent of our lands. In the last fifteen years or so, there have been over 150,000 political murders and disappearances… Don’t talk to me about Gandhi; he wouldn’t have survived a week here. There was a peaceful movement for progress here, once. They were crushed. We were crushed. For Gandhi’s method to work, there must be a government capable of shame. We lack that here.”

Click…

Huey P. Newton sez:

“In the spirit of international revolutionary solidarity, the Black Panther Party hereby offers … an undetermined number of troops to assist you in your fight against American imperialism. It is appropriate for the Black Panther Party to take this action at this time in recognition of the fact that your struggle is also our struggle, for we recognize that our common enemy is U.S. imperialism, which is the leader of international bourgeois domination. There is no fascist or reactionary government in the world today that could stand without the support of United States imperialism. Therefore our problem is international, and we offer these troops in recognition of the necessity for international alliance to deal with the problem … Such alliance will advance the struggle toward the final act of dealing with American imperialism. To end this oppression we must liberate the developing nations … As one nation is liberated elsewhere, it gives us a better chance to be free.”

(Excerpted from an October 29, 1970 letter to the National Front for Liberation and Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Viet Nam)

Click…

Arundhati Roy sez:

“People from poorer places and poorer countries have to call upon their compassion not to be angry with ordinary people in America.”

Click…

In his book Endgame, Derrick Jensen tells of a discussion he had with a longtime activist. “She told me of a campaign she participated in a few years ago to try to stop the government and transnational timber corporations from spraying Agent Orange, a potent defoliant and teratogen, in the forests of Oregon,” Jensen writes. All too predictably, the dedicated demonstrators assembled to protest the toxic spraying were, “like clockwork,” ignored by the helicopter pilots. Both humans and landscape ended up thoroughly doused with Agent Orange—time and time again. The protest campaign obviously had no effect, so a different approach was taken. “A bunch of Vietnam vets lived in those hills,” the activist told Jensen, “and they sent messages to the Bureau of Land Management and to Weyerhauser, Boise Cascade, and the other timber companies saying, ‘We know the names of your helicopter pilots, and we know their addresses’

“You know what happened next?” she asked.

“I think I do,” Jensen responded.

“Exactly,” she said. “The spraying stopped.”

Click…

MLK sez:

“When you’re right, you can never be too radical.”

Mickey Z. is the author of the recently released Bizarro novel, CPR for Dummies, and can be found on the Web at MickeyZ.net. Read other articles by Mickey.

The Results Are In: Americans Are Now More Closely Aligned With Progressive Ideas Than at Any Time in Memory



On issue after issue, significant majorities of Americans favor progressive solutions to the nation's problems and reject the right's worldview.

On issue after substantive issue, significant majorities of Americans favor progressive solutions to the nation's problems and reject the right's worldview. That's true whether the issue at hand is taxes, war and peace, the role of government in the economy, health care, and on and on.

Yet the idea that America is a "center-right" nation persists; Republican and conservative activists repeat the assertion ad nauseum -- as it's in their interest to do -- and most of the political press corps swallows it whole.

The idea is like a zombie -- you can bludgeon it, burn it or get Dick Cheney to shoot it in the face, but it keeps coming -- it will not die.

The persistence of the center-right narrative, even in the face of piles of evidence suggesting it's little more than a myth, has very real consequences on our political discourse.

Aside from coloring the way the media covers -- and the public views -- the vital issues of the day, it impacts progressive activists, who even when they have the wind at their backs often feel the need to move slowly, cautiously and in ways that will minimize direct confrontation with the conservative movement.

Progressives have long begun the legislative process in the middle and then moved to the center-right, when the reality is that the country is looking for bold changes, not incremental tinkering.

This week, a new report released by the Campaign for America's Future and the media watchdog group MediaMatters attempts to finally bury the idea that the U.S. leans rightward. It takes a comprehensive look at the political landscape in which we live and a look forward at America's shifting demographic profile -- all of which reveal a citizenry that is anything but center-right and will only continue to trend in a more progressive direction, leaving modern conservatism increasingly isolated in its ideas.

The study gathered public-opinion data from a number of respected, nonpartisan polling outfits, findings from the (huge) National Election Study series and official statistics on ethnicity and gender to make the case. Among the findings:

  • On what may be the key difference between liberals and conservatives today -- the role of government -- more than twice as many people agree with the statement, "there are more things government should be doing" than believe the Reaganite adage, "the less government, the better."
  • In 1994, more than half of Americans said, "government regulation of business usually does more harm than good" and fewer than 4 out of 10 thought "government regulation of business is necessary to protect the public interest." That's been flipped on its head during the 15 years since -- today, fewer than 4 in 10 believe regulation causes more harm than good.
  • A majority (55-70 percent, depending on how the question is worded) believes it's the government's responsibility to provide health care to all Americans; fewer than a third of those responding to a CBS/New York Times poll thought health insurance should be "left only to private enterprise."
  • Almost 2 out of 3 Americans believe the taxes they pay are fair, and that the very wealthy pay too little in taxes; almost 7 in 10 believe corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes.

During a conference call with reporters, Robert Borosage, co-director of Campaign for America's future, acknowledged that until 15 to 20 years ago, a center-right coalition of conservatives and political moderates did represent a majority of the electorate, but noted that the views of moderates and independents have grown much more closely aligned with those of more progressive voters, and the result is a center-left mandate for the new administration and Democratic-controlled Congress.

What's more, the country's changing demographics suggest that America will continue to be a center-left country in the coming decades. The most progressive (or at least solidly Democratic-leaning) constituencies in the country -- single women, African Americans and other minority groups, young people -- are growing as a share of the electorate, while the "Reagan Democrats" -- older, working-class whites -- who were the backbone of the conservative movement are declining as a share of the population.

Page Gardner, founder of Women's Voices/Women Vote, said of the new coalition, "if you look at their views across the board, they're incredibly progressive."

More Americans are also living in high-density urban environments than ever before, which political scientists have long held creates more tolerance for diversity and in general a more receptive attitude toward the role of government in one's daily life.

Finally, the report notes that the social issues that used to inspire not only the right but also many in the center are rapidly losing traction -- in part because of the demographic trends described above.

Most Americans remain pro-choice (despite one oddly-worded Gallup poll to the contrary), and while a slim majority opposes full marriage equality for gays and lesbians, the general level of acceptance of gays and lesbians is growing ever greater.

That a sea-change is happening in America's political culture should be apparent by the results of the last election, a race that the Republican party explicitly framed as a question of ideology, accusing Barack Obama of being very far to the left -- even deriding him as a cryptosocialist.

But the authors of the report point out, "for the press, Democratic victories are explained away as candidates having moved to the right, while Republican victories are confirmed as a true expression of America's conservative pulse."

And it's not just returns from the election -- the report notes:

Conservative commentators, particularly those on Fox News, have portrayed Obama as so liberal that his activist agenda bordered on socialist or even Marxist. Yet according to Gallup polling, Obama's approval ratings for this first 100 days in office were higher than those of any president since Ronald Reagan and higher than seven of the last eight presidents at the 100-day mark. It doesn't seem likely that an entrenched center-right nation would reward such a liberal president with historically high job approval.

But as MediaMatters Director Eric Burns outlined, by and large, the media have not only failed to fully acknowledge the ideological outlook of the American electorate, the months since the election has been marked by the "mainstreaming of incredibly conservative views" within America's pundit class, with "sometimes violent" rhetoric being debated as if it were comfortably within the mainstream.

Burns suggested that part of the reason the center-right meme persists is that many political reporters today cut their teeth in the era of the "Reagan Revolution" and during the "Clinton wars" of the 1990s -- an era in which conservatives were ascendant.

Another factor is that there hasn't been a significant shift in Americans' self-described ideology, as a much-discussed Pew polltaken just after the election found.

Pew's research showed, "Only about 1 in 5 Americans currently call themselves liberal (21 percent), while 38 percent say they are conservative and 36 percent describe themselves as moderate. This is virtually unchanged from recent years; when George W. Bush was first elected president, 18 percent of Americans said they were liberal, 36 percent were conservative and 38 percent considered themselves moderate."

The problem with self-identification, however, is that it hinges on how one defines those labels -- an individual may say he or she is conservative for a variety of reasons, but that same person may favor the progressive position on every issue down the line. According to the most recent (1997) Household Survey of Adult Civic Participation, only around half of Americans could say "which party is more conservative at the national level."

It's ultimately issues that get decided in Washington, and the report issued this week adds to an already-large body of data suggesting that Americans are highly receptive to progressive arguments on issue after issue, regardless of with which label they may identify themselves.

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.


Friday, May 29, 2009

Human Rights: Ba-Humbug?


by Reza Fiyouzat / May 29th, 2009 / Dissident Voice

In oppositional politics, there are different ways of arriving at ‘what is to be done’, both practically and theoretically. In the U.S., one frequently practiced method is to watch the mouths of the imperialists and their ideologues and wait for them to say something or make some declaration, and then say the exact opposite and call that an anti-imperialist position; analysis is then retrofitted to justify the position.

The other way is to start from principles, observe the changes in reality, study the history of the social forces involved in those changes, and derive your own positions and demands, based on where you stand in the course of your struggles.

A lot of alarms have been ringing for the past four or five years, regarding interventionist strategies taken up by imperialist planners, in which under the guise of ‘democracy building’, truer aims of the American power elites (regime change where needed) are furthered by the CIA or any of the sixteen assorted intelligence agencies run by the U.S.1

Large sums of money have been and are being spent on creating seemingly spontaneously grown citizens’ organizations that shape and give direction to dissent among the populations over-lorded by governments not liked by the U.S. Such ‘revolutions’ as the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia, the 2005 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, or the 2005 Cedar Revolution in Lebanon — are sighted as examples of this ‘democracy movement’ type of moving of pieces by imperialist game planners. It is natural that, in these half-covert operations, human rights are used as a wedge issue.

Because of this push by the right into the discursive and practical area of ‘human rights’, some western leftists have abandoned this area of advocacy when it comes to countries they perceive as being under attack by the imperialists, and therefore most talk of human rights violations in such countries has become taboo, since it allegedly paves the way for the continuation of the imperialist interventions, and subjugation of more natives around the world.

Leaving aside the unjustifiable presuppositions of such a stance, this position completely yields, uncontested, a major domain of class conflict to the dictates of the right wing ideologues, and leaves it completely up to the right wing fanatics to frame this issue. Though it seems easy to forget, it is important to bear in mind that most of the ‘natives’ have been living under brutal social conditions for a long time, otherwise imperialists would never be able to exploit their misery in the first place (and here I am talking about places where supposedly the imperialists are not the direct and immediate over-lords).

Ironically, the more militant members of what I call the ‘Human Rights? Ba-Humbug!’ faction, actually fight most vehemently against the advocates of human rights in countries like Iran! So we have a situation where Iranian secularists — secular liberals, democrats and radical democrats, social democrats and socialists, supporters of student activists, labor and women’s rights activists, and all others — who for the past thirty years have been fighting for more rights in Iran, not only have a medieval theocratic setup with vast oppressive capabilities to fight, but now have the western leftists to fight as well!

This effectively amounts to the first ever anti-solidarity movement I know of, sort of launched by the western left! (It’s only ’sort of’, since none dares give it formal expression!) An innovation in ’socialist’ surrealism!

But just because the right wing exploits a dire situation, in the process contextualizing ‘human rights’ in an upside down manner for its own agenda, it does not mean that we should just drop this concept. What’s wrong with offering our own, leftist, humanist, emancipatory contextualization of human rights, something that is so fundamental to our strategic dreams? A contextualization that offers both a critique of the imperialist abuses of the concept and demands an expanded concept of human rights everywhere is the true challenge that the western left faces in this are, yet seems to be desperately wishing it away.

But, what of the second road to ‘what is to be done’ about human rights? Start with a basic principle: Democracy (the real thing, not just having some elections) is anathema to imperialism. Therefore, when people’s democratic rights are crushed anywhere, that’s an actual present, or a potential future, victory for imperialism. 



When labor rights activists in Iran, for example, are jailed, tortured and/or executed for, judicially speaking, completely absurd ‘crimes’ such as ‘fighting against god’ (whereas in reality, for example, they’re being persecuted for organizing against the ravages of capitalism in their locale), this lowers the floor on the workers’ rights and wellbeing everywhere in Iran, and is to the long-term benefit of the imperialists (as well as, naturally, to the benefit of the local capitalists all the time).

When women are kept under the thumb of an oppressive misogynistic and patriarchal regime, this also lowers the floor for accepted/acceptable social misery OVERALL (not just for women), and this is very beneficial for the future or current plans of the imperialists (not to forget the local capitalist pigs who love it too; what with the four full-time wives and the infinite number of temporary wives they can have in that system).

Those two items should suffice. You can extrapolate in the same manner in all areas of social oppression allowed by the theocrats ruling Iran (non-existent political rights of assembly and the right to form independent political organizations, no free speech rights, no cultural national and religious minority rights, forget completely about gay and lesbian rights, the list goes on.)



Why trash human rights?

For some leftists in the U.S., ‘human rights’ is always in between inverted commas, particularly since the political culture in the U.S. is very much inclined to single-issue politics. But even (especially?) for those who think in more programmatic fashion and in terms of platforms representing social demands and solutions, the human rights topics are separate from and subservient to fighting for overall change of the system, and definitely subservient to the ’socialist project’. This is a grave mistake. 



Let’s imagine a somewhat inverse situation. It would not be acceptable to most American socialists if I were to say, for example, “It’s not really worth spending so much time and energy on things like, ‘Free Mumia!’ or ‘Reform the Prison System!’ or ‘End Death Penalty!’ Those are side-issues; they take away from the fight against imperialism, which is the most important conflict, overshadowing everything else. Plus, those sorts of campaigns narrow the horizon on the larger issues.”

To that, an informed American socialist could say that the oppression of the African Americans (which by nature must include the persecution of black radical leaders) is structurally tied up with American imperialism. Without (slavery and) racism and its uninterrupted existence under morphed dynamics throughout the different stages of the North American modern social history, American imperialism most likely would not have materialized in the first place. Therefore, the fight for human rights and dignity of the African Americans (and therefore the defense of their radical leaders wrongfully imprisoned) is integral to a socialist project in the U.S., and all those so-called ‘reformist’ slogans are just and even revolutionary demands because they address part of the social conditions currently oppressing large sections of the working classes. 



The situation with political prisoners in countries like Iran is very much analogous to the above scenario. Political prisoners represent the most radical of the activists working against oppression in their societies, and their persecution is structurally required, a part and parcel of the continuation of oppressive class-based injustices in the global south.

So, as global southerners, our fight for democracy and human rights must at the same time be an anti-imperialist struggle, just as the struggle of African Americans for social justice must by necessity find its anti-imperialist edge if it is to succeed in the long-term.

Cynicism

Now, I know I’m not the world’s dumbest man, but I just can’t see why some tend to talk like leftists, but act like the right. Are they on a mission to confound, or are they truly confused?

I think deep down, for some people who have ended up in the left, for one reason or another, their overall attitude is tainted by cynicism. Not saying that this is a huge crowd, but the presence is significant enough to warrant a little something about cynicism.

Here I have in mind a person who, knowing something about the U.S. government’s terrible crimes, to my statement, “Iran’s government tortures political prisoners!” does not say immediately, “Well, let’s get together and fight both those bastards!” but says instead, “Oh, yeah?! Big deal; the U.S. government does it too! Take a number and join the line!”

Love … so hard to find! Such responses indicate deep cynicism, nihilism and narcissism, all of it boxed up in a finely bejeweled self-referential worldview.

When I say to a man or a woman that so and so is being tortured in Iran, what does the western cynic imply? That, “If WE — the repository for all good — do it, then of course you little, lesser people do it, too!” Hear the racism?

And so it goes with the cynic, as the bottom drops farther and farther out of sight.

The dominant rhetorical schema here is that of evasion. Evading what’s real. Evading the responsibilities of looking at the reality and analyzing it, talking to others about it; evading doing the hard work of studying things before offering analysis, and instead jumping to the first knee-jerk reaction that comes to mind; evading learning how to ask the right questions, taking the right actions, accepting that you could be wrong and make mistakes, learning from mistakes, actions and their results, and on and on.

In the realm of a discussion related to ‘human rights’, the cynic elaborates in reasonably authoritative sounding language, for example, that working on the human rights situation in Iran is really the work of the Iranian people. People outside Iran should just stay quiet about that. Especially right now! (The present always carries exceptionalities!) If you can do something to stop ‘your own’ government (the U.S., the U.K., what have you) from abusing human rights, do that. But, don’t meddle in other people’s business.

Ironically, a good number of people most likely to say something like that (Iranians among them), especially right now (!), regularly advocate without any qualms on behalf of other nationalities such as the Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, or at one point advocated on behalf of East Timorese, or black South Africans fighting apartheid, and participated in lively international campaigns of solidarity with the people of El Salvador. So, of all the people, they should know best about the importance of international solidarity movements in achieving historical goals. So, what is it that makes them stop seeing the harm they are doing by refusing solidarity to the people of Iran, living under a theocratic dictatorship?

Reconceptualize it!

‘Human rights’ must be taken out of the inverted commas between which it exists in most people’s minds; it is not a single-issue, a one-track, way of looking at social struggles for justice.

Socialists familiar with the Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844must know how Marx felt about the need for total revolt against a social system that alienates all from all.

Spreading and reconstituting alienation of laborers, men and women, from their means of independent survival (e.g., during the historical period of primitive accumulation of capital, and still to this day), the alienation of laborers from their tools as well as the products of labor (in the manufactories and factories, and even small, mom and pop subcontracting workshops), and the alienation of workers from the entire process of labor; and ultimately, the overall alienation of men and women from other men and women, and the maximum atomization of societies — these are central processes of control, from the standpoint of Capital and the States that represent it.

If we take the kernel of the concept alienation and apply it to ‘human rights’ as a much larger issue (taken as including social economic justice), then we can understand that imprisoning social activists is not an incidental case of random injustice practiced a lot in some locations and less so in others but is a symbolic and necessary social act on the part of states representing capital that can and does happen everywhere. It is to quash preventatively any ideas by any others about daring to oppose, it is to spread terror in the hearts of the doubters and skeptics lest they actively turn oppositional, and it is meant to freeze any hopes of disrupting the alienating processes needed by capital’s endless accumulation.

I leave it up to the reader then to answer the question: To show or not to show solidarity with a man or woman, anywhere, who attracts the wrath of any capitalist state; to support or not to support his or her acts of defiance?

A grave fallacy

It is often taken as a point of departure, often assumed, that imperialism and its structures are external to the local socio-political conditions existing in separate nation-states in the periphery/global south. (This is separate from the fallacy that assumes imperialism is simply the foreign policy of powerful states.)

In reality, imperialism is the whole that is larger than the sum of the individual local conditions of all the class-based social existences and injustices on the globe. Put differently, although the sum of the local class-based injustices everywhere does not add up to all the capabilities of (or possibilities for maneuver by) the imperialists, those local injustices greatly contribute to and significantly define the conditions within which the imperialists are bound materially.

The flip side is: the more real democracy exists in more locations in the periphery, the more levers of economic and political powers are held in the hands of the people, and the less able are the imperialists to maneuver and position themselves for long-term survival.

By democracy, I do not mean having mere elections, though real and meaningful elections must always be present and on a far more universal level, with the right to recall at any point. But much more so, these electoral procedures must be in relation to some real social substance; Democracy means real and visible control by the people over the political and economic social factors that determine their wellbeing.

So, the fight for real democracy must by necessity include the fight for human rights as a permanent duty; for the rights of the people, social groups, communities, and yes the individuals are not and cannot be taken as some political expedience. As socialists, we are fighting for a society in which the free and unfettered development of the individual is the precondition for the development of the society. That fight starts right now, not after some abstract utopian miracle brought to earth at a moment in some unknown future.

Imperialism and the local miseries

Just as it is ill advised to separate the fight against a brutal prison system in the U.S. from the fight against imperialism at home, it is harmful to conceptually disconnect the fight for democracy and human rights in the global south from the anti-imperialist fight.

What we have to recognize, if we are to build a true internationalism, is that imperialism is, in its essence, the sum-total of all the local miseries and injustices aggregated in the world, plus some (more on this, below).

By creating and recreating anew each day a world, in which a thousand-and-one layered, myriad differentiations of misery and social injustice are the routine, imperialists create a multitude of spaces into which they can crawl, either in their overt, institutional forms (extraction of raw materials and resources by their corporations seeking lower taxes, lower wages and/or lesser environmental internalization costs; or, CIA overt access; or, when needed, armies of war), or in their covert guises (George Soros-type ‘democracy proliferation movements’, covert and semi-covert ops, etc.).

The ‘plus some’ in the above quasi definition is important if we are to fully understand the workings of imperialism. The ‘plus some’ is all the structures, all the institutions and their histories. But, institutions and structures built on misery and injustice cannot last forever. Which brings us back to the radical human agency, to the necessity of fighting injustice and misery everywhere and anywhere we can, with a truly internationalist mindset.

Put very simply, we have to realize that we are all just as important. I know that this is a big jump and quite difficult for a western reader to accept immediately, or easily. But, happily it is true.

Every locality is equally imperative. No locality has any more import nor should hold any arrogance over any other locale. The more democracy we can create in more localities of the globe, the more areas of maneuver we remove from the imperialists. The more areas are liberated, the more exponentially the balance of forces shall be inverted.

So … Why leave all the playing field to the imperialists by playing it cynically? If we start from solidarity, if we take our multitudes of ideas and opinions and angles and contributions as something positive, and not something amounting to ‘cacophony’, then we’ll find our strengths more readily.

But, step one: if you suspect that you may suffer from, or if like me you have observed yourself at times in the company of, cynical thoughts, even if but for fleeting seconds as they might have been, then find those thoughts and interrogate them; and watch them dissolve.

And take human rights seriously; for else, real humans won’t take you seriously.

  1. See: The Burbank Digest for exposes on these people. []

Reza Fiyouzat can be reached at: rfiyouzat@yahoo.com. Read other articles by Reza.