Beyond the Barricades, Beyond Bush

Beyond the Barricades, Beyond Bush

As the Editor of “The Civil Disobedience Handbook: A Brief History and Practical
Guide For the Politically Disenchanted,” I am often travel in order to teach people
how to get arrested. For the Anti-Republican National Convention proceedings I did
the opposite: collaborating with New York’s ‘Picture the Homeless’ and how not to
get arrested.

Don’t worry, I haven’t mellowed out, I still believe that disruptive direct action
is one of our best tools it is just that PTH’s membership has a distinct set of
barriers to participation in anything remotely related to demonstrations.

In addition to the risks that we all take when we decide to raise our voice, their
folks have to contend with a whole host of Parole Officers, Child Protective
Services, Immigration issues breathing down their necks.

The stakes are high, but still they rose.

In one week of amazing mobilizing PTH managed to defeat an effort by New York’ s
Parole Department to ban any parolee from coming into Manhattan during the
convention. Parolees were required to sign papers promising to stay off the island
until Bush and Company left town. In addition, they organized a copwatch battalion
to make sure that General
Assistance recipients without addresses could pick up their checks at the post
office right next to the convention. I helped them train themselves on demonstration
security and they went to two massive demonstrations without incident.

I bring this to your attention because this is where the talk of building a diverse
movement must start walking. The dialogue around race and class intitiated after
Seattle is important, but remember that beyond this is a group of what I call the
‘unforgiven classes’ those most under the gun in the global economy that aren’t just
excluded from civil society-but the movement that wants to build “Another World”.

Unfortunately, we’re up against something that won’t go away just by making Bush go
away. Principled readers can have principled differences on voting in general or
the tired lesser of two evils debate. What can not be debated by anyone is that we
need a stronger movement that not only includes the membership of folks like Picture
the Homeless, but prioritizes their needs in the movement’s goals.

Without these types of links, we might as well tell Bush: “Bomb whoever you want,
cut whatever you want to cut, harm whoever you want to harm, it doesn’t matter!” We
will tell Kerry “Go ahead and be the lesser, send more troops to Iraq just like you
promised!”

Recognizing this, several dozen of New York City’s anti-poverty groups stepped out
the day after the big United For Peace and Justice march for the “Still We Rise”
march. I estimate that this march drew about 100,000people and made the connection
between domestic poverty and imperialism abroad.

Sometimes I think of demonstrations like this as a frustrating glimpse into a better
world. It is touching to see the punked-out anarchist marching band lend a beat to
homeless peoples chants and demands. It is frustrating to know that this is
temporary, and that outside of these demonstrations, few will ever cross over that
invisible segregation line and work together on the day-to-day tasks ahead of us.

PART III Life After What?

As a prelude to the week of demonstrations, I attended the Life After Capitalism
conference at CUNY. Hats off to the organizers who did a great job of brining
together many different folks for a weekend of strategizing for the long haul. It
was a good mix of grassroots activists mixed with the published ones such as Michael
Albert (Parecon) Naomi Klein (No Logo) Robin DG Kelley (Yo Mama’s Disfunctional) and
many others.

Maybe over a decade of housing activism has made me too pragmatic but the only
problem I had with the conference was that while there was inspiring talk of what
happens after capitalism, I didn’t hear much about how to link practical work in the
coming (pre-election) months to that better world.

We all know that Kerry is no Eugene Debbs. Let’s face it: the only thing that Kerry,
who has called for more troops in Iraq has going for him is that he is not George
Bush.

Yet even with all of these simularities, what this election represents is the
preservation of what limited political space there is for mass participation in
politics. The Republicans racist disenfranchisment of Black voters in 2000, and
the Democrat’s racist capitulation to this coup-de-tat was is actually the only real
issue in this election.
I wish I could say that this election was about an anti-war candidate versus a
pro-war one, or an economic justice program versus a corporate one. It is not the
case.

What I learned in New York City is that any political space, even one as deceptive
as the electoral process, is worth defending to an extent.

So what is to be done, now?

Readers probably have their mind made up about if they are going to vote and to whom
their vote will go to. I have no desire to discuss this here.

As reports of the 1000 arrests in New York come trickling in, I suggest we set our
sites on direct action to intervene in any attempt to “steal” the election such as
the Florida debacle. Pro-actively, this means training to become election monitors,
because what is good for Venezuala is good for any of the swing states! Are we as a
movement ready to shut the country down to defend the political space won by the
Civil Rights movement, even if in the short-term it means someone we can't trust
taking the oval office?

I say we should, since a well-coordinated effort would show a sophisticated movement
and put whoever ends up being the turkey on top on notice that change absolutely
comes from below.