Note: This is an essay I wrote shortly after last year’s Red Wings Stanley Cup victory. In lieu of Wings victory over the Ducks and today’s game against Chicago I’m reposting this short essay. A friend of mine explained to me after the Wings lost game six of the last series that “the Wings didn’t play like the Wings” and that’s why we lost. The loss put the Wings into a hard place, tying the series against Anaheim at 3-3. At this time of war and recession, maybe we could take another hint from the Wings’. The Left has been able to overcome incredible opposition in the past. Perhaps the Left should start to play like the Left?
"With the pass ...!"
I’ve come to the startling realization that few people outside of Detroit and Canada know or care about hockey [i]. So I would understand if you didn’t know about Detroit’s recent return to glory as the National Hockey League champion. So let me fill you in for a moment on what it was like after we won.
I haven’t seen people so happy in all my life. The streets of Detroit were filled to the brim with cars, motorcycles, and people parading, throwing their hands in the air, cheering, holding up issues of the next day’s paper reading “Champs!” It reminded me of something a friend told me. He’s a Romanian guy who was 20 when the country’s communist dictator was overthrown. “There is nothing in the world like a revolution,” he said to me, “the people are just so happy.”
The victory was warmly welcomed here. Many people here in the city’s metro area needed something to be happy about. Detroit is one of the cities hardest hit by the nation’s economic downturn, only adding to the city’s already poor reputation. A news article recently mentioned that the Red Wing’s success is offering some small bit of hope during the hard times. While many regard us as “America’s punch-line,” we can find pride in our ability to nail anybody on the ice rink.
In the second to last game of the playoffs, my friends and I ran downtown to celebrate what we thought would be our inevitable victory. The hundreds that we joined shared that sentiment of inevitability. “I know the Wings are going to win,” said one fan as we entered into the third period of overtime, “but will they just get this over with already?”
We stood outside, exhausted, nerve-wracked, and soaked from the near torrent of rain falling down on us in the final period. People rarely act like this. It’s not often that hundreds of people get together to put our passion and energy into something. Some friends of mine later told me that when they saw all the commotion they felt upset. “This is so stupid,” they told me, “I know it’s fun and all, but these people are putting so much into something that isn’t really important.” But it is important. Aside from the fact that it’s the Stanley Cup playoffs [ii], the game is giving people hope.
Looking at crowds of excited and impassioned people and saying, “No, this is wrong, they’re not caring about the right thing,” is not only alienating, but it’s missing the point entirely. The people on the streets wanted the championship and they believed that we would win it. Thousands of people turned out to support them. If we’re frustrated that people turn out to support sports teams instead of our movement, then we need to ask ourselves why we’re not getting that kind of support.
Most people desire a more peaceful world, one that is more equitable and just — just like most folks in Detroit who want their hockey team to win the league championship. Who wouldn’t want that? But people know that the Red Wings can win. Our challenge comes in convincing massive numbers of people (and ourselves) that change is possible with their participation. A team that win believe they can win. They take their goals seriously and go into action to meet them.
To keep going through the long season, a winning team keep their eyes on the prize and sees their mission as something long-term. Our mission is harder than winning a championship (imagine if all we had to do was beat the jerks in a hockey game!). Building a new world is an infinitely complex task, so, to build and sustain our momentum, we find markers for our progress. Rather than celebrating momentary skirmishes, a winning team in social change looks toward the movement.
A coach or captain of a team asks, “Okay, are we passing better than before? Are we shooting better? Are we playing better defense?” We’re a part of a movement that rejects that kind of hierarchy, so asking these questions becomes everybody’s responsibility. Are we building our skills? Radicalizing more people? Building more militancy? Are we sustaining involvement? Winning teams know that the stronger they get, the more likely they are to win what they’re after.
The Left has won before when it knew that it could. We’ve ended wars, won the right to organize unions, women’s suffrage, and civil rights. The draft ended for a reason.
Strong activists always believed in our movement’s potential for success. Can you imagine if the people you look back on for inspiration believed that we couldn’t win? It’s ludicrous, right? I couldn’t believe in Pavel Datsyuk [iii] saying he didn’t believe that the Wings could win.
Our movement has so much to offer. We offer a world that is classless and democratic. A world that is feminist and inclusive of people from all backgrounds and cultures. A world that is peaceful and sustainable. We can win it!
[i]I’ve been informed recently that Boston also likes Hockey. For those who don’t know, hockey is a game played on ice with sticks and is considered by many to be a sport.
[ii] Granting it immediate importance.
[iii] See Wikipedia. Search for Hero.
Quick feelings on building occupations
Lots to get out after today, funny thing is I didn’t even take advantage of my day off as much as I probably should have. Work was slow today, so they told me I didn’t have to come in. This is a problem, but I tried to make the most of it and not stress.
I heard early this morning about the occupation at New School University. I have some mixed feelings. Of course, I think that the level of aggression the police used was brutal and going far and beyond the limits any “law and order” type officer would or should use. That being said, I think that this last occupation at NSU and the one most recently at NYU present real opportunities for radical/progressive students to evaluate our approach to strategy and tactics, and take a critical approach to an organizing logic I’ve seen brought up several times now.
Many in the radical student movement at NSU and NYU talk about building occupations as “ends to themselves,” that it’s a mistake to treat this tactic as a “means to an ends.” I think the consequences of the most recent occupations at NSU and NYU should push many of us to take a more critical stance to that arguement, and to think much more objectively about the standards we use to evaluate our successes and failures.
Here’s a pattern I’ve been noticing: 10 – 15 students occupy a building. Shout some slogans like, “Student Power!” “Occupy!” or some other such thing. They wave some flags, drop some banners, and write any variety of communiques, manifestos or blog posts. They make some passionate and dramatic YouTube videos documenting the whole scenario, until, inevitably some cops come and ruin all the fun. They make arrests and then a ton of students cry “shame” (literally). Few if any students wind up joining the movement, or becoming active participants in long-haul struggles for change, coalitions are rarely built, things remain pretty much the same (except, perhaps, for those who directly participated).
Furthermore, few students actually take this as a real chance to self-examine the state of the movement, the strategies we use and the tactics we employ. Instead, we lambaste the cops for doing what we know they’ll do every time. I mean, at a certain point is exhausting to get angry for something rather predictable. Rather than do what everybody expects us to do–yell at the cops, protest even more, with little success–let’s reflect.
If our standard for success in these cases is “did we occupy a building?” Than the occupiers won (by their analysis). However, I think most of us are working for much much more than that (and I suspect wouldn’t find the sacrifices made to meet such standards terribly efficient). If you’re concerned, like I am, with more broad, fundamental change, than I think we need different standards for success.
Our power to win change comes from people, and getting lots and lots of people to pressure decision-makers in a number of dynamic, creative and ever more militant ways (two of my favorite essays describing this in more detail can be found here and here.)
If that’s accurate, than it follows our tactics should 1) expand our base of support, 2) move supporters more into the leadership of our movement; increase their confidence and level of commitment, and 4) broadly raise constituents consciousness, and advance a radical narrative around key issues. I shouldn’t treat each of those standards as a priori but this isn’t an academic approach–it’s an effing blog post. The point I’m making here is that we need to use tactics that bring more cohesion to our movement in the form of recruiting “neutral” folks, and at the same time strengthen the leadership, unity and commitment of people on our side.
So, if it’s the case that what some critics are claiming (and I happen to agree) is true, and that these most recent occupations at NYU and NSU alienate more people than they recruit, that the costs are higher than the gains, than we should take those criticisms seriously and not just blow them off as “liberal”or whatever. In the words of Stokely Charmichael, (who popularized the term “Black Power” and founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) if we are revolutionaries than we have “a responsibility to succeed in making revolution.” Part of that is being open minded and self-critical, and not clinging dogmatically to any one strategy or tactic. We all have a responsibility to growing our movement together, and learning from our victories and our failures.
All that being said, I should clarify. I’m not saying all that to suggest anything that questions the commitment of anybody involved in those specific events. I’m merely suggesting that we use the heat of the moment to evaluate our strategy and tactics.
Pirates, Spies, Manny and Hugo Chavez. Oh My!
I finally finished my Human Rights paper I’ve been stressing about finishing for the past week. If people want, I’d be more than happy to put a PDF online for people to read (not to act like, “Oh I’m so smart, don’t you want to read my paper?” but because, as I’ll explain below it might shed some light on recent current events).
Following a bizzare dream I had Wednesday night where a giant spider tried marrying a friend of mine, I woke up to see this at the top of my Google News feed,
I wasn’t sure what had happened while I was sleeping, but I was sure it had something to do with a wild-eyed professor and some scrappy kid in a Delorian screwing up the space-time continuum. News about pirates and spies in one day? Russian spies no less.
I’m not done with the 80′s references just yet. I later went to my Human Rights course when the seige of Manny Noriega’s palace came up for discussion. For those who aren’t familiar, when the US seiged the palace of the military dictator, the army fameously employed “psyops” (psychological operations) to force him out. The tactic used involved aiming giant speakers at the palace and blaring loud rock music. Missing the point of the discussion, I asked “What music did they play?” Nobody knew, so I Googled it:
The first song played was G ‘n’ R: “Welcome to the Jungle.” Other selections included U2, Sonic Youth and the B52s. When somebody responded “well that doesn’t sound so bad.” I mentioned everybody has a “Rock Lobster Threshold” (the RLT index is a normative basis for the ability to withstand nasaly vox.)
About 4 hours ago I finished my paper evaluating democracy in Venezuela. When I woke up this morning to do some extra research and continue from where I left off in my writing the night before, I found an article from The Economist called “Venezuela’s endangered democracy.” How relevant!
The Economist article runs over a laundry list of corruption claims regarding Venezuela’s treatment of the opposition movement, without a mention of the behavior of the opposition. The opposition launched a violent military coup in April 2002, locked workers out of the all important Venezuelan oil-industry that devastated the economy and caused extreme poverty and unemployment to skyrocket and among other things, established a Middle Age style battle plan to protect upper-crust gated communities in case the “delinquent” poor decide to storm their neighborhood someday (amid classist rumors that such plans were in forming). The plans called for the gathering of arms and (I kid you not) preparing hot oil and water to pour on top of any pissed off poor people who come to your windows for looting. They also suggested that residents keep a close watch on their domestic servents because they might be after you.
One might ask how the US government may respond if it were found out that a Mayor of a major metropolitan city was an outspoken member of movement that had recently overthrown the government and advocates civil violence? Our government barely even stands to keep congressmen that like to have sex with dudes (of course some ludicrous elements in our society may think those are comparable). And yet, in the face of the violent behavior of the opposition, the opposition is still allowed to march, demonstrate, compete in elections and even blockade major intersections (with much more lenient police treatment than similar protesters receive here).
The thesis of the paper I was writing at the time basically argues that the standards people like politicians, media pundits and most mainstream political academics use to evaluate democracy are narrow, limited and exclude considerations of “substantive democracy.” Substantive democracy meaning social equality, human development, things relating to the real moral foundation of democratic thought (Rousseau argued in “The Social Contract” that for democracy it is essential that “no citizen shall ever be wealthy enough to buy another, and none poor enough to be forced to sel himself,” and further that laws “are always of use to those who ossess and harmful to those who have nothing: from which it follows that the social state is advantageous to men only when all have something and none too much.”
The standards most of these mainstream folks use are narrowly concerned with how close a government comes to meeting what we in the west refer to as “liberal democracy”. In other words, using a standard that will exclude everything that doesn’t basically look like a traditional Western democracy from being “democratic.” Presumably, the reason liberal democracy is dogmatically latched onto as the standard, is because these folks feel there shouldn’t be one. Hence when a country emerges like Venezuela, that advocates a “participatory democracy” that aims for substantively democratic progress, the pundits go crazy over every banal cry of government corruption or abuse of power that would otherwise be considered benign in a country like Mexico (or Canada).
So, according to the writers at the Economist, it follows that checking the authority of a Mayor who sympathizes with military coup-makers devalues the entire basis of Venezuelan democracy. Not surprisingly there’s no mention of the real growth in substantive democracy in the country. The author Gregory Wilpert who wrote a phenomenal book on the Chávez government called “Changing Venezuela by Taking Power” sent me a Powerpoint that outlines many of these impressive developments.
Extreme poverty’s plummeted from 20% to 9% in just ten years since Chávez was elected, literacy and life expectancy is on the rise, the GDP has matched traditional growth rates and (here’s a big one) university enrollment has increased from 660,000 in 1998 to over 2.1 million in 2008 (and I’m sure they’re students don’t need to be put into 35 years of debt to attend!)
So here’s what I’m asking the reader that made it this far into my post: Go beneath the headlines. I’ll never expect the media to get it right on a matter this complex.
I’ll even help. Good resources on Venezuela:
- “Venezuela: Not What You Think” by Robin Hahnel
- Venezuela Analysis
- NACLA Report on the Americas
- The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (video)
Feeding my addiction
As the summer months crawl closer, all too slowly, I feel a familiar hunger coming on. Last summer, I had a debilitating addiction that harmed my ability to pay bills, feed myself and meet my other essential needs. It was only broken through a long, hard process to ween myself. But I feel it coming on again.
Last summer I bought like 50 books on Amazon Marketplace, and I just bought The Selfish Gene, two Hunter S Thompson Books, Hard Times by Studs Terkel and … I think I might’ve bought The Stranger in a drunken haze, too, but I’m not sure.
Anyway, I’ll probably write my thoughts about these books when, or if, I ever read them.
Video from our fundraiser / housewarming
About two or three weeks ago my roommates and I threw a party for our housewarming, and was also a fundraiser for the Student Environmental Action Coalition. We had a couple bands play, including James & the Rainbros who just recently came out with a music video that has footage from our party in it. Check it out:
James and The Rainbros – “Our Own Thing” from Tom Valko on Vimeo.
