Gaining Ground, Not Losing It: Questions from a Revolutionary Anarchist

  • September 6, 2018 8:22 pm

from It’s Going Down

Building on their idea of ‘insurrectionary councilism,’ the Radical Education Department lays out an analysis about how to build and gain ground out of social struggles, rather than having it dissipate.

How do we turn revolt into revolution today?

Anticapitalist resistance is surging in the face of a stagnating capitalism and the ruling class’s desperate turn to fascism. But from Occupy and Ferguson to the anti-ICE movement, uprisings are dissipating rather than escalating into fundamental, widespread challenges to ruling class power. Radical movements have struggled to develop the mass organizations and shared revolutionary strategy needed to create such challenges. How can revolutionary anarchists help transform revolt into a crisis of class rule?

A central task for revolutionary anarchists today, I argue, is multiplying and connecting spaces for (a) combining disconnected but sympathetic radical struggles, and above all (b) hammering out shared ideas of mass organizing and planning.

Finally, I ask: how would we create a shared revolutionary program for organization and strategy? What kinds of questions would we need to answer? What specifically could revolutionary anarchism bring to such a program?  I end by sketching some of those questions.

The time to build revolutionary power is now.

Why a revolutionary program?

We have the chance to strike a powerful blow against a stumbling enemy.

Capitalism has been stagnating since the financial crisis 11 years ago. It is lurching towards another crisis.[1]  Segments of the ruling class are turning to fascism in desperation to crush working-class resistance and restore its profit margins.

Crisis, stagnation, and repression—these are sparking a massive upsurge of revolts like the anti-ICE movement, anti-racist struggles, and militant antifascist, anarchist, socialist, and communist organizing.

But the recent explosions are more widespread and more powerful than we know what to do with. We don’t have the tools we need to connect uprisings into a revolutionary challenge to ruling class power. For instance, the important “Occupy ICE” movement is being swept away without a clear, mass, coordinated plan to build on its gains. The prison strike now faces this danger. “Occupy Wall Street” confronted the same problem. We remain largely reactive to the latest outrage. We struggle to channel radical power in durable ways for definite, large-scale, revolutionary strategic goals.

Too often, radical struggles focus on tactics. We hope that a revolution will come eventually, the accumulation of small-scale victories. Ending capitalism requires more. A systemic problem calls for a systemic solution.

But we also seem to be overwhelmed with revolutionary plans.  Many anarchist, socialist, and communist groups have ready-made ideas about tactics, strategy, and organization.  Their answers are often disconnected from the concrete mass revolts we are witnessing.  Revolutionary programs tend to stay in the activist “silos” that have characterized radical organizing since the 1970s.

And to create a revolution, struggle must be on a mass scale. Capitalist firms exist only by extracting as much surplus as possible from the working class. At the same time, the ruling class pits groups of workers against each other—nation against nation, white workers against workers of color, men against women, cis-gendered people against non-binary people, the employed against the unemployed. White supremacy, patriarchy, transphobia, ableism—these help cement the racist, patriarchal bourgeoisie’s power. When workers fight each other, the ruling class can continue exploiting, dominating, colonizing, and waging imperial war. Radically challenging capitalism means widespread, intersectional class power that refuses to play capital’s games of domination.

The task ahead is combination, not isolation, of revolutionary efforts to help build the intersectional organizations we need. Combination here doesn’t mean an insipid “left unity.”  It means connecting the various antiauthoritarian (even if not explicitly anarchist) currents that often lie at the heart of the most powerful struggles against capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy today.  More broadly, it means coordinating, across far left ideological and community divides, the radical struggles that can work effectively together without endless bickering—and that often informally overlap anyway.

All of this means the most pressing questions for radicals today are about strategy and organization. One of the most important things revolutionary anarchists can do, I suggest, is help create, multiply, and federate experimental spaces to hammer out collaborative answers to those questions. (Some of us in RED have begun experimenting with such spaces; see this and this).

I don’t offer my own revolutionary program here. Members of RED have a few contributions on this front—see this, this, and this.  And for an interesting response and critique, see this.

My goal here is only to help spur the kind of shared, widespread discussions we need for building mass revolutionary plans.

Comcast, Banks, and a Prison Guard Vehicle Attacked in Solidarity with the Prison Strike

  • September 5, 2018 8:30 pm

Submission

We want to claim responsibility for the following actions:

-Slashing 16 tires on 8 Comcast trucks.
-Sabotaging 6 card readers of Wells Fargo, Citizens Bank, and Bank of America.
-Slashing 2 tires on a prison guard’s personal car.

These actions were done over the course of about a week in solidarity with the national prison strike and international week of solidarity with anarchist prisoners.

We chose these targets because they profit off of people being locked up and we wanted to strike those who directly or indirectly hold the prisons together.

-Comcast has a contract with ICE.
-Wells Fargo has a contract with ICE and also invests in prisons.
-Bank of America profits off of prison labor.
-We don’t know what’s up with Citizens Bank but fuck them too.
-Attacking a prison guard’s car needs no explanation.

A few notes on our methods:

-For the ATMs we used the tried and true method of super glue and half sized ATM cards or their cardboard equivalent.
-For the tires at first we tried using ball bearings in the valves but found it to be too loud, too slow, and too difficult to do with gloves on. Luckily we had a awl on hand that we had been meaning to try and were ecstatic to discover how quiet, discreet, and easy it was to puncture tires with. After we realized this we couldn’t stop noticing the vehicles of our enemies and went on a modest rampage with the awl. (An awl is like an oversized needle attached to a wooden handle used to pierce thick tough surfaces and they can be found at most arts and craft stores.)

We were able to make these actions happen by honing our observational skills, paying attention to our surroundings, and spontaneously making moves quickly when the opportunities arose.

We feel strongly that having confidence makes an attack easier but dressing like criminals made us feel insecure in that we were drawing too much attention to ourselves. Because of this we decided to get creative with our disguises. As much as we love the uniform* we felt too hot and too suspicious looking to justify wearing it for these types of actions, so we tried out some different styles.
Some of the ways we did this were by simply wearing more color, experimenting with alternatives to long sleeves and pants, and dressing to fit unassuming roles, for example: sporty, going out, stumbling to the store in pajamas etc etc.
Besides that we made sure that gloves and masks were still easy to take on and off. We think different disguises can be interesting and fun, and we want to continue to experiment and expand on theses tactics.

Reflections

Just as much as anyone else, we’re tired, our bodies hurt, and we sometimes find ourselves slipping into the abyss of self care and prioritizing survival over life. But for this prison strike we wanted to challenge ourselves, to ensure that the prisoners were not alone in their struggle, in their fear and in their discomfort. Despite challenging circumstances we felt it was important to deal with them and not back away because of them. Although we are in no rush to die or find ourselves in a cell we do feel the need to prioritize struggle over comfort. This priority is not from a place of duty or sacrifice but stems from our personal desires. It has been interesting to see how much we can push ourselves. Acting in solidarity and struggle is a constant choice we must make in every moment of everyday. Solidarity is more than something we save for a day on our calendars. It needs to be more than empty words. To us it is a personal choice to not shrink away from discomfort and to make the struggles of others a part of our own path, to face the challenge and upon recognizing how steep and heavy it is, deciding to walk toward it anyway.

Opportunities surround us at all times. Why is there always the need to wait for the next demo? We really appreciate all the different styles of action surrounding the strike, however, we still want to push against the trend that demos are the be-all-end-all, and that they are enough. For us the quality of an action is not dependent on the number of participants or the attention it gets from the media. Plus autonomous attack forces us to face our own individual creativity and initiative. If no one were around to organize with what would you find yourself doing? Would you engage in struggle?

Solidarity with Philly rebels recently brutalized and arrested by cowards
Solidarity with prisoners on lockdown and all those on strike
Fuck money
Fuck technology
Fuck 12
Fuck prisons
For the spread of revolt and sabotage
Toward the destruction of all restrictive realities

*Black gloves, black pants, black hoodie, black mask, black shoes.

Monday, Sept 10th: Letter-writing for the Vaughn 17

  • September 5, 2018 8:25 pm

from Philly ABC

Our monthly letter-writing event is this coming Monday due to the holiday and local actions in support of the 2018 Nationwide Prison Strike. Philly ABC stands in solidarity with all of those striking to demand humane living conditions, access to rehabilitation, sentencing reform and the end of modern day slavery. Join us at 6:30pm at LAVA where we will be writing letters to the Vaughn 17, the individuals charged with involvement in the February 2017 uprising at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Delaware.

For more information on the Vaughn 17, check out Live from the Trenches: Letters from the Vaughn 17. Contact information for the Vaughn 17 is found at the end of the pamphlet. We will also be sending birthday greetings to political prisoners with birthdays in September: Brian Vaillancourt (the 5th), Leonard Peltier (the 12th), Abdul Maumin Khabir (the 15th).

[LAVA 4134 Lancaster Ave]

Labor Day Noise Demonstration Report

  • September 4, 2018 10:45 pm

Submission

Last night’s noise demonstration was fun and exciting! It went pretty well for most of its duration, though there were some moments of confusion and miscommunication that I think could be avoided in the future. I want to go over how things went and then address some successes, and problems I’d like to see us overcome as we continue to take to the streets together.

I met with some companions at a nearby location and around 8PM we marched together to the Federal Detention Center at 6th and Arch. Most of us were dressed in black with our faces covered. As we walked over, graffiti was painted and fliers about the strike were thrown into the air, the quiet streets were ours. Once we arrived at the prison people began shouting, shooting fireworks, throwing firecrackers, and making a bunch of noise together. Over the next fifteen minutes more people arrived and joined in, sharing water, whistles, and adding chants to the ruckus with a megaphone. Some people stood in the street blocking all traffic going past the prison, others gave fliers to this captive audience. People locked inside the prison shone lights and waved at us through the windows.

The police arrived after some time, but initially could do very little. There were only a couple cops and they protested that people were lighting fireworks and blocking the street but couldn’t so much about it. They were able to open one lane of traffic as more police arrived to back them up. By this time it was clear that the prisoners had seen us and that the police presense was growing, some police on bikes appeared. A decent time to make a dignified exit; we had broken the isolation of the prison walls, made clear our solidarity, and expressed a disgust for the police and their prisons.

We took to the street and went south to Market street with police moving alongside and behind us. We went around the block, against traffic, and circled back past the prison going west on Arch street. Here some of the march slowed down to make some more noise, while many of the masked comrades began to leave. It seemed to me that the feeling of the march then was a general leaning toward dispersal, though I cannot be sure. The cowardly police took advantage of the fact that many of the masked marchers were further away to attack those who had not yet left. They used their bikes and metal clubs to beat demonstrators and made two arrests, including a thirteen year old. After this it seemed like the demonstration was pretty much over. People went home or kept track of the arrested (both of whom are out – one with a citation, one with charges – at the time of this writing).

In many ways this demonstration was a success. The isolation of the prison was broken temporarily, news of the strike was communicated, the police were not able to control the rowdy energy of the crowd, and rebellion and freedom were celebrated with a festive enthusiasm. We were able to gather and move together under the police’s radar, it’s clear they were not prepared for a demonstration. A practice of sharing was present within the demonstration to a degree. In the longer term; tactics and ideas that during the 2016 strike seemed unusual and limited to a small amount of people have spread! The use of masks, fireworks, moving against the direction of traffic, and the creation of temporary barricades to slow police advances have become more common. Though these never spread as fast or wide as we would like, we can take a moment to appreciate the contrast between this strike and the 2016 one.

The arrests from last night might not have been preventable, we can’t know such things. What we do know is we can always strive to learn and to improve. We can open channels of communication before an action, especially one that hasn’t caught the police’s attention yet. Imagine if we had all met up in a quiet place to have a quick discussion on dispersal, legal support, and sharing supplies, before walking to the prison together. We could have some idea of what to expect of each other and the security of all masking off camera and arriving together. It might not have prevented the police from doing their job, some people would have shown up late and missed it, but it certainly wouldn’t have set us back by much. The same can be said to a lesser degree for communication once a demonstration has started moving, more easily within the bloc and probably with more difficulty beyond the bloc. To me these kinds of communications feel like they can increase our capacity, make more things possible, and keep us safer from the police. I know there are reasons we’re shy and secretive, that there is a lot of distrust, and that speaking to each other can be difficult, but let’s challenge ourselves!
How can we better communicate and look out for each other without compromising our security? How can we intensify our struggle? How can we spread it? What do we imagine is im/possible and how can we make it our reality?

Solidarity with the comrades beaten and arrested!
Fuck the police!
Strength and solidarity to the striking prisoners!
Fire to the prisons!

Noise Demonstration in Solidarity with Prison Strike

  • September 3, 2018 10:58 pm

from Twitter

Tonight in , a noise demonstration was held outside the Federal Detention Center at 8th & Arch in solidarity with the national . As protesters marched away from the facility, made two arrests & hit protesters & journalists with metal batons

Starbucks Vandalized in Connection to Prison Strike

  • September 3, 2018 10:55 pm

from Mainstream Media

Vandals shattered windows at the Starbucks in Rittenhouse Square Monday morning.

The store located at 18th and Spruce Streets was the center of controversy earlier this year.

The vandals left notes inside the coffee shop that referenced the ongoing prison labor strike happening across the country.

Starbucks says they do not hire, or work with agencies that employ prison labor.

Crews repaired the windows and the store reopened Monday afternoon.

Anathema Volume 4 Issue 8

  • September 3, 2018 10:52 pm

from Anathema

Volume 4 Issue 8 (PDF for printing 11 x 17)

Volume 4 Issue 8 (PDF for reading 8.5 x 11)

In this issue:

  • We All Live Downstream
  • The Fight Against Borders Continues
  • The Mirage of Economic Prosperity
  • What Went Down
  • Accident or Attack?
  • Companies Profiting from Putting People in Cages
  • Knock Down Drag Out Fascists in the Street
  • The False Idol of Self Sacrifice
  • 7 Theses on Selfies
  • A Test of Strength

Anti-Prison Graffiti near University Ave

  • September 3, 2018 10:51 pm

Submission

In solidarity with the prison strike!
In solidarity with all prison rebels!
Death to all jailers!

(A)

RED Year I: What Is Done and to Be Done

  • September 2, 2018 10:29 pm

from Radical Education Department

RED was founded approximately one year ago, and it has developed in myriad unforeseeable and exciting ways, while also confronting obstacles and limitations along the way. By providing an overview of what I consider to be our successes, as well as an outline of goals for the coming year, it is my hope that I can contribute to the autonomous process of collective education that is crucially important to the revolutionary Left. Just as we have learned and continue to learn from so many of the radical groups at work around the world, I hope that others can take inspiration from our model, and also help us reach our goals for RED Year II!

Doing Something with Nothing

The basis for RED’s success to date is the recognition that you can make a significant political impact with limited resources and no monetary support. We have, since the very beginning, been a small group, and each person has contributed according the their abilities and what their time commitments allow. Everything has been extremely shoestring, but there is a common egalitarian energy and anti-capitalist drive that invigorates us to pick up the RED torch whenever we can find time. This means—and it was an important lesson for all of us to learn experientially—that any tiny group of a few people can dive in and get things moving. There is no need to wait around until the time is ripe, the revolution is on our doorstep or the Establishment pushes things too far. The time is now!

In the coming year, it would be great if we could find a few more dedicated torchbearers. At times, we have been spread too thin, and it is important for our group to maintain a stable core, as well as concentric circles of dedicated, as well as more or less intermittent, collaborators. Some of our early members have had to step back for numerous reasons, but others are also stepping up. We look forward to integrating them into RED and building up our concentric circles of collaboration in the coming year!

A Focused Organization Not a Political Party

We knew from the very beginning that we did not want to develop a mass organization, and we conceive of our role more as a radical groupuscule that can push the envelope, work more flexibly and intervene incisively, while simultaneously working with and across other groups. Our mode of organization is neither strictly hierarchical, nor is it purely horizontal, as we discussed here. In order to maximize the autonomy of our members, we decided that RED activities would be those supported by at least two members, which does not require group consensus or a single leader.

As we develop, we would like to shore up and clarify our modes of organization based on our experiences thus far, and also in order to fine-tune our decision-making process. It is a delicate operation to move beyond the extremes of verticalism and horizontalism, and many of us are convinced that this is an extremely important tactical shift that needs to be further theorized and put into practice. Given our past experiences in various political groups and in Occupy, we recognize the enormous strengths of this transversal mode of organization and would like to be able, through experiential knowledge, to be able to model it for other groups, while also continuing to learn more about all of the interesting organizational models that are already in practice.

A Thinking Tank

As a revolutionary leftist organization, one of our projects has been to function as a research collaborative that collectively produces informative and insightful articles on contemporary politics and organizing. We have successfully forged collaborations with some of the most important venues for the radical intelligentsia and general public (such as CounterPunch and Truthout) as well as for activist communities (such as It’s Going Down and Enough Is Enough), which has allowed our articles to circulate in much broader circles. The content that we have collectively produced has arguably had an impact in at least two ways. On the one hand, we have diagnosed and conceptually dismantled the standard liberal framework used to make sense of contemporary media debates on such things as violence, antifa, direct action and free speech. On the other hand, we have increasingly been invested in asking and providing responses to timely tactical questions of organizing, encouraging our readership to always be thinking about how we can move our actions to the next level (see our work on anti-ICE mobilization, radical struggle in Philadelphia, insurrectionary councilism, the insurrectionary campus, antifa on a conservative campus and popular-front antifa). It is very difficult to know how much of an impact these interventions have had, but they have at the very least been extremely helpful for our own political education, and they have led to a series of productive discussions and interviews (like this discussion of revolutionary strategy on IGD, or this one on violence and antifa on KPFA).

In the coming year, we would like to continue doing this kind of writing, while also adding additional fronts of struggle and connecting to new publication venues and audiences across the hard Left. Our recent launching of a zine project has successfully brought together significant voices on timely issues, and we would like to continue to develop our zines, which will include printing and distributing them free of charge. We have also begun discussing the possibility of launching RED press with short booklets, and many of us are invested in the long-term project of seizing the means of intellectual and cultural production. In this regard, we would also like to develop the aesthetic contributions to RED by collaborating more with artists and creative cultural producers, which will also allow us to reach different types of audiences

Revolutionary Coalition Building

RED is not committed to a single party line, and most of us would identify—or be identified—as anarchists, communists or revolutionary socialists (or some combination thereof). This has allowed us to work broadly with numerous other groups in order to avoid the siloing that has sometimes plagued the revolutionary Left. Some of our most successful public events—like this one on revolutionary coalitions or this one on antifascist education—have brought together people who work with various different groups in order to share their experiences and brainstorm about the most productive models for future collective work. We have also enjoyed the opportunity to serve as a platform for activists around the world, and we have developed ties over time with like-minded groups with which we have begun collaborating, such as Cutting Class.

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In RED Year II, we would like to see our project of revolutionary coalition building deepen and expand. Taking inspiration from Fred Hampton and other radical organizers, we would like to establish innovative but workable frameworks for coordinating between different radical groups in such a way that they can maintain their autonomy but maximize their impact by working with others. Much of this work will be local to the Philadelphia area, as we explore the options for creating umbrella structures, but it will also involve greater coordination with other groups around the country and the world for more expansive modes of solidarity and support.

Direct Action

RED emerged out of direct action and the joy of working together for a common cause when you have to put something on the line. It has continued to be important as an intermittent reference point for our struggles, but we have been less successful on this front largely due to time constraints and a concern for avoiding undue penalization.

Direct action is an area where we really need to develop our strengths by tapping back into some of our earlier work and finding the time to make incisive and important interventions that nonetheless keep our members safe. In the coming year, we would like to develop our abilities to immediately be present on the scene for important issues in our area, following the lead of our friends at the Philly Coalition for REAL Justice and others. We would also like to be more proactive in planning ahead for important moments and organizing significant contributions on the part of RED. This can range from participating in major marches or events like May Day to making contributions to the latest flashpoints of struggle, such as anti-ICE organizing or the prison strike. Finally, we plan on launching a guerilla education series that will bring radical education to the streets and corporate universities in and around the Philadelphia area. We are looking forward to blowing some minds!

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Internationalism

RED has always recognized that the struggle against global capitalism needs to be international, and many of our group members work across various geographic regions. We have drawn on these experiences in myriad ways and made some important connections to groups abroad. However, this is also an area where this is ample room for growth.  

In developing our international connections, we would like to collaborate and coordinate more with other radical groups around the globe. We would also like to forge connections to some of the most important reference points for radical Left organizing in our conjuncture, such as the ZAD in France and the Zapatistas in Chiapas. This will allow us to learn more from their experiences and also help us spread their major work to even larger audiences.

En avant!

It is remarkable for us to be able to celebrate so many accomplishments by such a small organization with no financial resources, which speaks to the radical anti-capitalist spirit that animates us. There is, however, much work to be done, and RED Year II will require energy, commitment and creativity. We are excited to move forward!

– ED

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