or “What the fuck are we doing anyway?”
We recently had a(nother) collective meeting in Chicago to discuss the “focus” of our infoshop. After some discussion, i felt frustrated because our direction was still ambigous. Our present day paths were not being defined in the context of our future goals. This was because as a group we had not yet had a discussion of what our long term aspirations were, how to get there, and what that meant we should be doing now.
I felt a lack of long term goals was also present at the Detroit gathering. We had absolutely ZERO discussion on WHY we were doing infoshops, what our ideas of “the revolution” were, and what role infoshops play in achieving them. Not to slag off the gathering, it was definitely positive in many ways and served as a necessary point for us to meet, share experiences, trade knowledge & advice, and get inspired. But now that we’ve gotten the ball rolling, so to speak, we need to figure out what game we’re playing, and what the best strategy is.
You may be asking, “Why is this necessary?” Well, i have found “lack of vision” detrimental in many ways. In terms of internal dynamics, i have noticed that those with a clear concept of their “political” aspirations have pretty definite ideas of what projects they want to be doing now, while those without definite long term goals are more likely to get involved with projects that feel good, and rarely start new ones themselves. This leads to informal hierarchies, and also to disparities in terms of taking on workloads and responsibilities, as some are more “driven” than others. Such imbalances then lead to problems inside groups on personal and political levels, etc… In terms of our infoshop network, political near-sightedness is dangerous, because without our own direction we can become easily manipulated into projects that aren’t necessarily in alignment with our unclear goals. Thus issue-based politics get pursued instead of more revolutionary politics, or we get sucked into time-consuming spectacular politics like national days of action, which have little actual effect, and fall far clear of the impact of say, community organizing. There are plenty of ways to be an “activist” and do absolutely nothing effective at all (but hey you might look good and will definitely feel “active”), and if we don’t have some theory-action praxis going, we are in danger of falling into such powerless protest modes. Not having revolutionary goals and ideas of how to get there also mean that we are selling ourselves and “the movement” short, by not living up to our full potential, and we will pose no real organized threat to the status quo. Having a lackadaisical attitude about politics, “the revolution”, etc. puts us right alongside wishy washy leftists and liberals who, by their inaction and near- sightedness, end up supporting the status quo with no clear critiques or alternatives to offer.
I feel very strongly that we need to start having more discussion and political advancement as a movement. I’m not saying that we need to define our political line as a collective entity (although working out some collective goals would be great!), but that we need to start bouncing more ideas off each other and thinking realistically about how we’re going to go about changing this world. This means discussing our concepts of revolution, what kind of “movement” we need, what roles infoshops (and other counter-institutions) play in that movement, and how they relate to the projects we are doing/should be doing now. I’m raising these vision issues now because i want to see them discussed in the pages of this zine, over the aaa-web, and everywhere else. I’m also interested in seeing political discussion and advancement be an equal focus to networking and skill-sharing at our next conference.
We’ve started to have some of these discussions in Chicago. They have in fact helped us to somewhat define our present day focus for the A-Zone; and a major part of that focus is having a space open for people to pass on ideas & experiences, interact & debate, teach & learn & be inspired. We want to increase the amount of “political education” in our communities so that everyone can develop their own vision of what revolution is, how to get there, and therefore what to do now. While many people have a vision of their ideal society, and some are anti- authoritarians because of it, many also don’t have practical ideas of how to reach that society, and so they are missing crucial theory-practice and present-future dialectics in their politics (oops, sorry if that was too marxist for ya!).
This also raises the question of making our informal network more of a formal network. Do we want/need to, or should we just be doing MORE nethworking, MORE THINGS with our network?
I can see there being some resistance to having these discussions because the potential for conflict and alienation is high. We’ve all been conditioned by society to see politics as stupid, pointless, and not empowering, and it’s hard enough just “making a living”, right? Also, looking at the groups that compose are informal network, it’s clear that their nature makes it a de facto radical anti-authoritarian network. So there is going to be some minimum political definition, whether we like it or not. That will inevitably exclude and alienate some groups and people from the network who aren’t necessarily going in the same direction (this can be good and bad). Obviously, we want to avoid doing what Love & Rage just did (narrowing the politics and organization to further a specific anarchist tendency). We do, however, need to start discussing and developing theory and variety and differences are important for this so that real debate can occur. It is also important to network with groups that are outside our network, that may not necessarily be going in the same direction, but that we can work with, share ideas with, and learn from, as well as influencing them ourselves.
Not to be all talk, and at great risk to myself, i will now throw out some of my personal ideas and thoughts concerning these issues. Basically, i want to encourage some open discussion, so feel free to critique and/or support what i have to say.
Seeing as how we are a network of counter-institutions, i feel pretty safe saying we likely all see revolution more as a process than an event; and that process starts now with everyone one of us in our hearts and heads, killing the cops inside. Now i feel that revolution must include all people (altho we will doubtless have enemies and opposition), and the movement to overthrow the status quo and establish a new society must be popular and be working to establish that new society now, both in terms of personal dynamics and political praxis.
I see counter-instutions as playing a crucial role in this movement because of the concept of dual power: challenging the power of state and capital while also working against the insidious forms of hierarchy and domination that have worked themselves into every conceivable relationship, both in our movement and in society. I envision a strategy of self- organized, informed communities creating direct democratic, collective counter-institutions that fulfill people’s needs (and take away their reliance on state institutions), while working together and confederating as needed to create a popular counterpower to the existing corporate and military structure.
I also feel that a distinct situation exists in the U$ in terms of its oppressed internal colonies (black, latino, indigenous nations, etc.), and that the strongest leash keeping white people from being revolutionary is white privilege, and so i feel it is the responsibility of white people to refuse and destroy that privilege and the social construct of race it props up, while providing solidarity and support to self-determined struggles of the internal colonies. So as a “white” autonomist, i am interested in developing counter-institutions, and especially infoshops, to be an information and support resource for communities for developing counter-institutions, while beginning the struggle against personal-social power dynamics, especially those of white privilege and “whiteness”.
Ideally these counter-institutions will work to create “situations” that deconstruct the spectacle and affect people’s consciences, as people are moved towards change most by direct experience. I am also interested in creating non-hierarchical ties of support and solidarity with counter-institutions developed by the colonized nations. I think a good start is developing a counter-institutional network to discuss these issues, provide mutual aid (see ad in this issue), and provide info and resources to other self-organized groups.
Well, that’s a basic general overview. Trying to cram my politics into one bloody paragraph is kinda ridiculous, but what the hell. I should explain that i feel there is no “true theory” about the practice of revolution, but that there is a dialectic interrelation among theory & practice: “theory only advances as the support of the struggle, the practice only advances when it is backed by a theoretical construction”. This is merely where i’m at right now, hopefully it will continually change!. Go at it.
I do feel there’s a few particular questions that merit discussion in terms of infoshop focus. Primary is whether infoshops should function more as a resource for the movement or more as a resource for and organizing our neighborhoods/communities. In Chicago, we made the mistake of trying to be both when we weren’t really prepared or skilled in being a community resource. One might point to the European Infoshop network and how they are primarily for movement support, as they provide space for meetings and events, distribute literature, and have a fairly sophisticated info-sharing system inluding ‘zines and computer networks. Yet that could also be looked at as detrimental because they ignored their communities as they isolated themselves from valuable support. In the U$, many of our groups are primarily white yet operate in non-white gentrifying neighborhoods, so the community role clearly cannot be ignored!
These are just a few off the top of my head. Others are developing an anti-colonial/race traitor perspective, security, ghettoization, etc etc etc . We have so much to discuss and figure out, and if we are serious revolutionaries, we should start doing so now!
So that’s my rant, i’m going to end it with a list of some good reading material to spark ideas & discussion, and a list of questions we used at a recent Autonomous Zone meeting. Later.
Sprite
thanks to mckay, kate, lee, and purple bruise for the feedback!
Some good reading:
–Defining the Autonomous Struggle (article in Wind Chill Factor #9)
–Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat, by J. Sakai –False Nationalism, False Internationalism –Nightvision: Illuminating War & Class on the neo-colonial terrain
–Race Traitor: A journal of the New Abolitionism (the 2nd issue of The Blast! has a good article on this) –situationist theory on the spectacle and creating situations –Revolutionary Self Theory: A Beginner’s Manual –Anti-Mass Methods of Organization for Collectives –Building United Judgement: A Handbook for Consensus Decision Making
–The Dispossessed, by Ursula LeGuin (good sci-fi depicting an anarchist society)
–From Riot to Insurrection
–Post Scarcity Anarchism, by Murray Bookchin –The Irrational In Politics, by Maurice Brinton
Questions we recently discussed at the Autonomous Zone:
–What is our/your vision of revolution and the society it will produce (realistically & practically)? How do we get there? What role will the infoshop play in that movement activity? What does this mean we should be doing now?
–What do we see the A-Zone looking like and doing 6 months, 1 year, 5 years from now?
–What is our current role in the neighborhood community and how do we see it changing?
–What is our current role in the activist community and how do we see it changing?
–How do we encourage other collectives and counter-institutions to form outside the A-Zone?
–How does the A-Zone operate internally? –What makes people feel good about being involveds here?
from the cyberdecks of:
* * *
* * AUTONOMOUS ZONE INFOSHOP
* /\ * street: 2045 W. North Ave., CHILL 60647 U$A
* /__\ Z * mail: Box 420, 1573 N. Milwaukee, CHILL 60622 U$A
* / \ * phone: 312-278-0775, fax: 312-252-8269
* * matrix: [email protected]
* * *
“If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention!”
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 95 9:05:38 CDT
From: Autonomous Zone <[email protected]>
To: [email protected], [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Dear (Dis)Connection Issue #2 staff (especially Sprite):
I read issue #1 a few days ago and thought it was REALLY REALLY good.
Rarely do I read something cover to cover, but I read this one all the way
through. I was glad to see a note up in the Infoshop saying the article
deadline had been extended until Oct. 20. I was going to make a
submission. But then I ended writing this whole long thing, and it doesn’t
look like I’ll have time to write anything. Maybe I try to do a short
“scene report” about the Long Haul Infoshop at the end of this letter, in
case you don’t have one from someone else in the collective.
I noticed that there was nothing from “our” Infoshop in issue #1 (that is,
from the Long Haul/Infoshop in Berkeley.) Maybe that is because we are all
too busy or whatever. Only a few of us were able to go to the gathering.
Reading the zine really made me want to travel around, see some of the
other projects and meet other folks. Unfortunately, real life kind of has
me trapped with full time work and school (not to mention the Infoshop) for
a while. I am hoping I can find some time to travel after I finish school
this next summer.
If Sprite is reading this, check out the article I wrote for Slingshot
issue #52 on page 8 called “What Now? Why we need a vision and a
contribution to the discussion.” I was really surprised that we seemed to
have a lot of similar ideas on “the problem” despite distance, different
scenes, experiences, etc. If you ask me, this is the single most important
thing to talk about right now. How many of us have been activists for
YEARS and have seen nothing really happen, and in fact have the sinking
feeling that nothing IS happening, expect things getting worse with the
rise of the right? We can put in all the long hours we want, donate all
our time and energy, but if we don’t have any idea of a plan or where we
are trying to go in a large, “Long Haul” sense, we are just moving for the
sense of motion.
Having said that, I have a few comments and constructive criticism of your
article going to overall tactics.
1. On page 2, column 2 you state that we are in danger of being “put
alongside wishy washy leftists and liberals.” I agree that is the danger
and that neither group (especially the liberals) have any vision at all.
(The leftists, at least some of the older ones and most of the ideological
ones, have a vision but it is some variant of a strict Marxist vision which
just isn’t going anywhere. Their problem is too much vision–they allow
their ideology to control how they interpret facts in the world, rather
than trying to always shape and reshape an idea of “what to do” based on
the facts in the world.)
The problem with this kind of statement and this kind of idea is that it
further limits and isolates us as a movement. We need to somehow think of
ways to change liberals and leftists around to our way of seeing the world
(once we know what it is, of course) instead of seeing them as just more
people who are “part of the problem.” In order to do anything more than
political masturbation (and I’m not against masturbation as such) we
somehow need to build a movement beyond a few dozen people in each city,
into a movement that involves MILLIONS of people. Some of those millions
might be white punkish 20 somethings; the rest are going to have to be
“normal folks” or anyone we can get. We need to avoid the temptation to
create artificial divisions between us and other people in the society
unless such a division is absolutely necessary. Most leftists and a lot of
liberals are a hell of a lot closer to holding the kind of ideas we might
hold, and being willing to put their lives on the line to move them
forward, than a lot of other people in the society I can think of. I guess
I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but I really think we need to be
positive, put forward our own plan that will be irresistible to leftists,
liberals and normal folks and that will clearly be way better than
capitalism/the status quo, etc. If we have a good plan–a direction to
move in–a lot of folks will WANT to support it if we don’t exclude them
from the get-go.
2. I really like what you say about “thinking realistically.” I hear way
too much kind of idealistic talk that people should know is just slogans.
We have all learned how hard it is to actually do even simple things (like
keeping an Infoshop open.) And yet I still hear people talk casually about
“revolution” all the time. This word does mean something but we are pretty
far from it. We might not always be, but thinking realistically means
realizing you can’t go from here to there just with language. If we can
organize 20 Infoshops nationally, that is a pretty impressive start and
shows that when we work together and hard, we can actually DO something.
Realism to me is starting from step one and going through all 100 steps
until you reach something of really drastic change, not just in frustration
skipping the steps because they are too big to comprehend.
3. Counter-institutions IS the way to go, I think. Both to keep ourselves
alive now, to provide a model for the future, to learn and sharpen our
ideas of how to actually run things, etc.
4. I really agree with the point made in the 3rd full paragraph on the
left column of page 24. Our Infoshop, I think at least, has never really
discussed this stuff because of fear of internal conflict. I LOVE and work
well with a lot of the other folks that make up our cluster of collectives,
but I know we have serious internal disagreements. Just about the only
time I’ve ever seen debates actually come out into the open is during
Slingshot production, when we have to make really final decisions based on
ideas: does it go in or not. The Infoshop, by contrast, found we had a
hard enough time deciding what color to paint the room and what kind of
“look” we wanted. We just couldn’t deal with more division after these
early debates. Those debates did touch people’s vision and politics, I
thought at the time, but it was kind of safe.
The divisions are sometimes tied to lifestyle (paying rent vs. squatting,
having jobs vs. unemployment, personal rebellion vs. trying to appeal to
“normals.”) We have had debates about violence: whether it is a good
tactic now, what it does, etc. The emphasis to put on issues of race comes
up a lot and especially how we ought to deal with this whole issue.
The fact is, even though these discussions are “dangerous” and risk
splitting us up some, I think we really should have them. Maybe it is good
that we have learned to work together, so that that will provide a “glue”
to keep us working together even when we discover that our politics differ.
But even if it does cause a split, we need to have the discussions because
we can’t really go forward unless we work something out and move in one
direction.
5. I just re-read your specific thoughts on pages 24 and 25 and I pretty
much agree with them. Actually I agree more than I expected to agree. I
think the way you deal with the race question is ideal: we network,
support, provide solidarity, try to work with and work on our own shit. As
a practical matter, this seems a lot better than just complaining “oh,
there aren’t any _____ people here at this meeting. Oh boy, we’re so
guilty.” We need to want to work with other people but if it doesn’t
happen right away, that might just be because people of color are working
on developing alternatives in their own communities and for them,
revolution is NOT working with a bunch of white leftists. This is one of
the hardest issues we have. I personally think we need to try to work on
campaigns with self-organized colonized groups, and we should also continue
working on campaigns that seem important to us that may not apply to those
other activists, or at least not in obvious ways just at first. We need to
avoid either/or guilt decisions. A good start would be making sure we know
the non-white organizations that are doing radical work.
Clearly Infoshops are just the most simple, preliminary type of
“counter-institution.” The real fun starts when we start “fulfilling
people’s needs” in a dramatically different way. There is a question of
how much we are going to get involved with the current society in order to
make these alternatives, and that is a crucial question. For instance,
buying land in a way is the most traditional thing we can do, confirming
property relations and contributing our money to the oppressive machine
society. On the other hand, if we really want to build an alternative that
lasts, squatting a factory, say, might not really be an effective strategy
over the “Long Haul.” These are the hard decisions and I hope we are able
to make them rather than running from them. In my opinion, what may in the
short term seem “pure” may be unrealistic and self-defeating in terms of
really making alternatives work in the long term.
6. If you want to add a good reading to your list of readings, add
“Getting By With a Little Help from our Friends” By Barbara and Al Haber.
I think that is the title. I haven’t read if for a while but I remember
thinking it was highly relevant to some of these discussions. It is also
good to have perspectives from past major activists.
