We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anticapitalism

Obviously, I like this book, We Are Everywhere, very much: that's why I asked its authors for permission to premier these essays online.

And just as obviously, authors that title the final essay in their book "Walking: We Ask Questions" wrote their words to both ask and provoke questions.

In that essay (coming to Narco News on November 11th), they write:

"When a movement stops asking questions of itself, of the world, it becomes an orthodoxy - an idea that has run out of ideas. It becomes fixed, brittle, rather than fluid. Water can resist the most savage of blows, ice shatters. It is only armed with our questions that we can change history."

The book charts, very well, the growth of autonomy movements (what the media calls "anti-globalization") over the past ten years.

Let me toss a Molotov of words into the mix: I personally think that the North American and European flanks of that movement have, to a big extent, become "fixed, brittle, rather than fluid," as they've gone from city to city, during the big meetings of the powerful (World Trade Organization, World Economic Forum, the Group of Eight, etcetera), and more or less have reduced themselves to trying to repeat the undeniable glories of the Seattle actions of 1999, with diminishing results each time - the exception being the September 2003 actions in Cancún, which, like in Seattle, turned over the game board inside the hall, too.

But here is part of the "Wealthy World" bias that infects Wealthy World social movements: The work of the negotiators from "developing nations" in Cancún, from Brazil to India, at these international trade meetings is too often, I think, seen by some protestors as effects caused by their own actions in the streets, as if the poor country players are mere "objects" acted upon by activists. Conversely, I see these nations, and increasingly their leaders, as their own unique protagonists, or "subjects,"  and their actions a consequence of the realities that those lands have endured for too long, and the growing consciousness in those lands.

I prefer to give credit, always, not merely to those "from below" but to those from the most belowest places in any equation.

I know that the authors of the book don't suffer from that complex: It's obvious reading the pages that credit is given where due, again and again, to the "third world" protagonists of autonomy movements on the different continents, many of whom are translated into English and have strong voice in the book to present themselves, and not merely be represented through some Wealthy World lens.

I do observe, though, that many of the "first world" protagonists of these movements - perhaps no small number of those who read the book in English from Britain to British Columbia to Boston - see themselves at center stage (a consequence of years of social conditioning), and to some extent the symbols and images from below are appropriated by activists from the wealthy nations as if to project themselves as the moral and political equivalent of, say, the Zapatistas, or others from South of the Borders. That's not only bad form: It's weak politics.

And I think, as I will try to explain, that this kind of self-aggrandizement by the "Wealthy World Activists" leads to denial of certain realities and privileges that, alone, would not be problems (because everyone has the right to be wrong, too), but the denial becomes a problem because such thinking leads to bad strategic and tactical calls in their movements.

This is a complicated matter. Let me try to explain...

This first essay, "Emergence: An Irresistible Global Uprising," walks the reader through the history of many resistance movements, including that occured prior to 1994. And in explaining why the work begins with events of that year, the authors say:

"Depending on who you ask, the resistance began 510 years ago when the indigenous of the Américas fought Columbus, or 700 years ago when Robin Hood rode through the forests of England to protect the rights of commoners, or a little over 100 years ago when slavery was abolished throughout the Américas, or 150 years ago when working people became an international revolutionary movement, or 50 years ago when colonized countries gained their independence, or 30 years ago when populations across Africa, Asia, and Latin America started rioting over the price of bread as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) began restructuring their economies..."

But then focuses in, noting...

"...as the Mexican economy crashed and burned, the Zapatista uprising took the world by storm. For simplicity’s sake, let us start the story there."

Now, I am one of those people who likes simplicity. I believe, outright, that this movement, or collection of autonomy movements, really did "begin" - in a big way - in Chiapas in 1994. And I see no tactical reason to deny it. And I see many tactical reasons to admit it.

More than that, I think simplicity is related to coherence, which, as Guy Debord wrote, "the first duty of a revolutionary is coherence." To move masses of people, we have to keep it simple: that is, we have to be coherent in how we communicate to others. The book says that the era of "grand narratives" is over and yet - irony being a theme of our era - it relays a grand narrative: On New Year's morning, 1994, the Zapatista indigenous rebels rose up in Chiapas, México, and a grand narrative really did begin there.

I remember, a couple of years later, in New York City, talking with author Peter Lamborne Wilson, one of the best anarchist thinkers alive, who wondered aloud when an "urban Zapatismo" would spring up from somewhere in the world, making the Chiapas rebellion - primarily of peasant farmers - applicable to the grand urban metropoli where so much of the global population lives. Suffering myself from the kind of "the world revolves around us" thinking we are taught to believe in the "first world," I suggested to Peter that this could be done in New York. He very nearly mocked me (and he turned out to be correct on this point) saying, "oh, no, no... the control systems are in place here... I was thinking more of some place like Tijuana!"

I returned to Peter's question in 2002, during an interview that an Indymedia journalist conducted with me about Venezuela, the Media, and Anarchism, saying:

"Consider this: The 1998 election of Chávez in Venezuela would not have been possible without Mexico's Zapatismo. Marcos - with his belts of bullets, his uniform, and often photographed with a gun - showed through his actions and behavior that being a soldier does not always equal being 'bad' or authoritarian. His communiqués - remember, it's not just him, he is the talented and humorous pen and voice of a group - over the past eight, coming on nine, years have been the spear of an educational process. Suddenly, four years into that process, in 1998, Chávez pops up with his red beret and uniform in Venezuela and, wham!, in Caracas and other cities we begin to see the manifestation of what Peter Lamborne Wilson predicted, back in 1996, would be an 'urban Zapatismo.'"

So, yes, I draw a straight line between the eruption of the Zapatistas and their unique way of seeing political struggle (the We Are Everywhere book does a great job of explaining how the Zapatista theories are different from the dominant radical theories prior to them, in words that even North Americans who never heard of "neoliberalism" can understand), and the rebellions that came since then.

The electoral rebellion by the Venezuelan people in 1998 is, in my view, and the coup, and counter-coup, of 2002 in that country, are among the only major gaps in the book. It is also a hard nut to swallow for some activists who, like me, consider themselves as anarchists (or, the term I prefer, anarcho-syndicalists, not only for being more specific but because it can't be confused with, say, some mere enjoyers of the music of Johnny Rotten who seem to think being an anarchist is about wearing the right tattoos or hair styles): How do anarchists come to terms with the hard reality that "The State" is no longer mere governments? Or that, in some cases, like in Venezuela, governments can be turned into tools against the tyrannical Global State?

So there, in Venezuela, and its megalopolis of Caracas among other cities, we have what I think is the first authentic manifestation of "Urban Zapatismo" - and it predates the Seattle demonstrations by a year. Yet, because the Venezuelan autonomy model involves "inconvenient facts" - the use of elections for social change, a strong and charismatic leader (Hugo Chávez) whose existence disproves the "we have no leaders" ideology, the fact that the leader is also a military leader and often wears uniforms and other such decorations, and, I add, the reality that the first display of "Urban Zapatismo" really did not come from the First World (more of my thoughts on these factors can be found in that Indymedia interview - the Venezuelan process doesn't often get its due when looking at the timeline of autonomy movements of the past ten years.

Which brings me back to my point about too many of today's activists trying to repeat the glories of Seattle. Let me state that I'm not disqualifying Seattle 1999 just because it occured in the United States. To the contrary, it can accurately be described as a landmark in the development of "Urban Zapatismo" for the developed world, and that is nothing to shake a stick at. I just wish that today's Wealthy World activists would spend less time trying to repeat what occured in Seattle (which had the element of surprise - even many of the activists involved didn't believe, until it happened, that they would be able to shut down the World Trade Organization there!), and would spend more time analyzing how the Venezuelan model can be applied in urban landscapes.

The Venezuelan model, of course, is distinct from the nomadic activism that roams from city to city for protests, in that it necessarily involves people organizing and fighting from their own homes and neighborhoods: Something more difficult in lands where there is less "sense of place" than ever before in human history. And yet isn't that a big part of what we fight for when we confront the Global Economic State? We want the place and space that it stole from us in recent generations: a place to stand, to be (in the sense of the Spanish verb estar more than ser), to exist, on this earth.

The decay and decomposition involved in the kind of "automatic pilot" form of trying to replicate the Seattle 1999 victory elsewhere could be seen recently, in New York City, as copublisher Ben Melançon pointed out right here on The Narcosphere in his September 19 essay, RNC Protests Not a Success for Freedom, based on his eyewitness accounts.

Let's face the music: It is easier to roam from protest to protest, from World Social Forum to World Social Forum, from conference to conference, from city to city, than to dig in and do the hard work of fighting to take back, and hold, our own local place in this world. When I see these big demonstrations or World Social Forums, I also see the eyes of the stockholders of the grand airlines, and hear them shouting "Ka-Ching!" at the millions of dollars allocated by activists traveling such vast distances to go to these demonstrations, which also - and there is nothing wrong with it - serve as great parties.

This is entirely related to my own known preference for practicing Authentic Journalism over the forms of activism that involve attending endless meetings or "organizations" or "affinity groups" etcetera, and all the inherent humiliations and bullshit involved by subjecting oneself to such ventures.

Another example of the decay involved in the constant efforts to relive and repeat Seattle in other places can be seen on the Indymedia sites where the big demonstrations are held: Indymedia emerged from Seattle and there it kicked ass. There was real reporting going on back then in the medium's salad days!

But during the aforesaid RNC demonstrations in NYC, it was pure drudgery to have to scour IMC-NY for real news reports about what was going on there. When our reporter (the very same We Are Everywhere coauthor Jennifer Whitney) finally got out of jail after being arrested there, I was primarily happy for her freedom. But a very close second was "oh, thank gods I don't have to read Indymedia today!" And, again, the better mousetrap - you can see it if you read Spanish - for "citizens online media" has been built in Venezuela: I never tire of reading Aporrea.org, where real people do the heavy lifting of real reporting about the events and news that happens in their own communities during moments of crisis and history.

There are reasons why Indymedia, like the post-Seattle protests in other cities, suffers from these kinds of decay: the "open publishing" dogma (in which a confused sense of egalitarianism promotes a kind of mediocrity), the "we have no leaders" ideology, the culture of unnecessary anonymity that has developed among privileged people who don't really need to wear kerchiefs or ski-masks or make ups silly names for themselves for their personal safety...

But mainly, I think, the problem is that old First World character flaw of laziness...

To wit: In the U.S. they have Mexicans pick their crops and cook their restaurant food, but when they say grace they don't give credit to those who did the hard work: It may be rude, but nonetheless thought-provoking, to ask aloud whether the same dynamic has sadly penetrated too many sectors of protest movements up North... You can wave Zapatista symbols, as many do, without "getting" the things that make them so effective. The Zapatistas, for example, don't ever protest without publishing coherent communiques, and fostering their own media reports, about what is going on, and then making sure those communications are central to any action. Why haven't more Wealthy World activists figured that out? Is it because it involves too much hard work?

That self-media was done in Seattle 1999, and done splendidly. But it's not happening anymore. Or, better said, it is happening less and less during these grand protest mobilizations, and it is being crowded out by a certain kind of protestor that I like to call "trauma junkies" - those who go for the most traumatic gesture (physical confrontation with cops, setting of fires, obsession with fences and physical objects, and, of course, creating the circumstances for greater violence, which is more cowardly, in my view, than acting directly with violence).

The trauma junkies go for the most traumatic gesture knowing full well that the Commercial Media will always cover their skirmishes more sensationally than other aspects of the mass demonstrations. In that sense, I see the members of this tendency as nothing more or less than media whores: taking their orders from the Commercial Media, by following the "if it bleeds, it leads" axiom of TV news - while claiming that "the most traumatic gesture" is "the most radical gesture" when it is simply an act of allowing the Commercial Media to be one's pimp, john, and muse all at once!

That said, I don't favor, as some more rigid tendencies in protest movements favor, turning such people into the cops, or trying to police them ourselves, gods forbid! Rather, I believe that by merely discussing this taboo question that reason can prevail.

I do feel the discussion is generally censored, though, by the oft-stated axiom of "we don't want to declare that there are good protestors and bad protestors," and the reasoning behind it that police agencies and others will create more repression against "bad protestors" when that dialectic is emphasized.

But there are - make no mistake about it - "effective protestors and ineffective protestors." And there are even "counter-productive protestors." And the "trauma junkies" have, increasingly, elbowed so many other good people out of the camera angle.

The We Are Everywhere authors certainly grapple with these sorts of questions. In the aforementioned final essay, coming soon to a computer screen near you, they write:

"The second stage of the movement will be harder than the first. It's a stage of working closer to home, a stage where mass action on the streets is balanced (but not entirely replaced) with creating alternatives to capitalism in our neighborhoods, our towns and cities. A politics which moves between construction and conflict, based on longer-term visions, where we seek to construct alternatives that will sustain us into the future - and yet remembers that any true alternatives to capital will throw us into conflict with the system and that we need to strategize continually to defend ourselves against it."

To that I would add the following point: that "our own neighborhoods, our towns and cities" are not just geographic places. In the end - and here comes the "syndicalist" part of my anarchism - everything begins and ends with work, with labor. My "neighborhood" - New York City - was stolen from me and millions of others. It no longer exists. It's over, stick a fork in it, for me anyway (at least until the Stock Exchange crashes and all those awful yuppies that displaced us go crying home to somewhere else). I know the same has happened to many, many others. It's the main factor that creates migrants in this world. And most of us migrants will never enjoy the "sense of place" we were born into.

But my workplace or factory - journalism - still exists (albeit, subjected to the same displacement process in which a mutant class of mercenary and mediocre scum has displaced most auténticos from the newsrooms where we were once the workers... and this is just as much true about self-proclaimed "alternative" media, in many cases moreso, because they often become the biggest abusers of workers justifying it on their so-called alternativity!)

And so we have created, in less than five years at Narco News, a new factory of journalism... of Authentic Journalism... our own autonomy movement within journalism... what I like to call the Authentic Journalism renaissance.

Maybe I'm conservative, but I'm not seeking "alternatives." I hate that fucking word! I'm seeking to take authenticity back, to get, from a labor perspective, our home, our land, our factory, our means of production, back into our own hands.

Authentic Journalism, as I view it, is very key to what the We Are Everywhere authors refer to as "the second stage of the movement," where "working closer to home" puts emphasis on the verb "to work" and fights against the First World laziness that leads to the decomposition of most movements North of the Border.

And part of what we've created here is that every participant who has put his and her labor or resources into the Narco News project can be part of the discussion, can openly disagree, can raise "inconvenient facts" without censorship by one or by a committee... So if anything I've written here bugs ya, or seems wrongheaded, well, you have the microphone and the keypad too.

It was work to write it. And it will be work to respond. But work is the mother's milk of revolution!

Man, after reading that, I feel like I just stuck my mind in the rays of a Tesla coil.

Great essay!

And for those who think an online newspaper has little impact on the world around us...

Before we published this first essay, on Thursday, from We Are Everywhere, the book's Amazon.com sale's ranking was #262,000 plus change.

Today, just a few days later, We Are Everywhere is ranked at #26,140.

Now, either 236,000 other books simultaneously had some bad sales days for unexplained reasons... or we've already generated some significant buzz in the book world... from the little website that could.

Only in América!

If you're right, and Narco News has had an effect on We Are Everywhere's Amazon rank, our loyal readers are more computer-savvy than loyal.  They're jumping to Amazon.com to save a couple bucks (if even that after paying for shipping) instead of ordering from the book's web site or the Salon Chingon store!

OK, so I'm just sore I didn't do any price comparison before buying-- but at $17 including shipping, come on, people!

This is a short response to one of the points Al makes in his essay, I’d like to pick up on some of the other stuff, particularly the question of leadership, but hopefully I’ll get back to that later. The prose style will no doubt be idiosyncratic and ill formed because it won’t benefit from being reworked within the collective. Working that way is slow and probably unsuited to quick fire responses. Anyway, first thanks to Al for getting the essays up on NarcoNews and for his informed and engaging commentary, we can never get enough of that, or book sales of course…

On to substance, I’m intrigued by Al’s use of ‘fixed, brittle rather than fluid’ to describe the North American and European movements, as this runs very much counter to my own sense of where we’re at, albeit my experience is essentially limited to Europe at the moment. Equally, I’m not sure the idea of repeating Seattle has ever held much sway in Europe, largely because there’s been a strong undertow of criticism over summit mobilisations that constantly informs and critiques our grander intentions towards the spectacular.

I think what has happened in the ‘North’ is that there’s been a certain understandable response to the degree of violence meted out and this has reconfigured the movement along with other more benevolent and interesting forces, leading to an explosion of deliberative and specific (rather than generalised) forms designed at reassessing our potential. These include social fora, communications projects, transnational solidarity initiatives and local organising.  This is not a sign of fixity or brittleness within the movement(s) merely a recognition of the time-boxed utility of a particular strategy or tactic - summiteering. It also shows that we’re learning the lessons of the south where, as the Zapatistas demonstrated, declarations of war can be used to open discursive space for the movement(s) leading to more fruitful and interesting encounters. Encounters where links can be built, issues deliberated upon and strategies formulated without the need to then don a gas mask and be ritually beaten up or shot at. Encounters where differences and singularities can be explored.

I don’t want to minimise or downplay the necessity for confrontation, it will always be necessary, but I do want to recognise that we must ‘fight’ on the terrain of our choosing and that means occasionally we have to exit, to disperse and to regroup. As Gilles Deleuze suggested ‘to flee, but in fleeing seek a weapon’. In Europe we had a rather stark awakening to the fact that if you ‘declare war’ against the G8 as the Tute Bianche did in Genoa, albeit in an ironic and somewhat self-referential way, you shouldn’t be too shocked when the ‘local’ state (Italy) decides to take you seriously! Of course, none of this is particularly novel, particularly in the context of the south, but I do think we shouldn’t confuse the pursuance of one tactic and its increasingly diminishing returns as somehow symbolic of a more generalised fixity.

The other point to make about summits and indeed many of the other events we organise, participate in and celebrate is that we often valorise these in the language of spontaneity and vitalism and ignore the hard work, planning and preparation that goes on, something that we tried to redress in We Are Everywhere. In complexity theory the process of emergence is one that takes place when a certain threshold is crossed, when the conditions become amenable to interactions that lead to forms and outcomes that are irreducible to the some of their parts. Something magical happens, but it happens precisely because we actualised a capacity that was otherwise virtual. Realising that capacity takes lots of hard work, as Al suggests at the end of his essay. I fear that our rhetoric has occasionally made this appear as though it were easy, as if we can just turn up and be amazed at how the walls will crumble and the powerful fall. We have a responsibility here not to reconfigure the past, to tell it as it was, the Zapatistas are important, not because of something they did on January 1st 1994, but because of the ten years before, and the 500 years before that. Reclaim The Streets didn’t just wander into the streets and kick off a global party, they organised, worked, planned and played. As we know moments are only moments, processes continue. I think that’s what is happening now and it has many aspects: latency, capacity building, reflexivity, deterritorialisation, all of which are indicative of processes with the potential for emergence.

Graeme.

That's a wonderful deleuzoguattarian quotation!

Welcome aboard, Graeme.

You've offered a lot of good material to bounce off of and with which to deepen the inquiry. I'm going to take a deep breath, first, waiting for some other copublishers to jump in (they can be too shy sometimes).

In other words, I will temporarily flee, but in fleeing, seek a weapon.

To wit: Yes, I too am looking forward to the discussion of the "We Have No Leaders" doctrine... We'll get to that... And I'll offer a brief quotation here as an appetizer, because the weapon in my hand right now has the word "chief" and "leader" written on it:

"Warding off th formation of a State apparatus, making such a formation impossible, would be the objective of a certain number of primitive social mechanisms, even if they are not consciously understood as such. To be sure, primitive societies have chiefs. But the State is not defined by the existence of chiefs; it is defined by the perpetuation or conservation of organs of power. The concern of the State is to conserve. Special institutions are thus necessary to enable a chief to become a man of State, but diffuse, collective mechanisms are just as necessary to prevent a chief from becoming one. Mechanisms for warding off, preventative mechanisms, are part of chieftanship, and keep an apparatus distinct from the social body from crystallizing. (Pierre) Clastres describes the situation of the chief, who has no instituted weapon other than his prestige, no other means of persuasion, no other rule than his sense of the group's desires. The chief is more like a leader or a star than a man of power..."

- Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari
Nomadology: The War Machine
(1986, Semiotext(e), New York)

Y'see, I think the "We Have No Leaders" doctrine invites and welcomes the formation of State power to corrupt revolutionary moments... Even an "affinity group," as fluffy as the title sounds, too often fast becomes an oppresive form of State power... In fact, the revolutionary war machines do require what Deleuze and Guattari called chieftanship to be able to ward off that internalization of State (static) forms of power (all artists and warriors have come up against "Temporary Autonomous Bureaucracies" dressed in alterna-clothing). Firstworlders get so damn confused, we've been indoctrinated with a false sense of "egalitarianism" that confuses "chiefs" and "leaders" who lead by a "sense of the group's desires" (think Marcos, but also of others) with men and women "of the State" (in all its micro and macro forms) who really are dangerous to democracy.

Thus, the confusion that paints legitimate, listening, chiefs and leaders (including perhaps book authors, singers, and athletes... and why not plumbers for that matter? After all, when the bathroom clogs, that kind of leadership, or lack of it, can make or break any home!) with tyrants of State in fact works to eliminate the very kind of legitimate leadership that is a Sina Qua Non for warding off and preventing State power from gaining traction.

It's not that "we have no leaders." It's that we have a different kind of leadership. As I look around me, I see it everywhere. Our denial of it is holding us back, and giving State power a foothold among movements that sincerely wish to destroy it, but don't know how.

Anyway, co-publishers: Show some leadership and chieftanship, please, and start tapping that keypad!

Funny Al should talk about plumbers being leaders. I actually had to deal with a plumbing problem today that in fact did shut down our house. Every drain in the place was backed up.

I called a local plumbing company and they dispatched Angel, a courteous gentlemen in his early 50s clad in jeans and a blue-collar workshirt.

Angel got to work right away, plugging his rotor-rooter machine into an outlet on the outside of the house and inserting the coiled metal snake into the overflow drain located near a tree in my front yard.  Within minutes, all the drains in the house were unclogged. Angel had made my day.

Now what does all this have to do with the nature of leadership in social movements? Well, it wasn’t what Angel did that demonstrated leadership; he was simply doing his job.

It’s what Angel did beyond his job that was the mark of a leader, in my book. He took the time to explain to me why my drains had backed up; that from time to time, the roots of the trees will find their way into the outside drain pipe and have to be cut way with the swirling snake. In this case, he said he didn’t think I had that problem; in fact, it appeared an abundance of hair and other crud had caused the blockage. Kids put funny things down pipes at times.

So now Angel had empowered me with some knowledge. Then Angel added a little more. He showed me how to pop off the cap on the overflow pipe outside my house to relieve the water pressure in the event the drains back up again. “It will let all that nasty water in your bathtub drain out so you can go to work and call a plumber later,” Angel explained.

Angel had now empowered me with time.

Then, Angel advanced the movement, a larger cause we should all be concerned with if we are really of the people. I asked him if he was a private contractor. “No,” he said. “I work for the company, but they dispatch us out of Chicago. They used to do that in San Antonio, but the company layed off 50 people here to move those jobs to Chicago to save money. I worked with one lady who had been with the company 10 years when this happened. She was in tears when they told her that her job was gone.”

Angel said he has been with the company 12 years.

Now I was on board with Angel’s life and saw that his cause was indeed my cause. That could be my job next time.

Angel took my check for his service and drove off to his next appointment. I figured by the end of the day he would have led at least half a dozen other people to a bit of enlightenment – and saved them a few bucks in the process.

Leadership is not always a grand thing recognized by the masses and media. Often it is exercised quietly, everyday, by thousands of Angels who keep the plumbing in this world working.

no doubt plumbing is on the mind of yon chief cause our mutual friend just had a burglary happen via his composting toilet-- in other words, the thief came up thru the shit.

i have little to say per usual.... the leadership question is simple to me as i remember a very recent convers about dog-fighting: the one who will take charge simply will... & when that is over it is over & on to the next. i may know a lot about some thing & very little about the next. gods help us whenever anything happens & we need leadership. anyway...

the problem as i see it is that we still act as subjects & objects no matter the circumstance. even as we declare our autonomy & that of our friends... we imply intrinsically by our visits & our good will cheers that we do not view any other as ourselves.

let me give a homegrown example of the way i see our plight as americans/ westerners/ whatever the hell anybody wants to say:  my friend of eleven plus years who is a lovely 67 yr old brit woman, divorce of an american military man & also mother of five american now grow-ups, says to me Sunday night: 'these women in [insert favorite arab/muslim country here] are in so much trouble. i saw where a woman (wearing her birka etc) made a click too hard with her heel in public & was smacked for doing so.'
i responded: shelagh, 'things have got so bad in the U.S., but not in the same way. in the U.S., the abuse & tyranny is psychological.'
& shelagh responds: 'you have made the little salad girl (we work in a restaurant) roll her eyes.'  

well, the little salad girl (about sixteen years old) may understand eventually... if i didnt already make clear by my rant that followed... that this life is a fuck all over the globe for the working classes: where they have seized & maintained power of the body in other lands, they have seized & maintain power of the mind in these. & where they (they?) do not control the mind... they encarcelate the body, in these parts, for example, in the drug war.

anyway you look at it, it is a fuck: mind or body. the way we categorize ourselves in these modern cultures-- we who proport our ideals of equality demonize the ones who do not control their bodies... as somehow different from us... less human... as if this control & these ideologies make us more human. & when we do not do so explicitly... we do so implicitly, by changing space, by moving on, by doing our deeds & moving to the next.

it is that there appear in different groups two things: inspiration & downtroddeness! there appear will & desperation, just like in each one of us individually!!
i think Al's question is: how can we consider ourselves equals when we come from such different places & then return to those, leaving behind our so-called work?

but i think we can... & often do NOT....

the question of individual ethics & morality has its place & always is the deeper motivation... & yet, if we do not act on something... we never will act! because ultimately we are the masses & the classes... all of us. the bankers even have to be written in here. so, maybe the get-go is a little rough, & we have to line up all the ducks to see where we are & where we are going.... but in reality, when we implicate that there is some higher reason... things get all messy & complicated! because those ideals & higher reasons are (in general) controlled psychologies which train humans to hierarchy in some form.

folks, welcome to chaos. the reality is you were always here. still the dogs will fight.... but hour to hour the winner of that fight can & will change... depending on the weather... on the tides... on what we had for breakfast, etc. THE THING IS THAT INTIMATE!

no mind it! till they keep us from what we love & want & NEED!!! then the fight is on!

sorry Al, but you know i am an animal/ & i love humanity & feel myself on the level more than most anyway.

a.  

After reading the latest chapter from the book  “We are Everywhere” (Autonomy: Creating Spaces for Freedom,) I sat down and pounded out the rant below. Please read this as a question from someone who is still very much exploring this whole issue in search of answers. I really don’t have them as far as I can see, and I’m not even certain I’m headed down the right path. But I’m committed to the journey regardless -- and I’m ready to follow a trail-wise scout, someone who knows a quicker route.

Remembering the Ancestors

Autonomy, in isolation, is a beautiful, functional concept. The basic units of social structure, nuclear families, when they can isolate themselves from the pressures of the outside world, operate best in this autonomous state, where everyone’s labor and actions are directed toward the greater good of the family, with the needs of each family member put above the needs of the individual ego -- with the result that the needs of all members of the family are served.

This nuclear structure, admittedly in its ideal state, does not depend on capital, private property or wages. Decisions are made through direct democracy and carried out through direct action, with no intermediaries involved. However, there is always an inherent benevolent hierarchy, or leadership, even within the family -- with the adults/parents on top in the structure.

Extrapolate this nuclear family concept to a small community and you have what has existed for thousands of years in human history: the tribe – a group of families cohesively bound together by custom, beliefs, art, music and a host of other complex, evolving magnetisms. If you go back far enough, at some point, our ancestors were all part of some tribe. Again, in their ideal states, tribes may be the perfect autonomous group, as they build upon the ideal nuclear structure of the family to create a nuclear community. But again, we run into the leadership issue; clearly, it is the grown-ups who control the tribe. But even within this context, direct democracy remains possible, if chiefs -- of the hunt, of the crops, of the cattle -- lead with the understanding that property belongs to the tribe (or is of the earth community in a more enlightened sense, and hence cannot be owned by anyone or anything), and that a leader’s power derives from the tribe, and that the future of the tribe is tied inextricably to the next generation, to the children (which is where those children derive their power within the community).

Kingdoms Come

But eventually we have a network of tribes who – because that is the nature of humans – make contact and must establish customs for interacting. Some tribes, by chance or planning, will be more successful than other tribes; some will occupy richer lands than other tribes; some will -- like history teaches us -- desire more control (power) than other tribes. The network of nuclear communities, then, begins to break down. This may give rise to kings and kingdoms, as the more powerful tribes actively -- through force -- begin to take over the lands, resources and enslave the peoples of weaker or less materially aggressive tribes. These kingdoms in turn give rise to nation states and large bureaucratic monarchies. In the process, though, more and more peasants are created, who begin to resent their lot in life, who have been displaced from their tribal communities, who, as a result, can be organized to resist, even rebel, against the kingdom.

We begin to see revolts; groups of peasants rise up to reclaim their “autonomy.” These revolts, though, are easily put down by the great armies of the kings, but they remain a constant threat to the kingdom – as do the tribes on the fringes of the kingdom who have yet to be conquered. Hence, a system of laws is created to control the peasants and “alien barbarians.” Meanwhile, the kings of these nation states have come to realize that in order to continue to feed their power, they must continue to colonize and exploit foreign lands. But even their powerful armies cannot conquer the whole world (and all other nation states) all at once. The kingdom’s march has hit a wall, so these nation states begin to rely more and more on systems of trade, on mercantilism, to facilitate the building of their wealth and power. This system gives rise to capitalism as an expedient alternative to military conquest, but it remains a form of global conquest nonetheless.

Eventually, kings and kingdoms themselves are transformed by this capitalism. The mercantile class has arisen -- dominated by those who control this global trading system. They use their newfound power to force reforms. A new form of “representational” government is created that is designed to cede power from the kings to the wealthy capitalists and their heirs. For good measure, to appease the peasants -- who after all will now be needed to feed the labor demands of this new capitalist “democracy” -- a few bones are thrown to the underclass over the centuries in terms of “voting and property rights.” But the system has been rigged from the start to assure that the real power -- the vestiges of the kingdom and the new capitalist class -- never really loses power. As this capitalist class grows over the years, it becomes international in nature and eventually passes from the era of industrial capital to the era of electronic capital.  We see the rise of the media barons within this power structure, which assures control of the new form of currency in this electronic capital age: information. But the system, global capitalism, is always backed up ultimately by military force.

Rebuilding Our House

The tribal origins of this new society are long forgotten, but they remain nonetheless. So, as the capitalists take on more and more of the trappings of the kings and kingdoms they replaced, the tribes once again begin to stir, to seek to reclaim their “autonomy.” The question is, do these tribes know how to once again organize themselves, and do they have the ability to connect (to form true nuclear bonds) that collectively have the power to overwhelm the hierarchical state of global capitalism -- with all of its media and military might. Coordinated global direct action on a mass scale (a global general strike?) might work. But maybe the ticket to breaking the stranglehold of global capitalism is simpler, more incremental, and much more local in nature. Maybe, in a manner similar to how the mercantile class wrested the kingdom from the kings, the emerging autonomous communities – one at a time, and collectively as they reach critical mass -- act to collapse the markets that feed the capitalists, and with that the source of their power. It would be kind of like turning the electricity off on the capitalist network. Can these autonomous communities really disconnect themselves from the market, from the global capitalist network? Can that happen without bloodshed? In the end, is nonviolence more powerful than the sword? Or is that even our choice to make?

The bigger question, though, is should this “autonomous” movement prove successful, how do we assure that our tribes, our autonomous communities, do not once again seek to conquer each other – for whatever reason, greed, power, racism, megalomania? How do we create a real future for this world through inter-autonomous-community cooperation, direct democracy and nonviolence? Or is that even the goal?

I agree this mind experiment is vastly oversimplified, but you can’t build a house without pounding the first nail -- even if you wind up hitting yourself in the thumb a few times in the process. So, I now turn over my hammer. Whack away if you are so inclined; I’m interested in the house, not my nail.

There's an interview with journalist John Ross in Z-Magazine that pops up at this link, reflecting on ten years of the Zapatista movement in Mexico and this very question raised by the "We Are Everywhere" essay about "Power."

Chris Arsenault asks Ross:

Chris: You mentioned the anti-globalization movement. When the Zapatistas first came on the international scene they were seen as something new, a movement that rejected the ‘free-market’, and made no attempt to seize state power. You’ve traveled a lot around Latin America covering a variety of social movements. Do you think the idea of rejecting state power is becoming a new norm for social movements, or do you think Chiapas is an isolated case?

Ross: I think it is actually a social movement, and there are a number of examples we can look at throughout Latin America. One such example is the picketero movement and other youth movements in Argentina - this kind of horizontal, non-hierarchical left. I think we see some of that within the Sin Tierras [landless workers] Movement in Brazil. Although the structures are different, we certainly see an echo of Zapatismo.

Most importantly, in Bolivia, a movement of that kind was responsible for the defence of water resources against the Bechtel Corporation, forcing Bechtel to retire. This was one of the great victories for the anti- globalization movement.

The water war was the first anti-globalization battle that was taken on as a result of Seattle, and it was won. I think amongst those people, Oscar Olivera and his committee, there is a real understanding of the Zapatismo approach of not organizing to take over state power.

I should mention that all of the political ideas that came out of the Zapatista rebellion of 1994 – wonderful ideas about communal decision making, serving the community, and organizing in a way that did not aim to take state power – all these ideas were welcomed by the left all over the world as a new model, a model to change the world.

I think we needed the Zapatistas more than they needed us. If you look at the historical moment, NAFTA had just been signed, many folks in the labour movement or the human rights movement who had been battling NAFTA for a number of years were in a sense lost. All of a sudden, here in the first hour of the North America Free Trade Agreement, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation rises up against it. We rush to their defence. We saw it as a way of helping us build our movement, and learning from them as well.

In the end, I think the Zapatistas didn’t stage their rebellion to save us. They did that to save themselves in the face of a globalization that, even as far back as 1993-94, threatened the corn of the ‘people of the corn’. After ten years they’ve done pretty well saving themselves, and that is the real purpose of the Zapatista rebellion.

Read the whole thing.

I agree that the Zapatistas' "innovation" and resilience as a movement stems from the tenant that they don't want state power. Add to that, of course, their ability to quickly adapt and evolve.

Their power as a movement—aside from their creativity, mischief and moral high ground—also derives from their demonstrated flexibility on how their communities exercise autonomy, keeping their autonomous network for the most part intact. This flexibility, I guess, is the nature of the beast.

And on a related note, creating the juntas de buen gobierno seemed like a good decision to me. If I understand it correctly, their function is to create a somewhat centralized process adminnistered by the juntas for NGOs that want to work with the communities, rather than an NGO barging in where it wants and giving "[shoes when we need schools]," I think went the quote by Marcos. And to make sure their communities get a fair distribution of the benefits provided by these NGOs.

Does it matter that they are—arguably, out of necessity—in a sense, taking on traditional functions of the state: taxation, regulation, distribution, etc.? Or am I missing the point?

Here's a great excerpt of an article John Ross wrote (Dec. 2003) for the magazine I work for. I was reminded of it by Al's post.

The last few grafs:

For a few years, the EZLN was the new Holy Grail of many internationalists, and Marcos’ florid, acid-dipped prose achieved sacred screed status in several languages. But the Zapatistas had not really set out to save the world—or the left—from itself. From their first public moment, they rejected taking state power—although they did promise to “advance on the capital, defeating the federal army along the way.” The EZLN was not the vanguard the left wanted them to be. “We just want to take part in the democratic change,” their comandantes often protested.

Mostly, the Zapatistas seem to want to grow their own corn and coffee and their communities in the way that they see fit. The rebels are, after all, Mayans, “the People of the Corn,” and corn is rooted in this rebellion. It was only when the three NAFTA nations began discussing corn quotas, which the EZLN feared would displace Indian farmers from the internal market, that they got around to declaring war. NAFTA and Salinas’ revision of constitutional Article 27 to permit the privatization of the ejido, “left us no alternative but to declare war,” Marcos has often explained.

The brief show war the Indians fought, armed political theater really, was in fact a strategy for survival, as agribusiness giants like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland closed in on the People of the Corn. Ten years later, the guns are out of sight (although last New Year’s Eve, in the pine-scented Oventic auditorium, the militia men and women danced with them slung over their shoulders), but the Zapatista communities are themselves armed and loaded with resolve to resist and to survive the global monster. Perhaps the EZLN has not saved the world, but it has saved itself.

And was not their survival what the Zapatista rebellion was about in the first place?

I've probably missed the point entirely, which wouldn't be good as a first serious contribution, but it wouldn't be anything new either!

Bill's 'rant' draws an important point, in describing the 'evolution' from family, through tribe et al. to modern 'democracy', I'm reminded of a much repeated conversation between myself and an ex-colleague. We were discussing the nature of modern politicians, being English, this centred on Mr Blair, and came to the conclusion that the difference between those who lead, and those who seek to lead, is power. Politicians seek to lead, because that leadership bestows power, they are in essence socio-paths.

A family hierarchy does not bestow leadership on someone who sought it, but rather on the peer most respected; traditionally age has been proxy for respect. In other words leadership is not derived from someone who seeks power but from someone who already has power. The difference being, the politician seeks an artificial power, state power, whereas the most respected peer (father/mother etc etc.) has a naturally occurring power, respect.

Whilst an artificial power requires a structure to maintain it, namely the rule of law. Respect, the naturally occurring power, requires no structure. As Bill highlights, it was the transfer of this natural power, into an artificial power, through the rule of law that attracted the socio-paths to leadership.

I guess in a sense the Zapatistas do not need to seek the ‘states power’ as they have restored the naturally occurring power of mutual respect.  

Teo I going to try and answer your question. This could be the point at which my lack of understanding becomes most clear, the juntas de buen gobierno as you say represents the taking on of state powers, taxation etc, however, In my opinion, its importance is in the fact that this power still stems from a natural respect rather than rule of law, hence it is not self defeating. If anything the Zapatistas have eliminated the state power by transferring a previously governed process back into the hands of communities.

It remains to be seen, and could yet be a long way off, whether communities can live in harmony without a desire to increase their power. To go full circle this depends on their ability to be led by the respected, rather than socio-paths.

Right back to the day job.

wow...you guys all have a lot to say! i have very little i am afraid; simply this: at the end of the chapter "walking: we ask questions", there is a provacative statement: "Seeking to understand how the oppressed become oppressors – the most common dynamic in all revolutionary history – is vital."

for whatever reason this brought to mind the famous "moral issues" which supposedly led to the republican "victory" of the most recent black tuesday; of course "moral issues" always means one thing, "sex". and this is what i have to say about that, and also, "coincidently", my contribution to understanding how the oppressed become oppressors. not a solution mind you...simply a road for walking...and talking...

"moral issues" : it always comes down to sex, the number one form of social control. liberation of the genitals must be the foundation of any successful revolution on planet earth. sex + choice = liberation. so instead of asking how we can appeal to these moral issues types, we must concentrate instead on liberating ourselves, and their children, from the morality that considers sex an issue to begin with, and murder, war, poverty, and discrimination secondary, if not completely unimportant, or to be applauded.

this system of control that we are living in is not new, nor is it shallow, nor, at it's most powerful juncture, concious. when we have liberated ourselves, and aided those around us to liberate themselves, and continue to walk and talk and spread this liberation far and wide, then we will live amongst people who will not be oppressed, then these dinosaurs will simply shrivel up and die.

not easy, i know.

Recently, Narco News published seven core essays from "We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anticapitalism" (2003, Verso).

The book has just won the 2004 Edward Said Award, as reported by Counterpunch.

Awards judge Steven Sherman writes:

Lots of great, penetrating analysis of the world nevertheless takes place, although Americans who limit themselves to the thin debate  permitted in the New York Times and other mainstream publications  would never know it.

And about "We Are Everywhere," he describes the book as effectively telling the story of...:

The anti-capitalist movement in all its global, networked,  autonomous, self-organizing, and somewhat incoherent glory.

Congratulations to the book's authors at The Notes from Nowhere Collective.

Copies of the book are still available, while supplies last, at the Salón Chingón Gift Shop.

I applaud and congratulate the entire Collective and its contributors. I recently wrote a glowing review of the book here.