A Radical Week in History and in Richmond
July 1st, 2008
This independence day week is jam-packed with opportunities for anti-authoritarian fellowship and activism:
- The Patrick Henry Supper Club meets tonight at Eastern Buffet (7586 W. Broad St.) for it's monthly event. Come for dinner at 6pm or for the main event at 7pm. Not sure who the speaker is, but it's a great chance to reach out to the libertarian community in the central Virginia area. I'll be distributing literature on left libertarianism in general and the alliance in particular.
- On Thursday, the Defenders of Freedom, Justice, and Equality will be presenting a program entitled "Iran: Stopping the next war before it starts". Tying the impeding aggression by this administration with the 20th anniversary of the day a U.S. warship shot down an Iranian civilian aircraft in the Persian Gulf, the program includes a showing of a documentary on the 2003 earthquake in the Iranian city of Bam.
- Finally, on Friday morning,
KingPresident George Bush will be speaking at Monticello. It is an outrage to have a war criminal and tyrant speaking at the home of one of the greatest defenders of human liberty and dignity in our history. Come out to protest around 8:30 AM - dress like Republicans, but protest peacefully (that is, decidedly not like Republicans). Bring your signs and banners. Contact the Richmond Peace Education Center for more information and for logistics help.
If you're going to any of these events, let us know!
Decision Making in the Shell of the Old Society
June 30th, 2008
On Thursday I attended the talk of a Norwegian anarchist, Kim Keyser, who explored the topic of decision making structures within anarchist organizations. Entitled “The Prefigurative Organization”, Keyser did an admirable job of presenting a number of outside-the-box ideas by which anarchists could realize a powerful yet directly democratic movement. About ten Richmonders attended, including Brady and I from the Richmond Left Libertarian Alliance. We learned a lot, not only as a result of the talk but also by the open and dialogue-oriented manner in which the meeting was conducted.
The talk’s emphasis was on large scale organizational behavior: who makes the decisions, how they are arrived at, and what conditions are attached to those decisions. By “prefigurative”, Keyser was referring to the need for groups and practices which are structured according to the principles and values we’d like to engender in the world at large. While postulating decision making mechanisms that could scale up to the kind of mass movement we all want to build, he was cognizant of the immediate application of these ideas to our small activist groups. Certainly if we intend to be successful, we cannot ignore the challenges that growth poses to our organizations, let alone to the future anarchist society we envision.
It was a challenging discussion; Richmond anarchists are clearly more comfortable with small, intimate groups in which decision making is performed by consensus rather than by more formal structures. And yet, if Keyser made nothing else clear, it was that consensus has its shortcomings. The informality of consensus often relies on people’s comfort with the personalities in the group. The imbalance of familiarity among participants can comprise a sort of soft hierarchy when newcomers seek to participate. Openness is also no guarantee that all views will be duly represented or that transparency in decision making will be fully realized. Furthermore, as organizations grow and become more diverse it becomes progressively more difficult to balance the diversity of minority positions and maintain the integrity and decisiveness of the organization. Activist groups can become victims of their own success; one need only look at national unions for examples, as one participant pointed out.
Keyser proposed a number of alternative processes to balance growth with direct democracy:
- Opinion points give people the option of expressing support or dissent as a function of their interest in the matter, rather than in terms of yes or no. If people use the point system to accurately represent their true priorities, it allows strong opinions to outweigh the indifference of others. This is one way to make sure that minority views are weighed appropriately even in large assemblies.
- Voting for issues, not candidates is an obvious improvement on traditional democratic systems. Keyser suggested that anarchists should not be as quick to dismiss referenda, as these are more directly democratic means than candidacies to effect representative policy change in a political system. There’s also the possibility that anarchist organizations could have referenda drive their own planning and administration, rather than focusing on getting the right people into office.
- Tailoring mandates to maximize accountability was an idea that struck me as especially important. The idea is that once we get people into office in our organizations, the represented need control over how their mandate is used. The body of the group should be able to recall representatives, shorten their terms, take away certain powers at will, etc. By making the position to which a person is elected as much a matter of popular will as the appointment, the body of the group can exercise oversight that discourages the ossification of democratic structures.
- Rotating roles among the group not only democratizes the administration of the group, but it encourages everybody to share in the learning of important skills that improves the total empowerment of every individual. While this could be applied to specialized offices like webmaster, there’s no reason people cannot all share in leading meetings, writing minutes, accounting for funds, etc.
- Lower the stakes of direct action decisions by remembering that direct action includes a wide variety of strategies beyond protests. Propaganda, boycott, work-to-rule, and other approaches can be just as effective. If an organization engages in activism with a non-formulaic and varied approach that makes sure everybody can participate, people will be more likely to invest fully in the organization.
I’m going off a few days’ memory so I’m sure I left plenty out, but these are the points that stand out to me. I hope Keyser’s beautiful print pamphlet is made available online soon since it really covered the full gambit of his talk.
My opinion on these approaches is that all of them are game, and none of them should be off the table. The best possible organization would use all of them where appropriate, giving the body of the group the maximum flexibility to bring its administration in line with their will. That said, each approach has its downsides and disadvantages that should be apparent to any anarchist. But if used wisely, a group can use these different strategies to keep their group fair, transparent, and democratic.
I really enjoyed Keyser’s talk, and I hope his visit was just the beginning of the Richmond anarchist movement’s revitalization! And if we're planning for the long term, we must apprehend these issues of scale and size. The upshot is that there are a variety of approaches available to us to address the very real questions of just what it means to be a large, powerful, and authentically anarchist organization. Thanks again to Kim Keyser for broadening our perspectives.
Venue announced for Kim Keyser talk
June 25th, 2008
As I blogged earlier, a Norwegian anarchist is coming to Richmond to give a talk on strategy and organization within our movement. The original communication on this event that I received left the venue to be determined. I just got the final details: the event will be held at Flying Brick Library (506 S. Pine Street) on Thursday (tomorrow), June 26, 2008. Hope to see you there!
Upcoming Event: The Prefigurative Organization
June 17th, 2008
Via the Virginia Anarchist Federation mailing list I was made aware of an upcoming event of interest to anarchists / left libertarians:
Kim Keyser is an activist from the nascent anarchist movement in Norway - the so-called "social democratic paradise" in Northern Europe. This summer he'll be touring the US with an illustrated presentation called "The Prefigurative Organization". The presentation will try to answer the question "How can we reflect the future we want, in our present work?". It will touch upon subjects such as direct democracy, direct action, workers councils, anarchist organizing and involvement in social movements.
A complementing pamphlet called "The Prefigurative Organization" - which has been made specifically for the speaking tour - will be available.
After the presentation there will be a possibility to ask the speaker specific questions, followed by plenty of time for discussions in small groups.
I'll let you know when the location is determined, but it will be on Thursday, June 26. Come on out!
Breaking News: Man Carries Gun Legally!
June 13th, 2008
Only in a frightened, cowed society are people scared by the mere sight of a gun.
Richmond police scrambled in several parts of the city this morning after receiving reports of a man with a gun on a GRTC Transit System bus.
Ultimately, police found the man in question on East Broad Street and discovered that he was carrying a handgun legally. But that came after 15 minutes of anxious moments for police trying to determine which bus it was, where it was and whether there was actually a gunman aboard.
While it is a traditional liberal goal to bring about gun control and restrict the right of peaceable people to carry firearms, libertarians and revolutionary leftists recognize the danger of state monopolization of the tools of force. If you don't like the idea of rednecks carrying guns, is it any better when, say, an organization like Blackwater is empowered by the government to not only to use firearms but wield them among a disarmed population?
An egalitarian society is one in which power is distributed among the population, so that no one party can use privilege to gain at another's expense. If we're serious about achieving that society - and trusting normal, everyday people to govern themselves - they must be trusted to keep and use firearms. Otherwise, people will always depend on some outside authority for their very survival, and state usurpation will be the inevitable outcome.
To be jailed in Richmond
June 12th, 2008
In case you didn't know, the city jail is officially a bad place to be. Home to minor offenders doing their time as well as the newly arrested awaiting a bail or a hearing, the facility has a history of chronic overcrowding, lack of sanitation, and needless deaths:
The Richmond Sheriff's Department doesn't think the heat is to blame for the death of an inmate at the City Jail. 47-year-old Linwood Jones died at the jail on Tuesday.
Jones is the fifth inmate to die at the City Jail this year. The previous four all died from illnesses they contracted before coming to the jail.
Right; in any case, the message here is that life is cheap, and the jail just serves as a drain into which the police state washes all that human material falling short of its exacting legal standards. Check out Keith Preston's essay at AttackTheSystem.com, which ties the jail's conditions to the growing police state in this country:
How are prisoners’ treated at the Richmond City Jail? What goes on behind the walls on Seventeenth Street? The jail is always filled way beyond capacity, sometimes containing nearly twice as many inmates as space was originally allocated for. Inmates frequently sleep on the floor, often in unsanitary conditions. An epidemic of skin infections occurred among inmates during the fall of 1999 because of such conditions. Most of the jail lacks air conditioning or even proper ventilation so that inmates sometimes find themselves locked into attic-like conditions during the summer months. Proper medical care is often denied to inmates with serious medical conditions. A fifty-three year old man who was arrested for murder after killing someone in self defense suffered paralysis after being denied access to his necessary kidney dialysis. Heroin addicts and alcoholics are forced to undergo withdrawal without any medical supervision whatsoever. Inmates suspected of having suicidal inclinations are stripped naked and locked into solitary cells without blankets or sheets.
State politics built these jails and filled them with prisoners; only direct action will bring freedom and justice!
Radicalism begins at home
May 25th, 2008
Over at SaveRichmond.com, Don Harrison has a great writeup on Doug Wilder's hypocrisy, broken promises, and disappointments as he prepares to leave the office of mayor. Here's a taste:
The Richmond native and former governor even ended up contradicting the original reason he says he got involved in city politics again. He had originally fought to have Richmond’s mayor directly elected instead of appointed by City Council — promising to empower all voters. In the end, he installed himself, Dick Cheney-like, into the candidate’s seat. Once in office, he seemed to be the catalyst behind a plan endorsed by the area’s “business leaders” to take the voting rights of everyday citizens away by having Richmond school board members appointed rather than directly elected. To quote Robby the Robot, “this does not compute.”
When the latest actions of the President, Congress, military, or giant corporations leave you feeling hopeless, don't worry - there's plenty to do right here at home. Let's organize to show these local scammers that we're not interested in their elite plans, schemes, and crooked deals - we demand that they leave us alone and give us our money back!
Swinging back into gear
May 25th, 2008
I'm pleased to announce that after a long and unfortunate hiatus, the Richmond Left Libertarian Alliance is finally back! Soon we'll be announcing a meeting, but right now I'm just getting the site back up. It's a shame I've allowed the project to linger, and special thanks to Brady Campbell for helping re-energize the local movement against privilege.
A lot has changed in the central Virginia area since last we met: first of all, the whole Ron Paul thing. Yes, I know "left libertarians" are supposed to find him unacceptable, but in my work with the Paulistas I've witnessed a high demand for the left libertarian perspective, especially the radical economics. Also, the Virginia Anarchist Federation has started up since our last meeting, promising to build a network for radical activists throughout the state for comunication and mutual aid. There's a real opportunity for us to finally make common cause with the larger radical anti-state and social justice movements.
I think a year has made a big difference in the type of group we can be and the actions we can take. I hope you'll stay tuned to this blog, come to our next meeting, and help us make Richmond a more just and free place to live!
Meeting Update
July 16th, 2007
Unfortunately, my grandmother passed away recently and I have to attend a funeral on Wednesday, which means I have to leave on Tuesday evening. So I will not be able to attend the meeting. I encourage everybody to attend and hang out and I apologize for not being able to make it. Again, it's at Commercial Tap House at 7 PM on Tuesday, July 17. The contact person is Brady Campbell.
Meeting Reminder
July 10th, 2007
This is a reminder that in one week, the Richmond Left Libertarian Alliance will hold its second meeting at Commercial Tap House on Tuesday, July 17 at 7:00 PM. We'll be talking politics with an emphasis on local issues and community activism.
Young People: Menaces to Society or Our Future?
June 28th, 2007
In my explorations of more community-based activism I've identified neighborliness and familiarity with one's fellow residents as an important element in the development of bottom-up institutions to replace the need for top-down, centralized, managerial government. In my exploration of community solidarity I attended my local neighborhood watch meeting. My neighborhood is in the west end and is pretty quiet and peaceful, with lots of families that engender a sense of a thriving, balanced community in me.
That's why I was struck by how kids were singled out as problems, not residents with interests and perspectives of their own:
Well, the vast majority of attendees were elderly and white. Their complaints were about kids, of course. Now, I don’t condone any criminal activity, but my impression of the complaints were that these elderly residents have a different lifestyle than their younger neighbors, and they feel threatened by kids who are out on the streets carrying on as kids will. Older kids were accused of racing cars. But generally, the younger generations were seen as nuisances, and their side of the story and their interests were not represented. Certain households of minority racial demographics were also singled out for scrutiny.
What is lost in these complaints is the truth that these kids, their parents, and others targeted by the meeting’s attendants are residents. They are part of the group of people whose interests the neighborhood watch organization should be representing! No talk of reaching out to them or presenting a way to work things out. No talk of whether they are being served by the neighborhood or county.
Moderating a significant portion of the meeting, and hearing these complaints, was an officer with the local police department, whose name I won’t mention but whose affiliation should be easy for a regular reader to ascertain. He encouraged people to call often on the slightest of suspicions, urging them to leave sorting out the good guys from the “bad guys” (a phrase often invoked) to the professionals. He singled out kids as a big problem, stressing that once their names are in the police system, they track them for life (as if that alone will stop kids from being kids). He even said (I couldn’t believe this) that his officers “like arresting people” and urged attendees to give his department opportunities to catch kids.
Just as I was working on this blog entry, I saw Radley Balko blog a YouTube video of police choking kids for simply riding skateboards. And Richmond City Council is apparently creating a snitch class among its residents to single out kids who party for special treatment by the police, according to SaveRichmond.org.
Where is the sense of proportionality - that these are children who deserve patience, attention, gentle - not brutal - reprimands, and engagement in the way neighborhoods and communities work? They are the future of the community, and people who ignore this and see them as mere obstacles to their retirement are incredibly short sighted (not to mention the naivete of moving into a college neighborhood and being flummoxed by partying!).
This, my friends, is what happens when communities break down. They require politicians, bureaucrats, and hired muscle to come in and mediate what should be organic, face-to-face interactions between neighbors. Gone is any sense that the community's children are worth tolerating is entertained - they're just somebody else's kids. I'm no fan of Hillary's "it takes a village" philosophy, because it expressly calls for more government intervention, rather than recognizing it as the root problem in society.
Announcements: Meeting, Contact Info, and Blogging
June 19th, 2007
Sorry it's taken so long to schedule another meeting. The next meeting for the Richmond Left Libertarian Alliance will be held on Tuesday, July 17 at 7 PM. Where would you like to meet? Please leave suggestions in the comments, and we'll decide no later than July 3 on the final place. I liked Commercial Tap House, but I wanted to give people a chance to suggest alternatives.
I am attempting to introduce a slight bit of organization into this next meeting. I was dumb and didn't even collect contact information for people! So please, if you're reading this and interested in the group, send me an email at:
admin at left libertarian period org
and I'll add you to our mailing distribution list, so we can better remain in contact. And, please, do me a favor and register your attendance - or absence - from the next meeting on upcoming.org. It really helps me plan for the next meeting.
I'm going to try and put together a semi-formal presentation on local opportunities for activism based on conversations I've engaged in with various Richmonders. But this will again be an ad-hoc, informal get-together. No leaders need show up. :-) Hope to see you there!
Finally, this site is open to all RLLA members / sympathetics to journal on issues they care about. Please, if you'd like to contribute to this blog, email me and I'll set you up with an account!
Fiscal Tunnel Vision
June 15th, 2007
I just wrote a new article on my left libertarian approach to the recent Virginia Senate race in the 12th District. Excerpt:
Now, some libertarians might call me out for not supporting the challenger who was strongly in favor of cutting taxes and spending. And they’d have a point - but only if they think taxes trump personal freedom and equality under the law. Yes, a well-funded government is perhaps more likely than a less-well-funded government to trample liberty. But Republicans have demonstrated for about two decades that borrow-and-spend is just as viable as tax-and-spend. And since Blackburn clearly does not seek to reform government injustices towards minorities, he’s certainly not opposed to funding certain intrusions into peoples’ private affairs - the most despicable intrusions as what goes on in a couple’s bedroom, I might add. This is very typical of conservatives: leave me alone for politically favored groups, and a nanny, police state government for those not so lucky.
Incidentally, I'll be announcing a meeting date in the near future. Stay tuned, and contact me with any suggestions.
The Real Anti-War Movement: Leftist and Libertarian
June 6th, 2007
Over at Counterpunch, John V. Walsh reflects on the recent Future of Freedom Foundation conference on "Restoring the Republic: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties". Listen to what one Green has to say about the anti-war stance of libertarians:
It was also quite open and tolerant. Yes, it was Libertarian through and through, weighted heavily with scholars like Robert Higgs and Joseph Stromberg, writers like Lew Rockwell and the irrepressible Justin Raimondo . And of course there was Ron Paul who had lots of old friends there and was greeted like a rock star. But there was also Daniel Ellsberg who gave the most moving and inspiring talk of the conference and The Nation's Robert Scheer who received a standing ovation. And then there was Joseph Margulies the attorney whose clients include Guantanamo detainees and Mamdouh Habib, the victim of CIA rendering from Pakistan to Egypt. And when I explained that I was a Green there were a few double takes but everyone was welcoming.
This contrasts mightily with the UFPJ demonstrations and assemblages in D.C. Ask for Ron Paul or Justin Raimondo as a speaker; and UFPJ Co-chairs Leslie Cagan and Judith LeBlanc, of the "C"PUSA, turn thumbs down. Dem political hacks are always welcome at the UFPJ confabs, but no Libertarians, no Left radicals like ANSWER, no Ralph Nader; Greens are encouraged by UFPJ to work on these things but not to speak up with the Green message.
Clearly we are in a time of shifting political alliances, where the old divisions no longer make sense. As more and more honest seekers of truth and justice start to look outside the established movements, we will see an explosion of unorthodox radicalism and new coalitions of thinkers and activists who start to change the way success is defined. Walsh recognized this trend at the conference:
There is also a generational shift in the Libertarian movement. The Cold War Right is disappearing, and Libertarians like Raimondo who came of age in the 1960s or later are coming to the fore. That too was evident at the conference where some of the older participants would on occasion lapse into loyalty to the Repbulican Party. But for the new generation, this kind of partisanship is not on the agenda. The battle for their own ideas is paramount, and they are not in a mood to compromise on them.
At the front of the hall throughout the proceedings, FFF had placed a portrait of Jefferson. And we were reminded more than once of the quote from Benjamin Franklin that "we must all hang together or surely we will all hang separately." It is time for the official antiwar movement to seek out allies like the Libertarians, who can reach many who cannot be reached with the antiwar message of a socialist or Green. If we do not, we may find ourselves, gradually, oh so gradually, put in the same fix that Franklin feared.
That begs the question, though - is the official anti-war movement ready to stop acting like a special interest lobbying group, trying to use the system to their short-term advantage, and instead start smashing parts of the system that get in our way? The Democrats' shameful capitulation on war funding demonstrates exactly where to begin. How the mainstream anti-war movement behaves now will determine exactly how much we have to dismantle to get anything resembling peace and justice in this world. Will they apologize for the Democrats, or will they turn on them? Left libertarians should be waiting with open arms for any of our anti-war brethren who seek principled, uncompromising opposition to the corporate welfare-warfare state.
One week later...
May 8th, 2007
Our first meeting on May Day was a big success! We had a small but passionate group of anarchists, greens, liberals, and libertarians. We focused on getting to know each other and engaging in conversation. However, activism was not off the table: Scott Berger of the Richmond Green Party brought some local issues to our attention about regressive water pricing by the city as well as the Performing Arts Center boondoggle. I hope that in the coming months we can be part of coordinated effort to get all concerned Richmond area taxpayers and citizens working together to make their town more livable.