Next Left Notes - A News Magazine Devoted To Participatory Democracy and Direct Action

Next Left Notes Is A News Magazine Devoted To Direct Action

By Thomas Good

• SDS •
Growing up during the Sixties and early Seventies I was an admirer of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Participatory democracy as an internal structure for a political organization and as a model for deepening democracy in the United States had tremendous appeal. Despite being a few years too young to participate in SDS I nonetheless felt a part of the Movement and a personal regard for Bernardine Dohrn: "La Pasionara of the Lunatic Left" as she was called by J. Edgar Hoover. She was attractive, flambuoyant and brilliant as the spokesperson for the resistance. I was impressed with her revolutionary fervor and, being an adolescent, smitten as well.

Photo: Bernardine Dohrn (TM Good)

However, SDS fractured in 1969 and in 1970 the leadership (the Weatherman faction) went underground to pursue Armed Propaganda as a means of conveying their revolutionary message. When Vietnam ended in 1975 the Weather Underground Organization (WUO) lost alot of their impetus and the peace movement itself seemed to grind to a halt. Many activists, myself included, joined socialist organizations in order to continue the struggle. Although The War had ended, the Empire was not dismantled and it used various lethal methods to continue State policy by other means. It had to be resisted, even with our depleted numbers.

Over the next two decades the Soviet Union collapsed and many struggles for national liberation faltered, some being impaled on the sword of US imperialism. Things seemed grim and neoliberal aggression continued, unchecked for the most part, both at home and abroad. Then came Seattle. The anti-globalization struggle rocked the complacent corporate rulers of the US and animated the Left. The emergence of a militant opposition to business as usual was not led by the Old Left (the socialist parties) nor by the New Left leaders of the Sixties. The resistance was populated by activists who identified as anarchist.

After the seizure of power by the Bush forces in 2000 and the flagrant violation of international law embodied in the invasion and annexation of Iraq, the Old Left, many New Leftists and the Anarchist Resistance took to the streets. In my own experience, as we all sat together in jail, during the 2004 Republican National Convention, solidarity was very evident. In the grime of Pier 57 sat 70 year old Quakers, middleaged New Leftists, Old Left socialists, and large numbers of young anarchists. In this climate I witnessed the beginnings of a dialogue between the old and new guard.

• NCOR •

Since 1998, American University in Washington, D.C. has been the site of the National Conference on Organized Resistance (NCOR), an event designed to "provide a space for activists to meet each other, have in-depth discussions, analyze our strategies, tactics, beliefs, learn a few new skills, and give everyone a lot to think about". {1}

Myself and one other member of the Direct Action Tendency (a formalized tendency within the Socialist Party USA which is often called the "anarchist wing" of the Party due to our emphasis on non-sectarian, non-hierarchical - read participatory democracy - and activist oriented political mass work) journeyed to the 2005 NCOR. We intended to table there as a means of building our upcoming direct actions. {2} But we were also keenly interested in attending a workshop entitled: "Comparing Radical Traditions: A Democratic Socialist-Anarchist Dialogue. The workshop was being led by Lucas Shapiro, a Young Democratic Socialists leader with an impressive resume. I was personally hopeful that the dialogue I witnessed at Pier 57 could be replicated on a much larger scale...

Sam and I arrived in DC on Saturday morning and found American University without difficulty. We setup our table, did a fair amount of chatting about upcoming actions with passersby and a little shopping for Lefty kitsch before heading off to our "dialogues" workshop.

The workshop was a very big draw, much to the surprise of the presenters. Sitting crosslegged on the floor, my comrade Sam and I listened as the basic arguments of the YDS folks were laid out. Unfortunately the focus appeared to be on the issue of whether the State was essential to the continuation of various basic services (such as sewage disposal etc.) This narrow focus caused some restlessness within the audience, largely young and anarchist. It also was revealing in the sense that the YDS presenters appeared to be unable to conceptualize a social order that was born of a revolutionary change rather than a series of incremental reforms. More significant was the fact that by zeroing in on anti-Statist versus social democratic viewpoints no dialogue on practical matters (joint organizing) occured. This issue was raised as an obviously heartfelt plea by a young anarchist sister who complained of being tired of rehashing the same old divisive arguements and who clearly wanted to know how the Left could work together. I spoke at this point suggesting that the Direct Action Tendency of the SP was very eager to hear what our friends in the anarchist community had to say and that we are extremely interested in working together. I did not expect much in the way of response, as I've been called a "boring old Marxist trying to co-opt direct action" by some (sectarian) anarchists on the NYC Anarchist listserv. To my surprise the response was very positive and several anarchist brothers and sisters requested the url of our website. {4} We left the workshop hopeful that a dialogue between socialists and anarchists is a real possibility. Back at our table we scanned the list of workshops to see what else was of interest and to my shock discovered that Bernardine Dohrn was speaking the following day, giving a report back on the World Social Forum. Having never heard her speak in public I could hardly wait to have that opportunity.

• Bernardine Dohrn •

Sunday morning, after some tabling and conversation with other activists Sam and I located the lecture room where Bernardine was speaking. We got there early (for once) and secured seats in the second row.

Bernardine was introduced as a former SDS/WUO leader, a professor of law at Northwestern University and child's rights activist, a mother of three and lastly, a grandmother - at which point she smiled and raised both fists in the air in celebration. She began her talk with some obviously sincere praise for the activists in the room: "You're doing great! We are hoping to join you (in the struggle)". Although the presentation was meant to be a report back from the recent World Social Forum in Brazil it covered alot more ground that this and started with a question: "We are living with a permanent war...and a...national security state. How do we go towards building a radical movement?", she asked. "Today the US spends as much (on the military) as all of the other countries of the world combined. Why? There are three reasons: to control the world's resources; to police unfriendly or terrorist regimes (and); to dominate markets".

Addressing how to identify the key issues around which to build a radical movement, Dohrn urged the audience to read the speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "Not the pablum Dr. King, but the radical... read the speeches of the last two years of his life...he argued that the three greatest dangers are racism, militarism and consumerism." "We should add one", Dohrn said, "Importation of religious language into politics. It justifies everything". She added that it reduced complex issues into a fantasy good v. evil polarity in order to obscure the real issues including the insatiable US lust for oil: "If the rest of the world consumed oil at the rate the US does all of the world's oil would be depleted in 19 days."

Dohrn spoke about the World Social Forum where the idea that the US and it's ideology of consumerism, it's belief that "this is the only game in town, that this is the dominant ideology" was effectively challenged. Bernardine urged the activists present to reject this ideology and to work to overcome the geographic illiteracy that afflicts all Americans, and to overcome the memory loss this illiteracy facilitates: "We have a kind of amnesia about the rest of the world". Dohrn spoke about her own ignorance regarding what had gone on in Rwanda, or even where it was on a map, until one of her students proposed going there. After a class outing to Rwanda and digestion of ten books on the genocide that had occured there Bernardine and her students felt they knew "a little" about the subject...but still felt as Americans they needed to learn more. Dohrn put a question to the audience: "Can you name the six nations that border Iraq?" No one activist could do it but working together the audience was able to name these countries. Dohrn saluted this...and spoke about the Iraq invasion: "This incredible, illegal, immoral war in Iraq (has produced) over 1100 US dead". Returning to US amnesia and ignorance of other cultures Dohrn spoke about the fact that the Vietnam and Iraq wars, despite many differences, "in some ways are eerily similar". Both nations are "countries with an ancient civilization". Iraq she added, "is the cradle of civilization", a fact completely devalued and ignored by the US. This myopia has lethal consequences: "the bombing and devastation in Fallujah is the Guernica of our time", Dohrn said. This cannot stand, she argued, urging a redefinition of 'terrorism' from a "humanist" point of view: Terrorism is systemic violence against civilians." Further strippng away any mystification, Dohrn noted that, from the US point of view: "Terrorism means any opposition to the US government."

Turning to what is going on internally, Bernardine noted that the unlawful detention of political prisoners of Arab descent in the US has produced "show trials of Arabs (which) have produced nothing". Yet no one here speaks up, none question these arrests either in the US or in the "little puppy dog of the United States, England". Alluding to a solution to this dilemma Dohrn urged the crowd to recognize the power of a few dedicated people to change the world. She listed the two ingredients that produce a dialectic of change: "the synthesis of civil rights and anti-war" struggle produced the sixties. "But it really happened in the seventies", she noted, laughing.

Bernardine, apparently somewhat constrained by the podium between her and the activist audience, hugged the lecturn, leaning forward, gripping the small microphone. "We need to know what is happening in Mosul, in San Quention, Attica..." she intoned. She spoke about struggling to free political prisoners who had challenged US ideology and been jailed for it. She spoke of the plight of all political prisoners and prisoners of (class) war here in the US who have been "excluded, marginalized". "In prison we have the modern day equivalent of slavery", she noted. She urged intensifying efforts to free some prominent political prisoners like Leonard Peltier and David Gilbert.

Tying together the threads of working for change and working to free political prisoners, Dohrn argued forcefully for a world view based on compassion: "A world of reciprocal recognition is at the heart of humanism". Returning to the idea that a few dedicated people can change the world, she jokingly referred to the "non-existent sixties" wherein no one really felt they were making a difference. "We went to Ann Arbor...they said: we're so disorganized, it's not happening here, it's happening in Columbia. We went to Columbia... they said: we're so disorganized it's not happening here, it's happening in France..." Laughing with the audience Dohrn continued: "It was always true throughout the Sixties that we were small and marginalized." Arguing that since we had put to rest the myth of the "nonexistent Sixties" and that the corporate media had declared it legally dead: "now it really is, let's bury it!" And just as the myth of the Sixties implied an irresistable force so, Dohrn argues, the myth of Empire posits itself as the only thing possible. "But that notion is obviously completely wrong. There is nothing invincible about Imperialism...they resort to force AS THE FIRST OPTION", demonstrating their weakness. She spoke about Bush, comparing his re-election to that of Nixon: "After his second election, Nixon was out within a year."

Speaking about the need for unity and reconciliation within the Left, Dohrn pointed out that one glaring failure of the Sixties was the ostracizing of veterans. She noted that Black vets in particular had alot to offer in terms of educating those youth who might be lured into military service.

Turning to alternative models of development in the world, Dohrn spoke about Venezuela as a counterpoint to US cultural hegemony. In Venezuela she pointed out a "Democratic, Peaceful, Bolivarian, Revolutionary" government is feeding the people and providing healthcare, thanks to the presence of Cuban doctors. Noting that we must all struggle together towards this and other anti-imperialist, anti-consumerist models of development Dohrn stated that "under one big tent" is how we must carry the struggle forward. We must remember that "the Black freedom movement" is the cornerstone of our struggle, she insisted. With Her revolutionary passion still intact after years of struggle, her charm and natural manner still readily apparent, she revealed the source of her strength: "We need our humor!" Humor is an essential ingredient for staying power. She also noted that "we need three things: organizing, activism and education". All three must be present for us to be effective she added.

Concluding her remarks, Bernardine emphasized that the young are the hope and expressed gratitude that the Sixties generation might be allowed to play a role in the struggle by "riding on your coattails". Dohrn mentioned a tidal wave of change that will yet bring about a better world. She leaned forward and said: "You're part of that tidal wave, I thank you!"

In a quiet tone Dohrn mentioned that her own interest in the youth and "children's rights is due to having three sons" and that her ability to see the world in terms of its children causes her to frame the struggle in terms of providing a better world for these children.

After sustained applause and a word from the moderator, Dohrn returned to the microphone to take questions. Responding to a question about the nature of US imperialism and how to combat it she replied: "The US invented modern day terrorism...for me nonviolence isn't a worldview, it's a tactic."

A committed radical and revolutionary at 63, Dohrn offered this insight: "The difference between reform and revolutionary struggles is linking the issues..." Addressing the entire audience she offered an apology: "I'm deeply sorry, we never thought we'd leave you this world." Offering one last bit of advice on how to rectify the current state of affairs Bernardine said: "Be certain enough to act and to doubt simultaneously".

Regarding the current situation she said at least twice: "I'm extremely hopeful".

After the talk ended Bernardine remained at the podium to talk one on one with activists. I approached her and mentioned our work on the March 19th direct actions. She asked to confirm the date and then said "great!" when I emphasized that the actions would be at recruiting centers. As a parting gift from an old admirer I gave her a Direct Action Tendency button, pointing out that the logo is based on the old SDS Days of Rage raised fist. She looked at the button, laughed and pinned it to her jacket. It was a very special moment for this New Leftist.

Photo: Bernardine with DAT badge (Sam Morales )

• Aftermath •

Journeying home, Sam and I discussed our direct actions upcoming and also the need to continue the dialogue between socialists and anarchists. Thinking about Bernardine's advice on the subject we made a note to incorporate equal parts humanism and humor in our organizing and to remember to thank our young anarchist brothers and sisters for allowing us to be a part of the struggle for their future.

• NOTES •

{1} www.organizedresistance.org (NCOR home page)

{2} www.actiontendency.net/m19.pdf (Counter-recruitment actions taking place on the second anniversary of the Iraq invasion).

{3} Direct Action Tendency http://www.actiontendency.net
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