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"It's Up to Us"

By Paul Street at Nov 02, 2005

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The following speech was delivered in the "Martin Luther Kings Jr. Commons" at Northern Illinois University. It's a small part of the November 2nd national day of action against the Bush-Cheney administration (see http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1). There were 50-60 folks in the audience. Very few academics --- maybe 2 or 3 (plus me, a wandering 1-year professor) --- attended. One of the other speakers is gearing up to run against Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert in the 14th Congressional District. He's a former military intelligence officer who thinks that Bush should be impeached for treason and wants America to invest in an energy policy that moves the nation off fossil fuels. My short oration: "Sick and Tired" I want to applaud the people who put this event together. It's one thing to tell a pollster privately from your home that you don't approve of Bush and Cheney's policies. It's another thing, much more significant and threatening to power, to leave that private space to join with others in making public resistance to the unjust and criminal policies of your government. I could stand up here for hours talking about the crimes of the Bush administration and the various ways politcians in both of the dominant war parties have encouraged and enabled those transgressions. But we don't have time and I don't have the vocal chords for that. The main thing I want to say in this space named after the great peace and justice activist Martine Luther King Junior is that I'm sick and tired of being lied to by my own government. I'm sick of being told that our government lacks the money for quality publc education, for college tuition assistance, for health care (for all), for ending child poverty, for affordable housing, for job-training, for environmental protection, for flood control, and so on. I tired of being told we can't really afford all that when we know damn well that federal officials have granted hundreds of billions of dollars of deficit-generating tax relief primarily to the super-rich here in the most unequal and wealth-top-heavy nation in the industrialized world. I'm tired of hearing that we can't provide basic social services when we know that "our" government spends $500 billion each year on an exorbitant armed forces budget that accounts for nearly half the military spending in the world and which transfers enormous taxpayer resources to rich and powerful corporations like Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed-Martin. I'm sick of that armed forces budget being called "defense" when we know that it pays for a remarkable and aggressive empire project that includes more than 700 overseas US military bases spread across nearly every country on the planet. I got tired real fast of being told that the $300 (or more) billion invasion of Iraq was about defending America from 9/11 terror atacks and Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) when we know damn well that Iraq had no serious WMD capacity and no connection to Al Qaeda or 9/11. I'm tired of the subsequent and equally deceptive Buch line that the invasion is really about exporting democracy when we know that democracy is the last thing US policymakers want to see in Iraq and when we observe that the administration has been using 9/11 and the subsequent so-called "war on terror" as an excse to roll back our own cherished democratic liberties here at home. I'm sick of hearing about the prisoner-abuse crimes of low-level soldiers like Lynndie England when we know that the decision to ignore human rights law and conduct Gestapo-like torture operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay (and elsewhere) came by explicit order from the top --- from the real war criminals in the White House and the Pentagon. I'm tired of being told that it's un- or even anti-American to exercise my quintessentially American right to oppose an illegal war of aggression being conducted by my government. And I'm sick of being told that I can "support the troops" only by backing an immoral and bungled invasion that has so far killed more than 2000 American soliders along with tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. I'm sick of being told that we can't militarily disengange because "all Hell will break loose" in Iraq. American Empire is the Hell that broke loose on Iraq and that bloody conflict will continue until the U.S. renounces its imperial military ambitions in that nation. I'm tired of being told that war opponents were given their chance during the 2004 election when we know that Kerry and other leading Democrats defied their own voting base by refusing to oppose the occupation. I don't know what sort of candidate the Democrats are going to put up next time and I really don't care right now. The policies of the messianically militarist Bush-Cheney cabal are simply too dangerous and too evil to be tolerated fr 3 more years or 3 more months. The first Tuesday in November 2008 is too late for our voices to (only possibly) be heard. It's fun to have big staged national corporate election extravaganzas every four years, but democracy is a daily affair and its battles are fought in workplaces, local communities, schools, and on the streets. It's up to us, the people in whose name this government serves, to do everything we can at various levels and in different settings to stop the imperial war pigs who have hijacked our government in the name of protecting us from evil. It's up to us to force withdrawal from Iraq NOW and not 3 or 5 or 10 years down the road when maybe 10 or 20 thousand GIs will have died for nothing along with God knows how many Iraqi children.

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Servo, Tom at Nov 20, 2005 05:48 AM
"I'm sick and tired of being lied to by my own government"--PS "(He)prefers the eternal truths of Islam and Karl Marx"--Calvin I didn't know you were muslim, Paul, when did this happen? Let's do lunch some weekday. Good to see you back in DK. You are right, Paul, as a former labor union organizer myself, I can tell the young rads (of which I was one) that going for the whole pie at once simply does not work. Sure, there are folks who know damn well that both the Patriot Act and the War On Iraq were plans sitting ona shelf on Septeember 10, and that this is all about trans-global economic imperialism, but you know what? "THOSE QUEERS WANNA GET MARRIED AND WE JUST CAN'T LET THAT HAPPEN!" meaning, of course, that whetrher we wish to believe it or not, there are plenty of members of the working class in this country who hold prejudices against other fellow workers due to race, gender, nationality, religion, etc. So the age-old question of how to unite the workers in this country into an active critical mass to dump the capitalist syatem is still waiting for an answer. I always thought CH George's observance that revolutions happen because a society made of individuals feels that it (they) have nothing left to lose, including their lives, if need be.

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Cranch, James at Nov 11, 2005 22:17 PM
This is doubtful, many people have done studies on how the people involved in the democratic party, the actual delegates to conferences and the activists of the party, are far, far to the left of the party platform. This has failed to move the party left, in fact the party has been responding to corporate donations instead and moving to the right. That's a bit silly. Firstly, it's logically a bad argument. It's a bit like arguing against Newton's laws of motion by saying that you tried to push a train backwards once but it kept on accelerating forwards, and therefore pushing objects doesn't accelerate them. Moreover, you shouldn't assume the Democrats are the only forum for informed discussion. Activism pushes informed discussion leftwards, and if that moves it to the left of the Democrats, then it will ultimately be the Democrats' problem.

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Bauerly, Mtbrad at Nov 11, 2005 22:02 PM
"you can move the debate to the left by being anywhere to the left of where it is." This is doubtful, many people have done studies on how the people involved in the democratic party, the actual delegates to conferences and the activists of the party, are far, far to the left of the party platform. This has failed to move the party left, in fact the party has been responding to corporate donations instead and moving to the right. "flop because people are unfortunately deeply invested in the system and do have more than chains to lose as far as they're concerned." And why are people invested in the system? Is it because the system has been moved slightly left enough to get a majority invested in the system? This is as far as it will ever go, just far enough to stop a revolution, but, not far enough to change the overall outcome. Unless, we threatened revolution at even this point, and as it moved left kept the treat up. Then there would be no market hegemony because there would be no security for the system. People would become less invested because it offers no security and would become invested in revoulutionary change.

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By Galbaldy, Jkp at Nov 09, 2005 03:55 AM
Like how the airport workers(in Nevada I surmise) went on a wildcat strike. Now THAT's, how to get meaningful change. Additionally, new unions need to be organized that are built on democracy, rather than placing bureaucrats in power. Perhaps you consider that to be "nutty". Four "nutty" black kids enter a whites-only restaurant and refuse to leave...pretty trivial, eh? A handful of intellectual "nuts" hand out some leaflets in a working class university on the outskirts of Paris... The next act of "trivial resistance" may very well do something that isn't trivial; like getting Taft-Hartly removed. Unless of course you still think that the corrupt bastard you voted in is going to repeal it for you. *laughs*

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Galbaldy, Jkp at Nov 09, 2005 03:27 AM
No doubt revolution is not on the horizon. In fact, I think it will be decades before something like that enters public discourse. So, if revolution is something for the future, then what can we do in the meanwhile? The most important thing is to consistently challange the system across the board, as I laid out in my previous post. Don't give people false hope in the current institutions; it only sends a "mixed message" But what about the immediate gains for the working class? If we dont vote on their behalf, does that mean we essentially abandoned them, for an "abstract concept". There is actually much that the working class can do to better their lives, without our leadership, and more importantly, without compromising with the masters.

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Cranch, James at Nov 08, 2005 15:50 PM
It could be just as easily argued that buying food from multinational corporations also sends the bad message that you agree with what they do. That is similarly almost unavoidable. It could be similarly argued that putting money in charities' boxes is sending a message that you are willing to conform to western countries' terrible aid policies. But anyone who doesn't is a monster. You can pick many, many activists through history who just did what they could, and who talked about things of immediate importance, and obtained excellent results. To contradict MTbrad, you can move the debate to the left by being anywhere to the left of where it is. It's most important to try to identify the common goals of the left (every single one of them, not just the one big one) and support them all in an appropriate way. The alternative involves a lot of timewasting in holy wars between leftists, arguing about the revolution we can't currently have, rather than actually doing the things we can currently do. Some such considerations are obviously necessary, but you can't waste your whole life on them. To summarise, what you do is fine, and what we do is fine. You are probably doing more harm than good by attacking partial solutions.

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Galbaldy, Jkp at Nov 08, 2005 12:34 PM
One need not fall prey to juvenile fantasies of guerrilla warfare as a consequence of rejecting servile reformism. The crucial thing to grasp is the act of defiance, no matter how momentarily "trivial". I think the best way to do this is to address our class with questions -- and not "come across" as bearers of "revealed truth". When an act of resistance or defiance of capital takes place, we should say: "You have done this, why not also that?" By constantly "raising the bar" of rebellion, proletarian revolution will, at some point, be "the logical next step". It will "make sense". Meanwhile, by constantly attacking and discrediting all bourgeois institutions and ideologies, we will have laid a solid foundation for the rise of proletarian, revolutionary institutions and ideologies. I know, this is a "hard road" to travel. But I don't see any other.

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Galbaldy, Jkp at Nov 08, 2005 11:36 AM
This is a historically respectable strategy that has been implemented in scores of countries in a vast variety of circumstances. Its only drawback is total failure to ever accomplish anything of substance...regardless of the outcome of the vote. I conclude that people who still advocate this strategy are simply not serious about working class power. They may pay "lip-service" to the idea...but that's it. I believe the role of the leftist is to deny the legitimacy of bourgeois "elections"...and prove that they mean it by not only refusing to participate in them but also by attacking their legitimacy at every opportunity. What I think leftists should do, as much as they can, is encourage resistance to the despotism of capital in all its forms and manifestations...always reminding working people that partial resistance must someday become total resistance -- that is, proletarian revolution.

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Galbaldy, Jkp at Nov 08, 2005 11:01 AM
When a small socialist or communist group becomes involved in bourgeois electoral politics -- either by supporting a "left" bourgeois candidate or by running one of their own -- what message is being sent? Clearly, the message is that bourgeois "democracy" actually means something...it's a "legitimate" political mechanism. When you do that, you have demonstrated to people by your act that you "accept the rules of the game" and intend to "play by them". No matter how much verbiage you dispense to the effect that "it's fake democracy", your action tells people that you think "it's real". And people notice that! In our era, wide sections of the working class accept bourgeois "democracy" as "legitimate"...as real and meaningful. On the other hand, participation drops rapidly with income levels...the less prosperous sections of the working class routinely boycott bourgeois "elections" as a matter of course (even without a vanguard party leading them). The people at the bottom of the food chain know that there's nothing in bourgeois "elections" for them! Now, if you wish to "appeal to" (tail) the more prosperous sections of the working class, you can participate in bourgeois "elections"...presenting your version of socialism/communism as just another commodity in the "market-place of ideas" and inviting voters to "Choose Brand Red" rather than "Brand Pink" or "Brand Blue".

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Street, Paul at Nov 07, 2005 21:32 PM
Exactly right. And the other thing is that if you want to get anywhere you have to talk to people where they are, not just where you want them to be. The people I was talking to were ready to talk about stopping the war and redirecting funds from military budget to social expenditures. There was also some good discussin of alternative energy policy. "Insufficiently revolutionary," say some commenters. Ok, my apologies: I was supposed to say, "but you know folks, the Iraq war and the related perverted priorities of the federal government and the oiligarchy are really just symptoms of the deeper empire and inequality inherent in the nature of imperialist state capitalism. The only thing of substance we should be doing in response to that system is undertaking massive social revolution...as soon as possible. Power to the people. Students and workers you have nothing to lose but your chains, you have a world to win. Let us proceed to build the new revolutionary world order." Nice sentiments (I agree with the first part of the mock quote) but that would have been a flop because people are unfortunately deeply invested in the system and do have more than chains to lose as far as they're concerned. Start where you are and build off that. We do need a revolution but its going to be a long widing road.

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Cranch, James at Nov 07, 2005 14:58 PM
i{Many seem to think it happens because people "elect progressives" to public office and these folks dutifully represent the people's will and enact the reforms into law.} Indeed. Not us, however. i{The only time meaningful reforms become law is on those occasions when people are actively resisting the inequities of the existing system.} I agree, and I can't see quite what your point is. You can actively resist on an anti-war platform, and you can actively resist on an anti-imperialist platform, and both are good things to do. One is a more short-term goal than the other, but there's nothing wrong with that.

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Bauerly, Mtbrad at Nov 05, 2005 07:10 AM
I'm with you JKP, you move the debate to the left by being far, far left. If the liberals think you will compromise on some issues to get a little reform, they have got you. No compromise, this is not about little increases that only serve to validate the very system that we are trying to bring down.

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Galbaldy, Jkp at Nov 05, 2005 02:40 AM
I think this reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how "reforms" come into existence. Many seem to think it happens because people "elect progressives" to public office and these folks dutifully represent the people's will and enact the reforms into law. No. The only time meaningful reforms become law is on those occasions when people are actively resisting the inequities of the existing system. Where there is active resistance, even conservatives will vote for reforms. And where there is little or none, even "progressives" will vote to repeal reforms or in favor of measures that will make things worse. People don't remember that Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected and inaugurated as a conservative Democrat...during his campaign, he actually attacked incumbent President Hoover for reckless over-spending. The "great new dealer" did not set out to be one...he was driven to it by the visible collapse of capitalism and the "spectre of communism".

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Street, Paul at Nov 04, 2005 22:01 PM
I agree with James Cranch except I would be careful about the word "tinkering." My vision of the good society is anarcho-communist actually, but I wonder if JKP has every actually tried to organized real people around a real issue or two in the U.S. You don't want to take over and run the kitchen because you demand tea and then sugar with the tea, and then bread and then butter with the bread, etc.? No, you obtain credibility and trust on broad and ultimate systemic issues by winning so-called "little" victories. This is organizing 101 going back to the 1930s and well before. Meanwhile, talk to people at the bottom and tell them that issues like the level of the minimum wage or welfare benefit levels or the survival of food stamps or Medicaid or the level of workers Social Security payroll tax or---- or ---- fill in the blank with the program or issue you wish --- is a marginal little matter of mere "tinkering" and see what happens. Maybe you aren't a sectarian JKP but you should talk to some American RCP and SYL (fill in your neo-Lenninist acronym) members to see if they'll tell about the righteous butt-kickings they get when they take your strident all-or-nothing bravado into factory shop-floors and parking lots. If you think people in modern corporate state capitalism are just waiting for someone to remind them they have "have nothing to lose but your chains" under the existing regime and now tis revolution time, you are setting yourself for a considerable bit of disappointment and/or emabarassment and/or cynicism.

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Cranch, James at Nov 04, 2005 16:08 PM
We're not "submitting to the folly of reformism." And we are indeed "challenging wage slavery". However, we realise that there are short term goals, and long term goals, and to do things well you've got to address both. We are spending some time and energy tinkering with the existing system, but not all of it. After all, we have a lot of time and energy. After all, many improvements have come about not by out-and-out revolution, but by some smaller victories: the improvements to black rights (to pick a random example) in the last 50 years have certainly made the system work better, but what happened was not a revolution. I don't see how you can seriously claim that that piece of tinkering wasn't helpful.

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Galbaldy, Jkp at Nov 04, 2005 11:13 AM
For the record, I consider myself an Anarcho-Communist. I found it amusing that you accuse me of being a "sectarian", because I refuse to submit to the folly of reformism. Look at this stuff: "quality publc education, for college tuition assistance, for health care (for all), for ending child poverty, for affordable housing, for job-training, for environmental protection, for flood control and so on" If that is all you desire, just recommend everyone to move to Sweden; they already have all of that! If you want a revolution, then your "message" must be consistently revolutionary. That means that you attack the legitimacy of the existing social order and its institutions across the board. Instead you are teaching them that reform is the answer. If you want a revolution, then your "message" must be consistently revolutionary. That means that you attack the legitimacy of the existing social order and its institutions across the board. Your message has to be NO COMPROMISE WITH CAPITALIST DESPOTISM! Of course, revolutionaries are very "marginal" at the present time...few will listen to such a message and even fewer will respond. So, if you want to spend your time and energy "tinkering" with the existing system on the (false) premise that you can make it "work better", then by all means, continue. It's just that our duty as leftists is to challenge wage slavery; I hope I'm not being too pretentious for advocating that.

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Cranch, James at Nov 04, 2005 01:21 AM
The symptom v. disease dichotomy is fine but one does not leave symptoms unaddressed because one knows they reflect a deeper disease. That's a good analogy. It can be pushed a little further. Often, patients require relief from the symptoms much more urgently than from the condition: consider a poor workman who needs to be able to do a day's work without collapsing, but is less bothered about feeling awful until the disease passes. In some sense, how much you care about relief of the symptoms cares about how bad the disease is. Thus people under godawful regimes lay their lives on the line to better their people (the disease is so terrible that almost any symptoms and cure side-effects can be endured as long as it ends up making you better). In countries like the UK and US, most of whose people fit into our analogy as having rather annoying but entirely survivable medical complaints, relief from the symptoms is rather more important.

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Street, Paul at Nov 04, 2005 00:04 AM
Our old racist red-baiter "calvin's" comments are his normal semi-educated rightist twaddle but "JKP's" contribution reflects something more troubling and relevant to me: the petty back-biting mindset of certain holier--than-thou leftists who think a comrade betrays the revolution by making some immediate demands like calling for an end to an imperial occupation or raising a minimum wage or... [fill in the blank]. One way not to hold yourself back as a leftist is to understand that you obtain relevance by sometimes talking about immediate issues that matter to real people. And one way to hold yourself back is to lace every comment you ever make with your devastating critique of capitalism-imperialism. Even then, I said that American Empire was the Hell that broke loose on Iraq. There was my "hint." Another hint: "the military spending in the world and which transfers enormous taxpayer resources to rich and powerful corporations like Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed-Martin." The symptom v. disease dichotomy is fine but one does not leave symptoms unaddressed because one knows they reflect a deeper disease. There's too much black-or-white and false-dichotomous thinking in some sectarian circles on the left

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Blairhead, Calvin at Nov 03, 2005 16:17 PM
"I could stand up here for hours talking about the crimes of the Bush administration" After all, its a far better option than doing dangerous front line work like Rachel Corrie. "I'm sick and tired of being lied to by my own government" I prefer the eternal truths of Islam and Karl Marx. "I'm sick of being told that our government lacks the money for quality publc education, for college tuition assistance, etc., Hey! Vote for me and get something for nothing. "here in the most unequal and wealth-top-heavy nation in the industrialized world" Forget about the fact that this country has the wealthiest proletariat in the history of the world. "the administration has been using 9/11 and the subsequent so-called “war on terror” as an excuse to roll back our own cherished democratic liberties here at home" Yup! Bush and Wolfovitz were sitting in the oval office with nothing more pressing to discuss than how they might derogate domestic civil liberties when, godammmm! Did you just see these two jets crash into New York? Problem solved! "I'm sick of hearing about the prisoner-abuse crimes of low-level soldiers like Lynndie England" If only she had just beheaded her victims live on TV, then we could all just ignore it.

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Re: "It's Up to Us"

By Galbaldy, Jkp at Nov 03, 2005 14:24 PM
It's nice that you're speaking out against the Bush regime, but once again you held yourself back by settling for a "anti-war" movement , instead of an anti-imperialist movement. You could of used this opportunity to drop some hints at the capitalist system that is causing this war, rather than focusing on a symptom like Bush. But anyways, I suppose it was good for a WCW event.

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