The most obvious of these are the various Leninist/Trotskyist parties, who are openly vanguardist in theory and practice (derived mostly from the writings of Lenin). Leninist theory states that the working class is by itself unable to achieve the required consciousness to challenge capitalism, and so requires a political party led by professional revolutionaries to lead it – a vanguard party. The concept of leadership is very important. Trotsky himself wrote that “the historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of the revolutionary leadership” and this perspective continues to inform his contemporary followers.

This means that vanguardist politics of the Leninist/Trotskyist kind aims essentially at securing leadership of various campaigns and organizations.

Read more…

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The second time I got together with the CNT folks there, they were doing roving pickets of Hotel Vincci. As a result of an unfair firing (Is there ever a “fair” one?), they were exerting pressure on the hotel by paying a visit to its Madrid locations. My compa, Abbey, and I tagged along for three of the locations where we stood outside the hotel and fliered, informed patrons and prospective patrons about the hotel’s bad labor practices, stickered the outside of the hotels, and got the cops called on us once (they never showed).

The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (“National Confederation of Labour”) is a confederation of labor unions in Spain (there is a French CNT as well) with a lot of significance for anarchists. Founded in 1910 (and only taking a year to be declared illegal in 1911!), the anarcho-syndicalist union played a major role organizing workers and developing a sense of solidarity among them prior to, and during, the Spanish Civil War. Contemporarily, in Spain, the CNT has thousands of workers, but still lags behind the mainstream unions in numbers within the country (which are funded by the state–the CNT is not). It is a proud, fighting organization of workers committed to direct action strategies and self-management rather than capitulating to the demands of politicians or bosses.

When I asked our comrades about common CNT strategies, our hosts told us that often, when workers needed solidarity work due to firings or unfair labor practices, the union would wage campaigns like the Hotel Vincci pickets that we took part in. The union, however, also involves itself in other social struggles and participates in workers’ struggles outside of the workplace as well. I sent some interview questions over to our comrades in Madrid and, what follows, are their responses. I do think some of the questions didn’t “translate” very well (for example, when we talk of “political organizations” in the Anglo world, we mean anarchist organizations that DO NOT participate in state politics in which we develop theory and practice collectively while also organizing in mass organizations with workers as militant minorities in social movements—we call this dual organizationalism), but I feel the interview carries with it some important insights (and differences) for discussion among anglo comrades.

1. First, can you tell us a little about the CNT, its structure, and some of the things the organization does?

The CNT is an anarchosyndicalist union. The organization aims to be a tool to channel and support workers’ day to day struggles. We try to reflect how we would like a future society to look in the way we organize and struggle. That future society would be (and this union now is) horizontally governed, decisions are made through direct democracy, and actions are carried out by self-management. We accept no subsidies from the government and do not believe in hierarchical structures. Everyone in the CNT is a “volunteer”, the arm of his or her own struggle, and our strength comes from each and every person’s awareness and willingness to help their comrades.

The CNT is a federation of independent, autonomous unions scattered throughout Spain. These unions make their own decisions in their general assemblies and do not depend on national permissions or oks. To coordinate the different unions and to be able to make CNT-wide decisions, we hold plenary sessions and Congresses where delegates given decision-making authority by their local unions agree on more far-reaching actions and problems.

The CNT organizes in workplaces, creating union sections (“secciones sindicales”), minding health and security issues and progressively building up a social conscience, focused on the struggle. When conflict arises, all comrades, unions and International sections help in solidarity with actions that go from phone calling, faxing, sending mailings, picketing in front of the company, leafleting, graffiti, going inside the company and increasing pressure as the conflict escalates, going to the boss’s house or family business, where ever direct action is more effective.

2. What campaigns are the CNT focusing on in Spain right now?

On the ground, we have campaigns open against Ferroser in Madrid, Giraud in Valladolid, NuevoFuturo in Sevilla, STV Gestión in Pilar de la Horadada, Lavanderías Azul in Ciudad Real, Mercadona in Puçol and in San Sebastián de los Reyes, Eulen and Satein in Córdoba and a few more. We have International campaigns against StartPeople, Hotel Vincci and the publishing house Editorial Oceano.

At a national level we are working against the crisis, as a failure of international capitalism, the government’s response (as expected) bailing out banks with public funds and then immediately afterwards cutting workers wages like some sort of inverse solidarity measure. This occurred, of course, when a plethora of national media published recently that there are 16,000 “new wealthy” members of this society. The four million currently registered as on unemployment should not be forgotten.

Our work is not only against these governmental measures but, perhaps more importantly, to raise workers’ awareness about the complete injustice of these draconian methods, the danger in terms of future attacks, and the turncoat nature of “socialist” governments who are completely unable to withstand international monetary pressure and act as autonomous entities—much less “represent” their voters. The big name unions (UGT and CCOO), supposedly working in the workers’ interest, repeatedly sell out the workers for the people paying for their fancy cars and their summer houses until, at this point, they are openly on their knees.

3. In what ways can comrades in the US contribute to your struggles?

You can take action against Hotel Vincci in New York and Editorial Océano, Inc. in Florida. We’ll try to keep you informed about these conflicts. When you have any conflicts where we can help please do send us information. It’s also important to raise awareness about the whiplash affect throughout all of Europe where 100 years of labor struggle is being given a military haircut, in general with the passive acceptance of the major unions. Anarchosyndicalist organizing has an opportunity to be an incredibly valid alternative, and a strong way to combat this affront.

4. Can you talk a little bit about the CNTs organizational “identity”?
There seems to be some disagreement in the IWW and the SAC, for example,
over whether they should be unions (mass organizations), political
organizations, or both. Are there similar disagreements within the CNT?

CNT wants to be a mass organization; there is no disagreement on this. It is in our principles; we want to be a tool for workers to fight, to win, to learn and to join us. We need to be a mass organization to be able to create a social revolution. If “political organization” means working within the state we cannot be for it. We would be tacitly accepting the validity of the state (and its dinner table partner, capitalism) by working with it.

Mass organization is the aim but we cannot lose our principles of horizontality, direct action and self-management. Accepting subsidizes from the state and playing in the Spanish workers council framework like CGT does is a sure way to losing these principles.

5. What role, if any, do you see for anarchist political groups (like the FAI) within the CNT?

FAI has no role in the CNT. FAI is a sister organization and many FAI anarchists are in the CNT, but FAI as an organization has no special role.

6. What developments have you seen within anarchism and the Left in Spain in the last decade or so? What ideas and events have inspired Leftists and anti-authoritarians there?

The anti-authoritarian and anarchosyndicalist movement has stayed much the same for the last 10 years, growing slowly. Spanish society is, as a whole, less and less radical, and the working class less and less combative. The mainstream unions are totally discredited and the working class does not have any clear reference to subverting this situation. At the same time, squatting, animal rights, environmentalism, vegetarianism, so-called “anti-system” movements, immigrant rights, antinuclear power and antiwar have all gained momentum in the last ten years. The 2002 general strike and massive 2003 antiwar demonstrations were the big events of the 2000′s.

7. What does the CNT do in terms of member education, both around theory and organizing?

We don’t do much member education in the traditional sense of the word, seated in a classroom. Much of the “education” members can receive comes from participating in the struggles of their comrades and in their own struggles, at the assemblies, in the street, in protests, etc. Then we have our newspaper and all the unions have many books for any comrade to take as they please

8. How does the CNT relate to the anarchist movement in Spain?

The CNT is, and has been for 100 years, part of the anarchist movement. The union aspires to be the practical end of a more theoretical, private, anarchist ideology by materializing those beliefs in open conflict with late capitalism, the ever more cumbersome state structure and suppression of workers struggles in open (police) and insidious (laws, legislation, policy, media) ways. Our natural habitat is the street and the workplace, our natural forum is combat.

9. How has the economic crisis affected the CNT? Has it grown, stayed the same, decreased in membership?

It is growing steadily but it should be growing a hell of a lot more with the current situation!

10. Can you tell us a bit about how you organize? In what ways does the CNT organize for worker’s power on the shopfloor and in your communities?

The main CNT unit is the union assembly: all decisions are made there. In the union there are many union sections. A union section is a group of workers in a company. No union elections are needed, just one or more workers get together, create a union section and inform the company. This is our main weapon. This union section figure is in the Spanish legislation together with the “workers council delegate” figure. The union section enables us to fight horizontally and with the workers in the companies. Community work is done through “athenaeums” or specific causes create committees, like the recent committee against CCTV in our neighborhoods.

With this book, the authors wish to assemble writings that are useful to activists (i.e. not written in obscure academic jargon and relatable to social movement contexts) working in the intersections of queer and anarchist politics. Many anarchists use the term “queer” as shorthand for the LGBT community and have little understanding of what queer theory can provide for a contemporary radical praxis and how it differs from traditional LGBT politics—even some radical strands. Likewise, there are many among the queer community who know little to nothing about anarchism—relying mostly on the sensationalist news medias’ construction of anarchists as terrorists, anti-organizationalists, etc. This volume, then, will attempt to address some of those misunderstandings, while drawing connections between queer and anarchist politics.

Interested authors should send a small abstract (just a paragraph explaining exactly what it is you wish to do) along with your name and brief bio (100 words or less, please) by March 1st, 2010 to queeringanarchism@gmail.com, first drafts to be due April 15th, 2010. Finished pieces will range from 2000 to 4000 words. Below are some suggested questions and issues (feel free to come up with your own fantastic topic too!):

What can anarchism learn from queer theory? What could queer theory learn from anarchism? How do queer politics relate to class struggle, anti-racism, feminism, post-colonialism, etc.? Can queer theory be meaningful in movements if it remains written in academic jargon? What might “street” queer theory look like and how might it differ from the queer theory that emerges from the university? Should we think of queer as something we are or something we do?

What does existing queer anarchist praxis look like? How would we queer current anarchist praxis and what might emerge from that? What challenges have you faced as a result of combining queer political practice with anarchist involvement in social movements? What challenges go along with bringing anarchist political practice into existing queer groups?

Have you had personal experiences of marginalization within the anarchist community for your queer politics? Have you been ignored among the queer community because of your commitment to anarchism? Have you had good experiences combining anarchist and queer activism? What made you feel marginalized or good in those contexts and how can we use those experiences as a catalyst for creating more inclusive movements? How have ideologies of normalcy affected your activism within the anarchist community? How have expectations of ideological normalcy limited the field of politics in queer groups in your experience?

Author Bios

Christa B. Daring is currently a student at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. Christa is involved in Common Action, the Olympia Street Medics Collective, and Gateways for Incarcerated Youth. Her academic studies regularly include Popular Education, Feminist Marxism, Queer theory and Sex Work. She predominately reads non-fiction of theory and praxis, but is trying to read more fiction because she knows it’s good for her.

J. Rogue is a queer anarchist-communist feminist who has been organizing in anarchist, feminist and radical queer communities for ten years. Her recent projects have centered around HIV/AIDS and prisons, with the Austin chapter of the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP) as well as the Inside Books Project, which sends free books to Texas prisoners. She has also been involved in transfeminist organizing with Camp Trans, and participated in several radical queer and feminist conferences and projects over the years. Rogue is a member of Common Action and the Workers Solidarity Alliance

Deric Shannon is a long time social anarchist activist with roots in groups like Anti-Racist Action and Food Not Bombs. He is a part of the editorial collective of Contemporary Anarchist Studies (Routledge, Spring ’09), the entry for “Anarchism, Communism, and Socialism” in the Encyclopedia of Modern Revolutions (James DeFronzo, ed.), and co-editor/co-author of An Economy of Sustainability: Anarchist Economics (AK Press forthcoming) and Political Sociology: Oppression, Resistance, and the State (Pine Forge Press forthcoming). He currently lives in Connecticut where he works with Hartford Food Not Bombs, Workers Solidarity Alliance of Connecticut, and Queers without Borders.

Abbey Willis is a former and hopefully future graduate student currently living in Connecticut where she is involved with Hartford Food Not Bombs, Hartford Independent Media Collective, Queers Without Borders, Workers Solidarity Alliance of CT and NEFAC (Northeastern Federation of Anarchist Communists). Her academic and activist interests include anarcha-feminism, the politics of identity, and most things radical and queer.  She absolutely loves a good graphic novel and currently recommends Y: The Last Man, Preacher, and anything by Neil Gaiman.

We discuss the inaugural North American Anarchist Studies Network Conference in Hartford CT.

Click here to download the MP3

Israeli activist and author Uri Gordon discusses basic anarchist principles, Israeli resistance to the oppression of Palestinians and his book Anarchy Alive!

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Spy for the US Military Exposed: Spent Last Two Years Spying on Activists

(TC-IMC) “John Jacob” was an activist well liked by many in Tacoma and Olympia, WA. He was active in the anti-war and anarchist communities in both towns. He did extensive work with the group Port Militarization Resistance (PMR) which blocks military shipments to and from Iraq and Afghanistan through Northwest ports.

He went to numerous Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) events and actions, was interested in starting a chapter or Movement for a Democratic Society, worked closely with Iraq Veterans Against the War, but spent most of his time with anarchists. Aside from attending meetings, events and actions organized by activists, he spent much personal and leisure time with other anarchists in the area.

But some recent records requests done through the City of Olympia, asking the City for any information on anarchists/anarchism/anarchy, SDS and the radical union Industrial Workers of the World, surfaced an email from a John J Towery II from Fort Lewis Force Protection with a daily force protection update for Fort Lewis. Interested in this email and the name attached to it, several activists did some research that eventually confirmed the identity of “John Jacob” as John J Towery II.

Two anarchists met with John Towery after this information was confirmed. By his own admission, John Towery spent the past two years spying on anarchists, Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans, SDSers and anti-war activists in Tacoma, Olympia and the Pacific Northwest. He admitted that he reported to an intelligence network that included county sheriffs from Pierce, Thurston and other WA counties, municipal police agencies from Tacoma, Olympia, Seattle and elsewhere, WA State Police, the US Army, FBI, Homeland Security, Joint Terrorism Task Force, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency among other agencies.

John Towery further admitted he passed information on to the above listed network of authorities about the activities of anarchists and PMR activists. He admitted that the Tacoma Police placed a hidden camera on a utility pole across the street from the anarchist social space Pitchpipe Infoshop for surveillance purposes. John Towery mentioned that the Olympia and Tacoma police were both planning on raiding the Pitchpipe Infoshop and an activist house in Olympia and he claimed that they had repeatedly approached him for any information that would give them a green light to raid the houses. He also claimed to have knowledge of other informants that were sent to spy on Port Militarization Resistance and anarchists in Olympia, but refused to reveal their identities.

In his role as an administrator of the PMR listserve, John Towery had the email addresses of all subscribers, and the names of most persons involved with the organization. He had an intimate knowledge of how organizations in the activist community operated, how and when actions were planned and the beliefs, politics and personal matters of many activists.

The records requests that leaked out John Towery’s name also leaked out information that Thomas Glapion from the 305th SFS/S2 based out of McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey was investigating activities of SDS, PMR and “other left wing anti war groups”. Other agencies involved with intelligence gathering and surveillance of Olympia SDS in particular and Olympia activists in general include the Coast Guard (where there is an informant spying on activists according to one record) and US Capitol Police.

Attorney Larry Hildes of the National Lawyers Guild has made numerous attempts to get information from the military and federal agencies for court cases and civil suits connected to the port protests, only to run into the repeated refusal of Brian Kipnis from the US Attorney’s Office in Seattle to give this information to Hildes and other defense attorneys. Kipnis explicitly told the US Army not to give information to Hildes and others. Kipnis is also the same lawyer that prosecuted Lt. Ehren Watada and was involved with a number of Guantanamo cases. This information is perhaps the beginning of a larger network of surveillance across the nation.

Press contacts:

Brendan Maslauskas Dunn
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Port Militarization Resistance
(360) 878-1879
maslauskas84 [at] gmail.com

Drew Hendricks
PMR Intelligence Network for Observers
(360) 870-3127
drewhend98513 [at] yahoo.com

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note – the Port Militarization Resistance peace group held many calm rallies and events. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM2tNL_roBY This is a video of one of the most violent assaults by police towards the group, as they lined streets during a convoy of military vehicles onto a ship: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfhUaUuG1sM

]]> http://hartfordimc.org/2009/07/28/military-spy-outed-in-wa/feed/ 2 http://hartfordimc.org/2009/05/01/remembering-may-day/ http://hartfordimc.org/2009/05/01/remembering-may-day/#comments Fri, 01 May 2009 14:07:07 +0000 dave rozza http://hartfordimc.org/?p=2862 By Leo Panitch

For more than 100 years, May Day has symbolized the common struggles of workers around the globe. Why is it largely ignored in North America? The answer lies in part in American labour’s long repression of its own radical past, out of which international May Day was actually born a century ago.

The seeds were sown in the campaign for the eight-hour work day. On May 1, 1886, hundreds of thousands of North American workers mobilized to strike. In Chicago, the demonstration spilled over into support for workers at a major farm-implements factory who‘d been locked out for union activities. On May 3, during a pitched battle between picketers and scabs, police shot two workers. At a protest rally in Haymarket Square the next day, a bomb was tossed into the police ranks and police directed their fire indiscriminately at the crowd. Eight anarchist leaders were arrested, tried and sentenced to death (three were later pardoned).

These events triggered international protests, and in 1889, the first congress of the new socialist parties associated with the Second International (the successor to the First International organized by Karl Marx in the 1860s) called on workers everywhere to join in an annual one-day strike on May 1 – not so much to demand specific reforms as an annual demonstration of labour solidarity and working-class power. May Day was both a product of, and an element in, the rapid growth of new mass working-class parties of Europe – which soon forced official recognition by employers and governments of this “workers’ holiday.”

But the American Federation of Labor, chastened by the “red scare” that followed the Haymarket events, went along with those who opposed May Day observances. Instead, in 1894, the AFL embraced president Grover Cleveland’s decree that the first Monday of September would be the annual Labor Day. The Canadian government of Sir Robert Thompson enacted identical Labour Day legislation a month later.

Ever since, May Day and Labour Day have represented in North America the two faces of working-class political tradition, one symbolizing its revolutionary potential, the other its long search for reform and respectability. With the support of the state and business, the latter has predominated – but the more radical tradition has never been entirely suppressed.

This radical May Day tradition is nowhere better captured than in Bryan Palmer’s monumental book, Cultures of Darkness: Night Travels in the Histories of Transgression [From Medieval to Modern] (Monthly Review Press, 2000). Palmer, one of Canada’s foremost Marxist labour historians, has done more than anyone to recover and analyze the cultures of resistance that working people developed in practising class struggle from below. He’s strongly critical of labour-movement leaders who’ve appealed to those elements of working-class culture that crave ersatz bourgeois respectability.

Set amid chapters on peasants and witches in late feudalism, on pirates and slaves during the rise of mercantile imperialism, on fraternal lodge members and anarchists in the new cities of industrial capitalism, on lesbians, homosexuals and communists under fascism, and on the mafia, youth gangs and race riots, jazz, beats and bohemians in modern U.S. capitalism, are two chapters that brilliantly tell the story of May Day. One locates Haymarket in the context of the Victorian bourgeoisie’s fears of what they called the “dangerous classes.” This account confirms the central role of the “anarcho-communist movement in Chicago [which] was blessed with talented leaders, dedicated ranks and the most active left-wing press in the country. The dangerous classes were becoming truly dangerous.”

The other chapter, a survey of “Festivals of Revolution,” locates “the celebratory May Day, a festive seizure of working-class initiative that encompassed demands for shorter hours, improvement in conditions, and socialist agitation and organization” against the backdrop of the traditional spring calendar of class confrontation.

Over the past century communist revolutions were made in the name of the working class, and social democratic parties were often elected into government. In their different ways, both turned May Day to the purposes of the state. Before the 20th century was out the communist regimes imploded in internal contradictions between authoritarianism and the democratic purpose of socialism, while most social democratic ones, trapped in the internal contradictions between the welfare state and increasingly powerful capital markets, accommodated to neoliberalism and become openly disdainful of “old labour.”

As for the United States, the tragic legacy of the repression of its radical labour past is an increasingly de-unionized working class mobilized by fundamentalist Christian churches. Canada, with its NDP and 30-per-cent unionized labour force, looks good by comparison.

Working classes have suffered defeat after defeat in this era of capitalist globalization. But they’re also in the process of being transformed: The decimated industrial proletariat of the global North is being replaced by a bigger industrial proletariat in the global South. In both regions, a new working class is still being formed in the new service and communication sectors spawned by global capitalism (where the eight-hour day is often unknown). Union movements and workers’ parties from Poland to Korea to South Africa to Brazil have been spawned in the past 20 years. Two more book out of Monthly Review Press – Ursula Huw’s The Making of a Cybertariat (2003) and the late Daniel Singer’s Whose Millennium? Theirs or Ours? (1999) – don’t deal with May Day per se, but capture particularly well this global economic and political transformation. They tell much that is sober yet inspiring about why May I still symbolizes the struggle for a future beyond capitalism rather than just a homage to the struggles of the past.

Leo Panitch, Canada Research Chair in comparative political economy at York University, is co-editor of The Socialist Register and author of Renewing Socialist Democracy, Strategy and Imagination.