Forum Post: A Revolutionary Reading List
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 22, 2011, 7:21 a.m. EST by josemt
(11)
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Here is an article I wrote recently published on Dissident Voice: http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/10/how-to-occupy-your-time/
Absolutely. This is basic. Build the Movement and then see where to go from there. I have been advocating this for years now. A couple years ago I had conversations with a friend about building such a movement and we were going to do a website and build it from there. One of the things I had advocated was protest on Wall Street, so when this thing happened, I was ecstatic. Finally, there is an energy and a response. From my studies of Marx/Hegel, I distilled the dialectical movement which Marx was talking about without the political overtones of communism that prevent people from understanding him. At his essence, I believe, the dialectic movement of history: Potential + Catalyst = Change. This is a fact, not a theory. Marx talked about it in terms of Conditions + Leadership/Ideology/Labor = Change/Revolution (could be Reform as well). The point here is that the Conditions are laying the groundwork for the potential for change. Those conditions being dis-satisfaction, suffering from material situation. We need to direct the energy by leadership, and ideas to get the change we want. Obviously, the worse the conditions go, the more potential energy can be released. But it could be a battle for ideas/ideology. I am NOT a dogmatic person and not a Communist. I call myself a socialist but use the term loosely as basically, what we all want is just a better, more rational, fairer, more just society at its core. The idea here is to build organization and structure after we have some coherent Platform (a core of principles/goals in general terms. We can work out the details in a democratic matter). The Organization has to be built and should be built concurrent with protests. Now is the time. We have an opening. The energy should be directed toward building a network, I call them chapters across the country. I have detailed this elsewhere. There are space limitations here so I can't detail it all again but I have on several different posts. I have organizing experience from being involved in a variety of groups, primarily in the 1980s (solidarity groups like CISPES and others. I've organized events, fundraisers, directed and participated in many different aspects. I've been around many activists and like-minded people and have picked up a lot of basic knowledge.
You've actually read all those books?
http://therevolutionarytruth.tumblr.com/
"If I had to name one quality as the genius of patriarchy, it would be compartmentalization, the capacity for institutionalizing disconnection. Intellect severed from emotion. Thought separated from action. Science split from art. The earth itself divided; national borders. Human beings categorized: by sex, age, race, electricity, sexual preference, height, weight, class, religion, physical ability, ad nauseum. The personal isolated from the political. Sex divorced from love. The material ruptured from the spiritual. The past parted from the present disjointed from the future. Law detached from justice. Vision disassociated from reality."
Robin Morgan
Demon Lover : the roots of terrorism
Ha. Make that 'ethnicity'.
Relevant reading for this movement if anyone has time:
http://books.google.com/books?id=LEacVLUyH4AC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Sorry, I found much of it puerile and badly thought out and even more badly written.
Nah, trying to measure how much a man's life is worth, or better yet how much his activities are worth on this planet using fiat currency is what is puerile. Actually, more like medieval. What's puerile is rewarding management 10000 times more than an engineer or a soldier who risks his own life and society going along with that stupid belief. I just wonder how long it will take before we collectively stop believing that crap.
Agreed, and I particularly like Albert's book, so perhaps you would consider our group's proposal of an alternative online direct democracy of government and business at http://getsatisfaction.com/americanselect/topics/on_strategically_weighted_policies_organizational_operating_structures_tactical_investment_procedures-448eo , hit the facebook “like” button if agreed, and then join our group's 20 members committed to that plan at http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/StrategicInternationalSystems/
What I read, I was not impressed by, sorry. But I think the attempts to think "out of the box" are necessary and this is one of many first starts. Keep going, but remember, there are many things we can do within the present system that helps to slowly end this system in a way that minimizes the damage to people within the configurations they currently live under.
Perhaps you could be more technically (or mathematically) SPECIFIC, and our group's plan can easily "minimize the damage to people within the configurations they currently live under" by buying out their businesses as Bank Owner-Voters and then returning it back to them as Business Owner-Voters. The plan is not disruptive, so please, be more specific, for such vagueness doesn't hurt my reputation, but yours.
As for reading list, read them all. I recognize that one must get tuned into the underground. Chomsky and others have given certain informations. I am older left wing guy, also a professional and identify with socialism. I have also been waiting for things to get bad enough for people to take to the streets. It is here now, but tweaking, and a few major shifts here and there would be enough to make the systems work better for more people. Ideas, like i came across in a chat area, of oh it is government therefore it cannot be trusted, is strange to me. The GAO report i was referring to was identifying U.S multinationals that use off shore tax havens. That is a critical observation and should not just be tossed aside cause it was produced by the government. I get there is alot of anger. I get that people are upset at student debt. I had 65k of debt when I left university. I also paid it off. If someone went into extensive debt didnt finish, didnt do well, didnt research their career opportunities and pay and assess their prospexts for employment post graduating, there is at least some personal responsibility involved. Acknowledge and own that decision, dont just cry out, i need a bail out. Each indvidual story i am sure is different when it comes to student loan debt, but my point is reading about someone who is 45k in debt for undergrad and chose the career path of freelance writer, well, enough said. There is some personal accountability therein for excercising some questionable judgment and some pie in the sky thinking.
Jose: I think you have struck on something very important here the more I think about it. How about developing a list of books, videos, etc. of use for educating the younger people on this site. I realize the challenge of this. There is another site developing which may be a better place for such a list. Moreover, it would be nice to have an apt one-line description or comment for each.
Thanks! I would LOVE to help out. I live in Iceland now but you can see my work on CounterPunch and Dissident Voice as well as several other places. Let´s put one together? Tell me where that "other site" is and I´d be happy to volunteer my time.
Don't have it handy but person by moniker of equazcion has apparently developed it and is trying to get serious thinkers/writers/activists to contribute. Look for the moniker equazcion here and you will get there.
OK, I will look. Thanks again.
Yes, in spending some time in the chat area it does appear that many in this movement are impractical, aimless, self indulgent individualists with a dim knowledge of polictical philosophoes, underground literature, insight and anatomies of revolution. But they are willing to show up and protest. They do know something is wrong, but they lack a firm foundation for understanding how to fix. Revolutions typically are extreme at first then moderate. The extremism maybe necessary, but can be bypassed to some degree. I applaud this movements success at raising the issues of wealth disparity, long in the cooking for those of us watching this issue for fifteen plus years when many in this movement were still at soccer games. That is OK and again I am glad they are on the streets. But it is not necessary to upturn the whole order of things. Adjustments we have made before, simply must be made again. The 1950s are a time of great prosperity, where wealth disparities shrank to a low point, through taxation. Just getting corporations reined in from siphoning off their due contributions through use of offshore havens would do a lot to boost the public coffers. Sure it will hurt investors in the process, but so be it. They have enjoyed a good run for awhile with record profits, in aprt, through not paying into to the system that they get benefits from via infracstructure to the courts. I want to see practicality emerge, boycott/sanction U.S. Multinational Corp. that use havens in Bermuda and Caymans. There are many that exist and there identities are readily available. This tactic would allow many who cant show up to the streets send a message of support, which is practical, because revolutionary change requires numbers of people to join in. Right now this movement is too small to have a lasting impact. It must gain strength in numbers, get a focused agenda, identify a few areas and go to work making that dent. There are no utopias, but there can be changes that make things better than what they are.
Paulo Freire, reviewed on several entries of my blog: http://adamaecompton.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/occupyyourself-the-pedagogy-of-freedom/
Read your article. Nice reading list, I suppose. Many came to the conclusion about the Plutocratic nature of our govt. by different books, different experiences. Reading the history of Vietnam, Central America, the Black experience in America, and a whole host of revolutionary writers gets you to approximately the same place. For the uninitiated in this movement (and they are many), it would be nice to see them better informed no doubt. In addition, there needs to be some understanding of organizing and building a movement, practical items harder to learn through books. I heartily recommend Saul Alinsky (Rules for Radicals). I have not read most of the books on this list but am familiar with the writings of some (Chomsky, Zinn). The best I think is by Smedley Butler who sums up pretty concisely what everybody SHOULD understand: corporate control of the govt., the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned about. I also suggest Democracy and Wealth by Kevin Phillips, a Republican by the way (details the plutocracy in america historically). My only fear is that some of these authors put the emphasis on american electoral politics (I don't know this but suspect it) which is so massively corrupted and/or dysfunctional, that operating within its paradigm is a hopeless mind adventure to nowhere. But, again, for the uninitiated, that experience may be necessary until they awaken.
Thanks. There are a whole slew of books I could have included but I wanted to give an overall, introductory selection from which some real organizing can then occur with carefully thought through objectives. There are several key issues and you nailed one big one--the link between militarism and empire and its corresponding link to the industrial class of Owners. This is a deadly combination and it´s hold must be broken for real democracy and real freedom to take place. We need electoral reforms as well as the system of capitalist production and ownership will not fall apart this weekend, so proportional representation would allow different parties to get into Congress, for ex., is one excellent place to start and NONE of the major parties support it for that very reason.
I advocate a Voters Bill of Rights to legitimize elections otherwise they are farcical (it has 10-11 parts). If we could get to parliamentary system of govt. (my fantasy) then that would be real progress. The electoral system and our Constitution, to say the least, are antiquated if they were ever really functional in the first place. Lot of indoctrination to overcome here if this site is any indication of general shape of CS amongst Progressive forces in America. I was on another site of so-called Leftists and most of the commentary there was reflective of working within the system which might make sense if you could reform substantially both the electoral and legislative processes (getting rid of the filibuster, e.g.).
Re: "working within the system". Look, none of us will see the end of monopolistic, global, corporate capitalism in our lifetimes. I had resigned myself to that before many of the posters here were born. And so to a certain extent we can anticipate certain historical trends which, if we are wise, we can use to our advantage. Next year is an election year and therefore, an appropriate amount of pressure on the Dems just might loosen a few of them to support some legislation that could benefit us later on. I have ZERO illusions about the Dems and so should all of you. Nevertheless, next summer there will be an opening and we need have 5-10 very well articulated positions in place and demand them with all necessary force. Electoral reform, should be one of them, and that should include a system whereby multiple political parties can enter the system. An end to money in the process, multiple member districts for the House, and a system of proportional representation, wherein a party which receives 5-10% (a fair threshold) of the vote gets 5-10% of the seats and upwards. We would probably end with a system much fairer and far more truly representative of the positions of more USAmericans. So it might look like : 30% Dems, 25% Reps, 10% Libertarians, 5% Greens, 5% Constitutionalists, 5% Other. Such a configuration would make more people vote in general as more would have a stake. In addition, with money taken out of the equation, my guess is thee would be enclaves around the US where Greens would dominate, or a Labor Party, or others and this would also allow greater experimentation in democratic governance. But this si just teh electoral bag and there should be others that include a heavy reform of the financial system, an end to Cold War levels of military mobilization, (a 50% immediate cut would still have the US spending more than ALL the industrialized countries COMBINED), and I can think of many others. But we need to get there soon and hold the line because my guess is 2012 is going to look a lot like 1968 and trust me, 1968 was not pretty.
The progressives in the country, in theory, could do as you say, pressure the Dems but I sense a total lack of understanding from progressives about this. Most must be too jaded and cynical to get involved and younger people are, I think, much less informed and educated, and hence, too naive and utopian in their views which means the are very impractical. Could be wrong but that is my take. I prefer to reject the voting process which gets us nowhere given the above description of reality. I would like to see us gravitate around a New Progressive Party with the first step building a New Progressive Movement to see if we can create the infrastructure and organization to justify a Party. For example, 1000 chapters in the country with a shared fundamental platform (something like the Progressive Party of 1912). If the focus is clear with some basic ideas of reform: 1) Wall Street/Banks; 2) Tax; 3) Electoral; 4) Legislative and a few additional ideas, I believe this is a realistic approach. Would not move to political party until a certain momentum was met. I assume you know the history of the Progressive Party back then. Very interesting. I see us at a similar moment in history. We wold then be better situated to pressure Liberals and Dems in the Congress as well. More to say, but enough for now. Check out the Progressive Platform of 1912, I find it very interesting.
Hey dost...Yes, I am quite familiar with the Progressive Party platform but for me personally, I went through an honest self-evaluation and went from green to red a few years back. (Note: small "g", small "r") That is, from an outspoken Green Party supporter to an overt socialist. (I also believe the SP-USA platform and principles to be closest to what I hold dear .) I say "overt" deliberately because for more than 20 years I had been an ardent supporter of socialist lines of thought but never openly declared such, not because of fear but simply practical considerations. But here´s the jig: we have to come up with new ways of structuring the political life of our country and a "movement" must come first, no matter its name. Parties take from movements, not the other way around, and so creating a well thought through movement with a set of clear ideals from which we hold the line next year (which will be our litmus test) is, for me, the most important thing. Thank you for the good exchanges...looking forward to more...
You've an interesting background--poet, priest, writer, and phd student in Iceland! Goodness. I think your list is interesting. I haven't read 50% of the books, so I may look at them. It might be reasonable--from a good literature review perspective--to list 15 more books that reflect contrary views. OWS is a message against greed and poor governance of capitalism--not against capitalism or socialism themselves. "Isms" are seldom the issue ;-) Thanks for the list.
Wow...I am most impressed with the fact that there are responses so soon, and the respectful nature of those responses. Let me say this, though to you "mboss". I have no intention nor inclination to showcase "opposing" views as they are the very ones that have wrecked the economies of the world and led to this dangerous era of imperialism. Just look around you and you can easily see what those "opposing views" are and what they do in practice. I also do not accept that the "poor governance of capitalism" is rectifiable via capitalism itself. This is why a reading list is so important. A careful examination of the books I´ve listed will give you an excellent education around issues related to the founding of the US and what went wrong and how it can be righted (Foner´s books--esp. the 1st vol., Ollman´s edited book and Zinn as well); an analysis of the class interests of the Masters and the Owners (Chomsky´s works) the effects of that in personal terms (Ehrenreich), and historical ideas entertained by workers in the past (Woodcock) and examples of very successful resistance (Brecher). This is what Occupy participants need understand. Every 20-25 years or so wesee a revival of activism and those participating reinvent the wheel. I have seen this enough already and its time we put together a strategy that contains a careful analysis of what has come before us and what we might be able to create for the future.
You won't gain anything if you cant, or are unwilling, to engage the political process. With the Rev we were an occupied country -- "America" -- with a clearly defined enemy. Revolution of this sort will never again occur in America, only "insurrection," and the activity of those who initiate it will be immediately deemed, "criminal."
In fact, to take this one minor step further... it's not the government per se that Americans have been arming themselves against these past few years - it's radicalism.
Political theory... much like philosophy, means nothing at all without the strictly bound application of "logic," and without some through understanding of the evolutionary "humanity" that resides within us all. As long as there is a working class in this country, fully grounded, precariously susceptible to all that threatens our species (as the Founding Fathers were), you will never succeed with such a cerebral form of cultural revolution.
Look, I think a "cultural" revolution occurs when we engage at any and all levels, and when we abandon all the tools at our disposal, and that includes the electoral ones, we limit ourselves. So while I have NO illusions about the faulty electoral process in the US (and as I live in Europe and have seen first hand the many benefits of PR or similar systems, I understand the sad state of affairs there in the US), I think we need move on ALL fronts. And remember, while you may think you havethe world by the balls, the truth is, you have the world´s attention, that is all. What you DO with that attention is what counts and there remains a mixed-bag set of opinions surrounding the OWS movement. So get it right! Pay attention to the allies around you, beware of institutional co-optation, do not try to reinvent the wheel (i.e., read a lot) and come up, carefully and with deep thought, with a set of clear ideas that number no more than 10 so that by next summer, as the election is in full swing, you have major influence on the outcome. This is your chance: don´t blow it.