0:05

Hello everybody and welcome back to Rev

0:07

Left Radio. On today's episode

0:10

I have on Enrique and Roxana from

0:12

the Black Rose Anarchist Federation to

0:15

talk about their recent political

0:17

program in which they do

0:19

a deep dive analysis on North

0:22

American and U.S. society.

0:25

And based on that analysis they come

0:27

up with objectives and strategies

0:30

for pursuing their goals etc. Black

0:32

Rose is an organization on the

0:34

anarchist left that Rev Left

0:36

has always had a fondness for.

0:39

We've had them on the first time back in February

0:42

of 2018, so five years ago

0:44

on Rev Left. They were on the show

0:46

pretty much a year after the show even started.

0:49

So it's really cool to catch up with them to

0:51

see what they've been doing in the years

0:54

since then. And I think their political

0:56

program is a really crucial

0:58

thing for organizations, whether anarchist or

1:01

Marxist, to learn from and to

1:03

try to implement in their own organizing circle.

1:05

So

1:05

in this discussion we'll be talking about their

1:07

political program, but as usual

1:09

we also go off into broader

1:12

conversations about American society,

1:15

American history, how the

1:17

left has been doing over the last several years,

1:19

mobilization and demobilization dynamics

1:22

on the revolutionary left,

1:25

and so much more. Whether you're an anarchist,

1:28

a Marxist, a democratic socialist, or

1:30

even a progressive liberal, there's lots

1:32

here to learn and to think about. And

1:34

as always I really

1:35

appreciate talking to the good folks

1:37

from Black Rose anytime we get a chance to. I

1:40

also want to remind people that our good friends

1:43

over at leftwingbooks.net

1:45

have collaborated with us here at Rev Left

1:48

Radio to allow our listeners

1:50

here at Rev Left to get 15% off any

1:54

book over at leftwingbooks.net.

1:57

Put in Rev Left at checkout and get 15% off.

1:59

And if you live in North

2:02

America and spend over $50

2:04

at leftwingbooks.net, you

2:07

get free shipping. So it's a really wonderful opportunity.

2:10

I think it's a perfect collaboration. We've

2:12

always enjoyed Leftwing Books

2:14

and Kirst Splebladeb and have had their

2:17

authors on many times. So

2:19

we've had a longstanding relationship with them and then when

2:21

they reached out to offer our

2:23

listeners 15% off, really

2:25

important theoretical works in

2:28

the revolutionary, socialist, communist Marxist

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tradition, I jumped at the opportunity.

2:32

So I'll link in the show notes for anybody

2:34

listening who wants to go peruse their

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options. And again, if you put REVLEFT,

2:40

all caps, in the box

2:42

at checkout, you will get 15% off. All

2:45

right, without further ado, here's my wonderful

2:47

discussion with Roxana and Enrique

2:50

from Black Rose Anarchist Federation. Roxana,

2:53

unfortunately, mid-conversation, had something

2:55

come up and had to leave, but we deeply thank

2:57

her for her time and for her good

2:59

work

2:59

with Black Rose. So you'll

3:02

notice that she remains quiet for

3:04

the second half of the show. But in any case,

3:06

it's a really wonderful and interesting conversation.

3:09

And here it

3:10

is.

3:16

My name is Roxana. I'm

3:18

currently based out of Illinois,

3:20

and I'm a teacher here. And

3:23

I've been in Black Rose for, I think

3:25

it's been about like five

3:27

years, more or less, now. Nice.

3:30

Enrique? Yeah, my name is Enrique

3:33

Guerrero-Lopez. I am

3:36

a member of Black

3:38

Rose in the Durham

3:40

local in North Carolina, and

3:43

I've been active in the organization for about

3:45

six or

3:47

seven years now. I'm losing

3:50

count.

3:50

Well, it's wonderful to have members from Black Rose

3:53

back on. I was looking in our

3:55

catalog, and I realized that our first

3:57

episode with Black Rose was in February of 2011.

4:01

2018 just a year after we started RevLeft. So

4:03

it's very cool to check back in. Of

4:05

course, Black Rose is an anarchist organization,

4:08

but they stress the importance of organization.

4:12

And so I've always had an affinity for their

4:14

principled approach to organization

4:16

and they're stressing on the need for

4:19

community, for organization, for analysis,

4:22

etc. So I've always had a lot of respect. But

4:25

for those that might not be familiar with

4:27

Black Rose or are new to RevLeft

4:29

and might not have ever heard that first episode where

4:31

we had Black Rose on, can

4:34

you kind of introduce the organization and kind of

4:36

tell people what it's all about?

4:38

I can maybe start us off.

4:42

So Black Rose, Rosso

4:44

Anegara, Anarchist Federation is a national

4:48

all-level anarchist political organization

4:50

that got founded in 2013. So

4:55

we're a decade old now and

4:57

it emerged out of handful

5:01

of

5:02

local or regional anarchist

5:05

communist organizations or anarchist

5:08

political organizations in the sort

5:10

of dual organization tradition,

5:13

some inspired by what's known as the

5:15

platform, others by a

5:18

current in South America known as the specific

5:20

Fismal and there was like a multi-year

5:24

process of kind of bringing

5:26

those various

5:28

collectives from around the country under

5:30

one roof

5:31

and out of that process

5:34

Black Rose was born and has

5:37

been active since then

5:40

in a number of cities across the country. So

5:43

we operate as a federation. We have locals

5:46

from coast to coast.

5:47

We also have out large members

5:51

like Roxana and others and

5:53

since then we've

5:55

kind of been

5:56

active in a number of struggles including

5:59

changing

6:00

labor, tenants'

6:04

struggles, students' struggles, struggles

6:06

around incarceration are kind of the four areas,

6:09

but more recently it's been

6:10

primarily around

6:13

workplace organizing and tenor unions.

6:15

Wonderful, and incredibly crucial areas

6:18

to organize, especially at this conjuncture in

6:20

American history. But let's

6:22

go ahead and get into what we're here to talk

6:24

about, which is this political program

6:27

that Black Rose released on

6:29

May day of this year, May 1st of 2023,

6:32

in which they lay out

6:35

really comprehensive analysis,

6:38

objectives, and strategies for

6:41

their organization. And the thing

6:43

I love about this is that I think it's absolutely crucial

6:45

for any organization on the socialist left to

6:48

have a program like this, the

6:50

amount of work that went into it over

6:52

two years of research and discussion and

6:54

debate, and the final product

6:57

is something that I think is incredibly interesting,

7:00

incredibly useful, and incredibly principled,

7:02

and so I wanted to have you on

7:04

to discuss that. So the first question

7:07

I have for you is about

7:09

the process. I mentioned this was a

7:11

two-year process of research and

7:13

debate and discussion within the organization,

7:16

but I'm also interested in why you decided

7:19

to construct a political program. There

7:21

are many organizations out there, most of

7:23

which do not put this amount

7:25

of work into a political program.

7:27

So with regards to the process, why

7:30

did you decide to create this program,

7:32

and then can you talk about how you went about doing so?

7:35

Yeah, so it was, like

7:37

you said, a process that

7:41

basically took like two years

7:43

of internal discussion and debate,

7:46

and

7:47

it's about 75 pages long.

7:50

It was really responding kind of

7:52

to the needs of the moment, right, and the need for

7:55

organization and for coherence

7:58

and clarity,

7:59

and we're really kind of just looking to

8:02

build off of like historical traditions

8:04

like platformism and like

8:09

the specificism and looking

8:13

to other historical presidents that

8:16

prioritize an organized perspective.

8:19

So it's kind of broken up into

8:22

three different parts. And each

8:24

part really builds off of

8:26

the other parts that kind of form like a

8:28

cohesive goal. Like we start basically

8:31

with what is our ultimate objective, right,

8:33

which is libertarian socialism

8:36

and social revolution, our vision

8:38

for a new world. And

8:42

based off of that, we look at

8:44

how we plan to get there, right? What is

8:46

our general strategy, our limited term

8:48

strategy in the short, medium and long

8:51

term to really achieve our end

8:53

goal and what are the best means to do so.

8:56

So it's in short, it's basically

8:58

a roadmap to given

9:01

our current historical moment

9:03

and the current balance

9:05

of forces,

9:06

how best can we respond

9:08

to that given the conditions today?

9:10

Yeah, Enrique, anything to add to that? Yeah,

9:13

just in terms of the the why,

9:15

I think, like a lot of political

9:17

organizations across the left in the US,

9:21

following the wake of the George Floyd uprising,

9:23

I think there was a lot of us who were

9:26

raising questions around our own strengths

9:29

and weaknesses, how to move forward.

9:31

And those were questions that were bubbling

9:33

up in Black Rose as well.

9:36

And I think for

9:40

us, you know, in the past, we've had

9:42

various efforts

9:45

at conjunctural analysis, trying to analyze

9:47

the moment that we're living through and have

9:49

had developed a sort of broad

9:52

framework for a strategic

9:54

approach. But we realized that that

9:57

wasn't enough,

9:58

and that we needed

9:59

to carve out a more

10:02

proactive

10:04

path forward. And one

10:07

of the

10:08

ways that we sort of approached

10:10

that to build off what Roxana was saying in terms

10:12

of what that looked like internally.

10:15

So we had a sort of series of topics

10:19

that we discussed, debated, synthesized,

10:22

but we also collaborated with international

10:24

comrades, particularly in Brazil

10:26

with the Brazilian anarchist coordinator.

10:28

We were really inspired by

10:31

a document that they wrote called For a

10:33

Theory of Strategy, which is what the framework

10:35

for our program is based on.

10:37

And we hosted

10:39

them for an

10:42

internal discussion presentation on

10:44

that document.

10:46

And that was incredibly

10:48

helpful for thinking

10:51

through those different pieces that Roxana mentioned

10:53

and how they fit together.

10:54

So

10:56

in some ways, we were pulling from

10:59

existing documents that we

11:01

had historical traditions,

11:03

looking at the current moment

11:06

and trying to

11:07

piece those all together, synthesize

11:10

discussions that it had been having previously,

11:13

but trying to find a way

11:15

to, again, put those into a more cohesive

11:18

whole. Yeah,

11:19

I really love the internationalist aspect

11:21

as well of having comrades from Brazil in particular,

11:24

learning from them, engaging with them

11:26

as you were making your own document. Of

11:28

course, you know, Brazilian and American politics

11:30

are different in some ways, but there's also lots of interesting

11:33

similarities. And, you know, both

11:36

countries over the past few years have gone through their

11:38

own various forms of crises

11:41

and upheaval, etc. So I

11:43

really applaud that aspect of it. You

11:46

know, my audience is probably, you

11:48

know, across the left

11:49

for sure, we're open to everybody on the

11:51

left, but I would say probably Marxist

11:53

predominant. You've mentioned platformism

11:56

as a core sort of strain of

11:59

anarchism that Black

11:59

Rose takes up. Could you maybe

12:02

briefly kind of remind listeners

12:04

what platformism is in the anarchist tradition?

12:06

Yeah. So, platformism

12:09

really kind of just developed

12:12

based on like lessons from

12:15

the Russian Revolution.

12:17

Anarchists like Nestor

12:20

Macknow and Ida Met because

12:23

of the way the Russian Revolution

12:25

developed and anarchists

12:28

kind of formed together to learn

12:30

the lessons of the Russian Revolution to kind of think,

12:32

okay, how could we have maybe more effectively

12:34

put forth ideas

12:36

that could have led to a different

12:38

outcome than what happened?

12:41

So, they kind of developed

12:44

in Paris, I believe, after the revolution.

12:47

They meet there and they make

12:49

a program that's really

12:51

meant to organize anarchists

12:55

to

12:55

more effectively, like I said, put forth their ideas

12:57

so that in critical moments of struggle, we're

13:00

able to effectively intervene and

13:03

not in a way that

13:04

is meant to kind of

13:06

take over organizations

13:08

and institutions and all that to lead it in

13:10

a way, but more like to

13:13

put forth these ideas and struggle that if

13:15

they make sense, they will be taken

13:17

up

13:18

by these mass movements. And

13:20

so, that

13:22

was kind of like how it developed.

13:25

And I mean, like

13:27

we mentioned, a specificism as well, which

13:29

is how it developed also

13:31

in the Latin American context, right?

13:34

It's all kind of just learning the lessons of different

13:38

historical struggles, class struggles in

13:40

different parts of the world to kind of

13:42

see how best can we effectively

13:45

intervene in these struggles,

13:47

especially in our current moment where these

13:49

struggles are intensifying, right?

13:52

And they're going to come and it

13:54

will happen and it could happen very quickly.

13:57

Things

13:57

can change very rapidly.

13:59

And it's so

14:01

we're realistic, right? We're not We're

14:04

a minority, right? But

14:06

in order to effectively report these ideas, you

14:09

know, we recognize the importance

14:11

of like organizing and

14:13

Having tactical

14:15

and strategic unity so that

14:18

these ideas can You

14:20

know take hold materially, hmm,

14:23

I mean, I think Rock Santa laid

14:26

out the historical context really well

14:29

as far as where it comes from and I think For

14:31

us it's important to know that you know the

14:34

platform or or especially feasible

14:36

are through reference points

14:38

and not biblical texts that we look to

14:41

and that the they're both in

14:44

many ways part of a tradition

14:46

of dual organization that

14:48

can be traced all the way back to Bakunin

14:50

and a first international

14:52

That sort of highlights the need

14:54

for both organization at the political

14:56

level or an anarchist political organization

15:00

as well as organization at the mass level

15:02

and

15:02

it sort of spells out the

15:05

need for both those things as well as

15:07

articulating the relationship

15:09

between the two and

15:11

specifically the the the

15:13

platform and and Roxana alluded

15:16

to this kind of highlighted or

15:18

Key areas for anarchist

15:20

political organization

15:22

and that was tactical unity

15:24

theoretical unity collective

15:26

responsibility and federalism and

15:29

these

15:29

are aspects that the

15:32

specific piece the tradition which literally

15:35

in English is like specific this is basically calling

15:38

for the need for a specifically

15:40

anarchist political organization

15:42

also in many ways revolves around

15:45

Some of those same principles, but again

15:47

I think it's worth noting that then this sort

15:50

of need and practice of

15:52

political organization is

15:53

Something that has been a part of the anarchist

15:56

tradition since day one. It's not a

15:58

aberration or a minority

16:01

current. It's part of the mass anarchist tradition

16:04

dating back to, like I said, Burkina and the

16:06

International.

16:07

Yeah, absolutely. And just like in Marxism,

16:09

there's a bunch of different, you know,

16:11

sex and approaches to organizing

16:14

and disagreements within the tradition. The

16:16

same holds true for anarchism. I've

16:18

always had a lot of sympathy

16:20

and admiration for these

16:23

more organizational and platformist approaches

16:26

by anarchist organizations, which again, are

16:28

very much more social anarchist. And

16:30

organizational anarchism, as opposed,

16:32

you know, in my personal opinion to some

16:35

more hyper individualist or even nihilistic

16:37

or post left strains of anarchism, which

16:40

I'm personally not too fond of. I

16:42

know Roxanna mentioned the Bolshevik revolution

16:45

in Russia. And of course, anarchists

16:47

and Marxist will have different interpretations and different

16:50

analysis of of that revolution.

16:52

But I think in the North American context in 2023, and

16:56

this has always been my approach since we started Rev.

16:58

Left, is that there is no hyper

17:01

antagonistic contradiction between Marxist

17:04

and anarchist right now on most issues.

17:06

Anarchists and Marxist can absolutely, you

17:09

know, on most real world issues that actually

17:11

affect our societies. Anarchists

17:13

and Marxists can absolutely work

17:15

together. And where we can't, where we do

17:17

have fundamental disagreements about approaches

17:20

or organizational structuring, I

17:22

think, you know, right now we can, those

17:25

arguments can be like friendly competition

17:28

with regards to our different approaches to organizing

17:30

people and getting people's material needs met. It

17:33

need not be antagonistic.

17:35

I think if you're a socialist in the United

17:37

States, or in North America at all,

17:40

the deck is already stacked

17:42

against you. We already have plenty of enemies

17:44

that would love to see us utterly crushed and eradicated,

17:47

that I think it is harmful for

17:49

us to over exaggerate the

17:51

differences between, you know, Marxist

17:54

and anarchist, or, you know, pick

17:57

past situations where anarchist and Marxist

18:00

really have materially been at life

18:02

or death odds and somehow try to apply

18:04

that in the current context, right? Well,

18:07

Marxist will shit on anarchists or anarchists

18:09

will say Marxist are coming to kill us. I

18:11

think that is ultimately pretty unhelpful.

18:14

So I don't know if you agree with that or not, but I'd love

18:16

to hear your thoughts on the anarchist Marxist

18:19

connection here in the North American

18:21

context in 2023.

18:23

Yeah, I mean, I have my own ideas

18:25

about this, but I

18:28

don't know, like I feel, at least

18:31

personally, right? Like

18:34

I identify as an anarchist communist, but

18:36

I pretty much take Marxist critique

18:38

of capitalism pretty

18:40

much

18:42

adopting that. So I mean,

18:45

it's just different,

18:47

like his economic analysis. Right.

18:49

But I don't know, I'm not, at

18:52

least in my context, I'm not super

18:54

concerned with like, oh, let me get together

18:57

with Marxists and organize like that. It's more

18:59

of like, where am I? Like,

19:02

what in like in my industries, I'm more

19:04

concerned.

19:05

And the program does lay this out like three

19:07

different levels of organizing, you have the social

19:10

level, the political level, and

19:12

the intermediate. And

19:15

I think that's like more of an effective

19:17

way to think of, like, what

19:19

should we be doing with our time and resources

19:21

given with how small we are? And how

19:25

we can like intervene in these struggles where

19:27

we're at, whether it's in our workplaces,

19:30

our schools, our neighborhoods,

19:33

different sectors in the current moment.

19:36

I think the question should be more around, yeah,

19:38

like, what can we be doing where we're

19:40

at?

19:42

And to put forth ideas that

19:45

can challenge and lead to the kinds of things

19:47

we want to see. I don't

19:49

know if thinking of in terms

19:51

of like, oh, let me get together with other Marxists is necessarily

19:54

like

19:55

what we need to be doing. But I

19:57

mean, we can debate that.

19:58

Yeah, I was just stressing. the non-antagonistic

20:01

approach. We need not be antagonistic to each

20:03

other, even if we have different ways of organizing. But

20:05

yeah, I completely agree.

20:07

Yeah.

20:08

Yeah. I mean,

20:09

I think as far as the

20:12

organized anarchist current is concerned, I think in

20:14

a lot of cases where we're like two

20:16

Marxists for the anarchists and two anarchists for the

20:19

Marxists, which

20:21

I think is kind of a sweet spot, but

20:23

to each their own.

20:25

And you can go all the way back to

20:29

Roxanna's point. I mean,

20:30

Bakunin also sung Marxist praises

20:33

in terms of his critique

20:35

of capital and made an attempt to translate

20:38

capital into Russian, which I think like a lot of his texts

20:41

he never finished. But

20:42

yeah, I'm glad that we're

20:45

asked the point that I experienced in my

20:47

lifetime, like 20 years ago, of people

20:51

hanging their hat on these hair-splitting historical

20:54

debates, which I'm a history teacher

20:57

by trade and I have an appreciation for history.

20:59

I think those debates and discussions are critical

21:01

and important and so on. But I

21:03

think to your point, in practice, there's often

21:07

more overlap currently

21:10

than not in a lot of cases. And

21:13

I agree with Roxanna

21:15

that more of our emphasis is

21:18

on

21:19

thinking through how we're

21:22

sort of intervening in the current moment and

21:25

in our unions or

21:27

neighborhood

21:28

organizations or whatever we might

21:30

be a part of, we often

21:32

find ourselves in

21:35

organizing spaces with other

21:37

Marxists and so on. And also, in my own personal

21:39

experience,

21:40

I often

21:42

have more working relationships

21:44

with folks from different Marxist

21:47

tendencies

21:48

than anarchists I end

21:51

up collaborating with in our mass

21:53

work. And we're open to

21:55

tactical collaboration with organizations

21:59

that have a strategic alignment

22:02

with us. And frankly,

22:04

more often than not, that comes from... And

22:07

we consider ourselves as part of the socialist

22:09

tradition, but that comes from other socialist groups typically.

22:12

And we find ourselves with a fair amount of disagreement

22:14

with folks who claim the anarchist banner

22:17

in the United States. So

22:18

I

22:20

would agree with a lot of what

22:22

you laid out in terms of both

22:25

the moment that we're in, the stakes that

22:27

we're facing and where we should be placing

22:30

priorities. So it's not to say that those

22:32

differences aren't significant

22:35

in certain instances

22:36

and aren't worth debating, discussing. We should have

22:39

those debates, but I think we should

22:41

be having them to your point in a more principled

22:46

and generative way that's not just

22:48

about

22:48

creating straw men that we can

22:50

knock out by the park for scoring points

22:53

for our teams. I think that's a waste of time. Yeah.

22:56

Well said. Completely agree. Well, let's

22:58

get into the document itself. That is the core

23:01

of this conversation and I'm really excited to

23:03

get into it. There's different ways we can

23:05

go about it. I know Roxanna kind of laid out even

23:07

some of the basic structure of the document, but

23:09

maybe you can give a general introduction

23:12

to the document itself and then just kind of

23:15

take the question wherever you want in terms of

23:17

the points of the document

23:18

that you would like to highlight as particularly

23:21

important.

23:22

In terms of the

23:25

overall structure, and I know Roxanna

23:28

highlighted some of the content

23:30

of it earlier, we kind

23:33

of start off with a structural

23:35

analysis. So looking at what

23:37

we call the system of domination

23:40

and its various overlapping expressions.

23:43

And so we take a close look

23:46

at capitalism, the state imperialism,

23:49

settler colonialism, white

23:51

supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and how these

23:55

things are structured, what

23:58

the structural, relational,

23:59

elements of these are, what the mechanisms

24:02

of these various expressions

24:04

of domination look like, and

24:08

how they are mutually enforcing,

24:10

how they fit together. And we

24:12

go from that point

24:15

to look at what we call our ultimate objective.

24:17

So what is our revolutionary horizon?

24:20

And for us, that is a libertarian socialist

24:23

society, along with

24:25

a social revolution, which we feel is

24:27

needed in order to get us to

24:30

that point. So

24:32

one is kind of looking at what are the

24:35

sort of structural barriers

24:37

or structural elements that give shape

24:40

to the world that we're living in and

24:42

what is the world, the new world that we're

24:44

seeking to create

24:47

down the road. From

24:49

there, we sort of...

24:52

And we detail on some level

24:56

what are the sort of characteristic elements of the

24:58

libertarian socialist society, what

25:00

we mean by social revolution, some of

25:02

these concepts.

25:06

And then kind of take a step back to say, okay,

25:09

this is the

25:12

socialist horizon that we're

25:14

aiming for. These are the

25:17

structural barriers that are

25:20

in the way of us getting there. And we

25:22

start to lay out what we call our general

25:25

strategy. So what is the sort of orientation

25:29

that we feel we need to have that's

25:31

going to connect us

25:32

from where we are now to where

25:34

we want to go.

25:36

And sort of the crux

25:38

of that

25:39

strategy is rooted in

25:41

what we call building popular power.

25:44

And that's

25:46

largely centered around sort

25:49

of building or supporting

25:51

independent mass movements that are

25:54

characterized by sort of the forms

25:57

of organization, modes of struggle.

26:00

So, I think historically,

26:02

and we mentioned this in a document, a

26:04

lot of anarchists have tended to view

26:06

power in negative

26:09

terms as something that needs to be destroyed.

26:12

It's often associated with the state, whereas

26:15

we see power more so in terms of

26:17

a relationship between

26:19

social forces and society. And so

26:22

we're against power when it's expressed

26:25

in domination. So in

26:27

all the ways that I just mentioned, through capitalist

26:31

social relations, through heteropatriarchy and so

26:33

on,

26:33

but we are...or

26:35

what other currents maybe call people's

26:38

power or in this case, we're calling

26:40

popular power.

26:41

And by that, we mean

26:44

mass organizations that are struggling

26:46

around immediate reforms, but also kind

26:48

of maintaining a more socialist horizon.

26:52

Those that practice direct democracy, direct

26:54

action, class struggle, class independence,

26:57

solidarity, internationalism, feminism,

27:00

and

27:00

that

27:02

to the extent that movements are taking up

27:04

these characteristics, they're

27:06

expressing and building and strengthening

27:09

popular power. And

27:12

Roxana mentioned earlier,

27:14

approaching building popular power

27:16

through sort of three levels of organization. And

27:18

this is a big part of the...what's

27:21

distinct about the organized anarchist

27:23

tradition that

27:24

sees the need for organization

27:26

at the political level, and that's

27:28

for

27:29

organizations like Black Rose,

27:32

Grossa Negra, but we also recognize there's gonna be

27:34

a plurality of political organizations in

27:36

struggle. We don't see ourselves

27:38

as the only one or the leading one

27:40

or anything along those lines. And

27:43

that one of the primary roles of political

27:45

organizations to be active in

27:47

social or mass organizations,

27:50

so labor unions, tenant unions, student

27:52

organizations, and so on. But then there's

27:54

also room for

27:57

what we've seen in and outside of the United

27:59

States. or intermediate

28:02

organizations and those are sort of organizations

28:04

that are situated sort of in between

28:07

social and political levels where you

28:10

can think about for example rank-and-file

28:13

caucuses within existing

28:15

unions that

28:16

are not you

28:17

know at the level of political

28:20

unity as a political organization but

28:22

maybe share a certain strategic

28:25

organization to how

28:27

rank-and-file workers in that union should struggle

28:30

and that might be going back to our

28:32

earlier conversation in those rank-and-file caucuses

28:34

you might have you know various strands

28:36

of Marxism, Marxists and anarchists

28:39

maybe some social Democrats but we're all united

28:42

on how

28:44

to approach struggles

28:46

within our union for example

28:48

and then the other

28:51

kind of major component is a

28:53

conjunctural analysis and that's sort of a

28:55

snapshot of the balance

28:58

of forces and the social

29:01

political and economic conditions that are giving shape

29:03

to that balance and I think this is

29:05

one of the areas that not

29:08

just anarchists but I think across the

29:10

left is often missing in

29:13

laying out a strategy for intervening

29:16

so how do we assess

29:18

the conditions that we're facing how do we assess

29:21

the balance of power and where we stand in relationship

29:23

to it

29:24

and there's a number of kind of arguments

29:27

that we make about the current moment in there that we can talk

29:29

about and then lastly a

29:32

limited term strategy

29:34

so

29:35

whereas our general strategy is sort of our just long-term

29:38

strategic

29:38

orientation that is

29:41

more or less applicable regardless

29:43

of time or place limited term strategy

29:46

is kind of taking into account particularly

29:48

like the conjuncture that we're facing

29:51

and our own

29:54

capacity as an organization and elements

29:56

of our general strategy is okay how

29:58

are we going to begin

29:59

to strategically

30:02

intervene in the current moment in the kind of short

30:04

mid to long term. And so

30:07

we lay out some strategic objectives

30:09

there that we're trying to prioritize.

30:12

And the one thing that's not in the public

30:14

document is a set of tactical plans

30:17

that lay out some concrete steps

30:19

that we're taking as an organization at

30:21

a local and national level to kind

30:23

of put those objectives in the practice.

30:26

Yeah, quick follow up to that before we get into

30:28

the significance of the document overall. You mentioned

30:31

in your conjunctural analysis, there

30:33

is this analysis of the current balance of forces,

30:36

which lead into the limited strategic

30:39

objectives you have in the short to medium

30:41

term. Can you talk a little bit more

30:43

about the balance of forces and

30:46

what those short term strategic objectives

30:48

of your organization are?

30:50

Yeah, in terms of the balance

30:52

of forces, you know,

30:55

one of the things that we're seeing is that we're

30:58

sort of in the midst of this ongoing crisis

31:01

of legitimacy for the center politically.

31:06

And we can see it as kind of a byproduct

31:08

of the

31:10

fracturing of the neoliberal order. And

31:12

so we're seeing more and more people moving

31:15

further left or further right.

31:17

And one of the

31:19

assessments that we made in discussing

31:22

that dynamic is that it seems

31:24

as though the right has largely

31:27

benefited from

31:28

that polarization relative

31:30

to the left forces. And

31:32

particularly in

31:35

the wake of the George

31:38

Floyd uprising, I think we can see

31:41

elements of the strength that the right has gained

31:45

in recent years in the kind

31:47

of

31:48

reactionary backlash that we're experiencing

31:51

with the kind of,

31:53

you know,

31:54

boogeyman of critical race theory

31:57

and the systematic attack on

31:59

trans

31:59

we're seeing across the country.

32:03

And so we see that

32:05

while the center is

32:08

beginning to kind of fracture and

32:10

is losing a grip

32:12

on

32:15

the country politically, it's

32:17

still resilient, still holding on.

32:20

But the right

32:23

has grown in strength and has made

32:26

pretty

32:26

significant institutional ties

32:28

to the state along with international

32:31

organization and coordination. I know we mentioned

32:33

Brazil earlier.

32:37

You can think about the relationship

32:39

between, say, Steve Bannon

32:42

and the Bolsonaro

32:44

regime in Brazil, who I know some people

32:46

refer to as the Trump of the tropics.

32:50

So

32:51

you can sort of see expressions of that

32:54

there. Because

32:56

I think, particularly in the wake of the

32:59

George Floyd uprising, a lot of the

33:01

left, including Bern, but

33:04

a number of organizations experienced internal conflict.

33:08

There's been some fracturing, a

33:10

lot of demobilization. And

33:14

so there's still elements of fightback.

33:18

But much of the organized left

33:20

seems to be someone on

33:23

the back row, so to speak. Yeah,

33:25

I mean, I think we are in the end of

33:27

the neoliberal era. I think it is

33:30

decaying and crumbling. The

33:32

old sort of boomers that are still in political

33:35

power that were raised ideologically

33:37

in the neoliberal era are sort of these

33:39

ghosts that continue to haunt. What's

33:41

interesting is as the right becomes a more quote

33:43

unquote populist, or what I would call faux populist,

33:47

the center, especially as articulated

33:50

by the Democratic Party, is rushing

33:52

to

33:53

shore up and identify themselves

33:55

with institutions that most Americans

33:58

see as utter

33:59

failing. So as the right moves further

34:02

to the right, the center-right

34:05

Democratic Party tries to re-entrench

34:07

the very institutions and the very center

34:10

that is falling out, de-legitimizing

34:13

themselves in the process.

34:15

So definitely things are being shooken up, things

34:17

are changing, we are at like this 40 to 50

34:20

year old shift away from yeah

34:23

Reagan and Thatcher era neoliberalism. What

34:25

comes next? Who knows? I think it's largely

34:27

going to be determined by these balance

34:29

of forces and which elements can

34:32

sort of out-organize and you know

34:35

out-win one another. But the problem with the

34:37

far right is as you said they have these

34:39

deep institutional ties with you

34:42

know apparatuses like the Republican

34:44

Party. Whereas the far left is completely

34:47

cut off and always has been in

34:49

this country from any real institutional

34:52

power. I mean the Democrats really are this bulwark

34:55

against the left to prevent anything

34:57

to the left of I mean I would

34:59

say to the left of Bernie Sanders but they weren't even okay

35:01

with Bernie Sanders like to the left of Hillary Clinton

35:04

is unacceptable. So yeah it's

35:06

a very interesting time to be on the left

35:08

and to be analyzing and organizing for

35:10

sure.

35:11

Yeah and I think you know that dynamic that

35:13

you mentioned as far as the

35:15

sort of

35:17

center around Biden

35:19

and even some of the

35:22

social democratic

35:24

forces

35:25

acting within that orbit

35:27

seemed to be desperately

35:30

trying to

35:32

breathe new life into institutions

35:36

that are just widely

35:38

discredited.

35:40

You know it was incredible

35:42

watching Biden try and take

35:44

to the airwaves when inflation

35:47

started spiking to the kind of call on the nation

35:49

to

35:50

tighten their belts as if this was

35:52

some post World War II period

35:54

where

35:55

you have

35:57

a figure like FDR who could maybe be

35:59

rally the public toward a common

36:02

good, but there is no faith in

36:05

the White House. There is no faith in

36:07

the Supreme Court. There's no faith in Congress.

36:09

There's no goodwill to

36:11

be mobilized right now, I think, particularly

36:13

after the pandemic. I think the veil

36:16

was lifted and day-to-day

36:19

folks are not

36:20

particularly lining

36:23

up for what either

36:25

party is offering, and especially not the

36:27

Democratic party.

36:28

Yeah, absolutely. Instead of actually trying

36:30

to reform those institutions to make them

36:33

legitimate in the eyes of Americans, they're

36:35

just doubling down on the institutions themselves

36:37

and using nostalgia and, as you said,

36:39

post-World War II,

36:42

fuzzy feelings about these institutions

36:44

as if that holds any weight in contemporary

36:46

America. So yeah, very interesting

36:48

stuff for sure. But yeah, I

36:51

really love that document. I love

36:53

the way that you weave in the structural and conjunctural

36:55

analyses. You have an ultimate objective

36:58

and a strategy

36:58

that goes along with it, as well as these limited

37:00

term strategies and objectives.

37:02

I think it's really an important template

37:05

for others on the socialist, organized left,

37:08

whether anarchist, Marxist, or whatever, to

37:10

learn from and to try to replicate. Because

37:12

I think an organization that can engage

37:15

in this sort of deep analysis and come

37:17

up with these strategies rooted in an

37:19

analysis of this sort are going

37:21

to be much more effective than

37:23

any other organization that doesn't

37:26

engage in such analysis and

37:28

program building. So it's a really laudable

37:30

thing you've accomplished. I do kind of want to

37:32

talk about the significance of it. What do you think,

37:35

I just said a few of my thoughts on its significance,

37:38

but in your own thoughts,

37:40

what is its significance and what can others

37:42

on the broadly conceived socialist

37:44

left in North America learn from the

37:47

document itself, as well as perhaps the organizational

37:50

process that occurred around it?

37:52

Yeah, I think in terms of the

37:54

significance of the document, first

37:57

and foremost, this is the first systematic...

37:59

program

38:01

to come out of the anarchist tradition

38:03

in the United States in decades,

38:06

certainly in my lifetime.

38:08

There's

38:11

organizations that predate us that we definitely

38:13

draw inspiration from like Love and Rage, anarchist

38:16

federation

38:18

that

38:19

add onto unity and things

38:21

that we've looked to.

38:22

But I think this is really the

38:25

most cohesive

38:27

program to come out of the organized anarchist

38:29

tradition

38:30

in a long time.

38:32

It's not the first in the United States.

38:35

Like I said, there's a long tradition

38:37

of

38:38

pro-organizational

38:42

tendency within anarchism in and outside the United

38:44

States and one that does place a lot of emphasis

38:46

on the need for a program.

38:49

But that

38:51

in and of itself is part of what makes it important.

38:54

But I'd say beyond

38:56

that, it's also

39:00

an effort to

39:01

begin to put

39:03

ourselves on a more proactive

39:06

footing, I think, for much

39:08

of the left. And

39:11

this is not

39:12

limited to

39:14

anarchists by any means.

39:18

We're often stuck in this cycle

39:21

of

39:22

reactive

39:24

actions responding to events as

39:26

they occur. And so we're just sort of in this

39:29

never-ending

39:31

cycle of things popping up

39:34

and us figuring out a way

39:36

to respond.

39:37

And I think what we've seen, especially

39:40

since

39:41

the 2008

39:43

Great Recession and the

39:45

financial crisis,

39:47

we've seen and we mentioned this in

39:49

the program, a

39:51

kind of

39:52

cycle of mass

39:54

mobilization and demobilization, and mass

39:57

protest and demobilization. And there

40:00

hasn't been as much of an emphasis on

40:02

proactive

40:03

organization

40:06

building that can last beyond those

40:08

moments. And

40:10

I think, and we definitely

40:13

had

40:14

long conversations about the significance

40:17

of these moments of mass mobilization

40:20

and uprisings that we're seeing all around the

40:22

globe in response to

40:25

the

40:26

horrors of 40 plus

40:29

years of neoliberalism. And

40:31

we need to relate to those moments and

40:34

think through how to do that

40:35

strategically and effectively.

40:37

But one of the ways

40:40

that we need to relate and think

40:42

through is, again, to put

40:44

ourselves on a more

40:46

proactive, forward-looking path

40:49

that

40:52

takes an honest stock of the situation,

40:55

the conditions we're facing,

40:56

along with our own capacities,

40:59

and takes seriously

41:01

building toward a revolutionary

41:03

horizon. I think, given

41:08

going back to the balance of forces

41:11

question,

41:12

given that the politics of democratic

41:15

socialism and this social

41:17

democratic current in many ways

41:19

is dominant on the left in the

41:22

United States, much of

41:24

the

41:25

left has abandoned

41:28

revolutionary horizon.

41:29

And it seems to us that

41:32

given the

41:33

overlapping cascading crises

41:36

that we're facing, revolution

41:39

is, as they say, the solution.

41:42

So if we're

41:44

serious about that, then we

41:46

need to be serious about

41:48

laying out a path to get there. And

41:51

for

41:52

us, it's putting forward a program

41:54

like this,

41:55

which as we mentioned in the document,

41:59

as

42:02

the last word on these questions.

42:04

It's a living document and it's

42:06

a reflection of the sort

42:09

of theorizing and practice that we've developed

42:11

in the last 10 years and will

42:13

continue to revisit it as a sort of yardstick

42:15

for how

42:17

to move forward in the

42:19

coming period. But

42:20

again, I think moving us past

42:23

these sort of cycles of reactive

42:27

struggles and putting us on a more

42:29

aggressive, assertive,

42:32

proactive path,

42:33

we feel like this

42:36

is where a program comes in.

42:38

Yeah. Well said, and I couldn't agree more.

42:40

You mentioned social democratic impulses on

42:43

the US left. And one lesson that I've taken

42:45

away over the last century of American

42:47

history is with the Great

42:49

Depression and World War II, it was a real

42:52

crisis moment in the United States.

42:55

FDR rose not in a vacuum,

42:57

but in the context of, I mean,

42:59

revolutions around the world. This is, you

43:02

know, a couple, what, 15, 20 years after the Bolshevik

43:04

Revolution, there are communists and anarchists

43:07

in the United

43:08

States agitating, you know, that

43:10

we're leaving the Gilded Age. Gilded

43:12

Age preceded the Great Depression and FDR's

43:14

rise. So FDR was simultaneously

43:17

a liberal figure saving

43:19

capitalism by introducing social democratic

43:21

reforms that were desperately needed, but was only

43:24

made possible by even more radical elements

43:27

in the American society at large.

43:29

But one thing we learned from that process is

43:32

that any gains made within

43:34

this rotten system can always

43:36

and are always subject to

43:38

recall. And what is the

43:40

Reagan era and neoliberal era? If

43:42

not, the ruling class, the capitalist

43:45

class deconstructing all

43:47

of the working class gains made under

43:50

the New Deal. So insofar as you're

43:52

going to, you know, hit your wagon to

43:54

the mechanisms of the

43:56

current United States and its power apparatus,

43:59

you have to understand.

43:59

that any and all gains you make

44:02

are always subject to recall,

44:04

not only in theory, but are immediately

44:06

opposed by the ruling class and are

44:08

immediately attacked by the ruling

44:11

class. Maybe you have a little bit of goodwill

44:13

after an extended crisis, but not even

44:15

that. I mean, during FDR's term, they

44:17

were called, like, the right in this country,

44:19

we're calling him Stalin Delano

44:22

Roosevelt. There was a fascist coup

44:24

attempted against him, you know. They constantly

44:27

called him a communist, and he would always

44:29

fight back. He's like, you know, these economic royalists

44:32

hate me. Well, I welcome their hate. So

44:34

he's a conflicted figure in my head,

44:36

because on some level, you know, he was

44:39

absolutely essential. And the

44:41

New Deal period in the United States, despite its

44:43

racial inequalities, of course, was

44:46

certainly probably the best quality of life

44:48

for the average working American for

44:51

a time. But

44:53

he was also this liberal figure as

44:55

well. And so I'm always suspicious of the

44:57

social democratic movement, although, you know, obviously

44:59

we all support stuff like universal health care,

45:02

you know, accessible universal housing,

45:04

etc. But it's just something

45:06

to think about if you're on the social democratic side of

45:08

things. But I do want to talk about this mobilization

45:11

and demobilization sort of dynamic

45:13

that's happened. I certainly relate to it completely

45:15

agree and understand that that is what's happening.

45:17

And it's like this roller coaster ride, like,

45:20

you know, I remember being active and occupy,

45:23

and then the period of time that came after occupy.

45:25

And then we had, you know, Bernie Sanders

45:28

and, you know, that pass and there's the Black Lives Matter

45:30

movement, this incredible time

45:33

for the left in the United States, that, you know, historically

45:35

large protests during Black

45:37

Lives Matter summer. And then, of course,

45:40

what comes after it is this wave of reaction

45:43

and this quelling and, you know, people

45:45

are demobilized. And I wonder what causes

45:47

this demobilization? Is it just a mixture

45:49

of, like, co-option from the Democratic Party

45:52

as well as a

45:53

lack of organizations that can

45:55

continue the fight? Or what

45:57

do you make of these these demobilization

45:59

periods?

45:59

Of course, there is an ebb and flow to everything.

46:02

So there's an element of it that's more or less

46:05

natural. But I wonder how

46:07

we can prevent these pretty steep

46:10

demobilizations after an uprising. Do

46:13

you have any thoughts at all on that?

46:14

Yeah, this was definitely a conversation

46:17

that took place in the process of putting together the

46:19

program. And I think, you

46:22

know,

46:22

part of it's of that conversation revolved

46:25

around

46:27

the idea that

46:28

when you look at these

46:29

periods of upheaval,

46:32

whether it's

46:34

Occupy, Black

46:35

Lives Matter, what we

46:39

tend to see a lot of times is

46:42

simultaneously the strengths and

46:44

weaknesses of the left and

46:47

social movements.

46:48

And so, for example,

46:50

I was

46:52

in Texas when

46:54

Occupy popped off. And

46:57

where I was, it went

47:00

up very quickly and down just

47:02

as quickly. Whereas

47:04

in places like

47:05

Los Angeles, Chicago, New

47:08

York,

47:08

it had a much

47:11

deeper

47:12

trajectory in terms of its upswing and

47:14

a much longer lasting

47:17

presence in those areas. Why? Because

47:19

those areas historically have

47:22

deep roots in the left and

47:25

labor and social movements. And

47:27

so there are organized

47:29

forces on the ground that can take

47:32

advantage of those cracks when they open up

47:34

and widen them and channel

47:37

them toward more

47:41

lasting organizations. That

47:44

exists unevenly in the United

47:46

States and outside

47:48

those usual suspect cities that we

47:51

can all probably name, that's

47:52

not the case. There's very little

47:55

infrastructure. There's very little historical memory,

47:58

even if they're...

47:59

there is a

48:01

left tradition or

48:04

labor or social movement tradition in those areas.

48:06

I grew up most of my life

48:08

in the South and,

48:10

you know, while there are very rich traditions

48:14

of struggle, particularly civil

48:16

rights and black

48:19

power, there's

48:20

very little

48:22

connection a lot of times between those

48:25

veterans

48:27

of those struggles and folks

48:30

on the ground today.

48:32

And so part of it is that

48:34

we sort of see this

48:37

simultaneous snapshot

48:40

of strengths and weaknesses.

48:42

And then I also think it's,

48:46

you know, related to that is a balance of

48:48

forces question and oftentimes

48:50

I think,

48:51

you know, because the left has was

48:54

sort of systematically

48:56

attacked and

48:58

assaulted by the state

49:01

and other forces in the 60s and 70s. We have a

49:06

lot of work to do to rebuild

49:09

and get ourselves to the point where when

49:11

those moments pop off and they're often

49:13

impossible to predict, that we'll

49:15

be better positioned to, as I said

49:18

before, widen those cracks when

49:20

they open up. So

49:22

I think part of our task

49:24

in between those moments is to really

49:27

focus on, as

49:28

we mentioned in the document,

49:30

building popular power, building political

49:32

organization and these things

49:35

to where when they do pop off, we're better prepared.

49:38

And with that comes a recognition

49:41

that when

49:41

those open,

49:44

we do need to

49:46

pivot, we need to have a flexible strategy,

49:49

we need to relate to those moments,

49:51

but we can't lose sight

49:54

of our general strategy, general orientation,

49:57

and also just recognize that those

50:00

windows open and they closed. And you can't predict

50:02

how long it's going to last. No one could have said

50:05

at the beginning of the George Floyd uprising that,

50:07

oh, it's gonna... We predict

50:10

X number of months or whatever. No one knew that

50:13

it would reach the sort of scale

50:16

and intensity

50:18

that it did.

50:20

But you can say without a doubt that

50:22

it wasn't going to last, because we don't have

50:25

the strength in numbers

50:27

and organization and so on to

50:30

make it last longer than it did.

50:32

And so our task

50:35

is to, again,

50:37

open up

50:38

all that window open as long as possible,

50:41

build our forces during that time

50:43

period, seize as much ground as we can

50:45

from forces of reaction

50:48

and strengthen ourselves

50:50

for the next fight. But I

50:53

think... I don't know if that addresses fully

50:55

the question, but part of it is a

50:58

balance of

50:59

power

51:00

question. But I think it's also

51:03

important to have a historical perspective

51:06

on the

51:08

dynamics around uprisings

51:10

and their character, what they look like.

51:13

I

51:14

think there were... I

51:16

remember us having conversations around

51:18

the time of the George Floyd uprising with some of us saying

51:22

similar things around this is...

51:24

Many of us were involved in

51:27

different aspects of the uprising, but

51:29

there were also those of us saying, we also really

51:31

need to think about and be prepared for

51:35

this post uprising period.

51:38

And I think it's

51:40

hard to step back

51:42

in the heat of a battle like that

51:45

and have those kind of conversations because

51:47

there's so much happening

51:49

at once and people are

51:51

preoccupied with the struggle

51:54

that's right in front of them.

51:55

But I think

51:57

part of the role of political organization is to have

52:00

a place where you can have those discussions,

52:03

where we can kind of step

52:05

back and lick our wounds and say, okay, what

52:07

did we learn? What could we do better next

52:09

time? So on and so forth.

52:11

So yeah. Yeah,

52:13

absolutely. I think it's incredibly important.

52:16

And as you said, like, there's no

52:18

way of knowing when something's going to

52:20

pop off or how long that door is going

52:22

to be open, that door of opportunity. But

52:24

one thing is absolutely for sure, especially

52:27

in this moment or this period of protracted

52:30

crisis is that things will continue popping

52:33

off, doors will continue opening and shutting probably

52:35

at a faster rate than we're more

52:37

or less used to. You

52:39

know, with the Black Lives Matter uprising, we

52:42

sort of like,

52:43

on one level, it was traumatizing for people.

52:46

On another level, we quickly moved on. Other

52:48

things were happening. But I remember in

52:50

the depths of that uprising,

52:53

there was a period of time where like in Minneapolis,

52:55

police were being chased out of headquarters. And

52:58

there was a crucial moment in Washington,

53:00

D.C., when the

53:02

barbarians, our barbarians were at the

53:04

gate, as it were, of the White House lawn. And

53:08

Trump and his administration turned all the lights off in

53:10

the White House and Trump had to go down in a bunker.

53:12

And the people

53:13

were at the gates shaking it. And I

53:15

remember thinking like, oh, God, could

53:17

could this be it? Could

53:19

those fences fall? And what happens?

53:22

You know, it's

53:24

a very interesting time. Of course, we all move on.

53:26

We have to. There's like a way that we're

53:28

all swept forward. But we sometimes

53:30

forget at these peak moments, how

53:33

much was possible. But of course, that did

53:35

come with not only a demobilization, which is inevitable,

53:38

but a wave of reaction that I think in a lot

53:41

of ways, we're still living through.

53:43

Another thing you said is being from

53:45

Texas and of course, these big cities like L.A., Chicago,

53:48

New York City, you know, they'll have a lot

53:50

more infrastructure. They'll have a lot more history.

53:52

In part, it's a numbers game,

53:54

right? You have millions and millions and millions of people concentrated

53:57

in these cities. There's more continuity.

53:59

between organizations, there's more organizations,

54:03

you know, etc. And I'm living

54:05

my entire life up here in Omaha, Nebraska,

54:07

probably similar to a lot of places in

54:10

Texas. And one of the things

54:12

that you mentioned is like this lack of memory we

54:14

have in a lot of these other cities. And like

54:16

Omaha is surprisingly, has this

54:18

rich history of like back in the day,

54:21

like labor strikes around streetcars.

54:24

You know, we have the rise of the

54:26

People's Party and Williams Brian

54:28

Jennings, which is not

54:29

anarchist or Marxist, but was like a left

54:32

populist egalitarian sort

54:34

of, you know, movement. That's where the term populism

54:36

comes from. And it was originally a left-wing movement.

54:39

And it was sort of based among farmers

54:41

in the Midwest. And their first ever political

54:44

program came out of Omaha called the Omaha

54:46

Platform, which I think is interesting.

54:48

We have a history of IWW, Malcolm X

54:51

was born in Omaha, Harry Heywood.

54:53

We had Black Panther Party chapters after

54:55

MLK was assassinated, like many cities in

54:58

the United States. Omaha had its

54:59

own riots and burning down of,

55:02

you know, property, etc. in reaction

55:05

to that tragedy.

55:06

So there's a way in which organizations,

55:09

wherever you are, part of your responsibility,

55:11

I think, is resurrecting these

55:13

histories and these narratives and these traditions

55:16

and these memories that have been, you know,

55:18

either deliberately or just with the passage of time

55:20

completely ignored. Of course, the ruling class is

55:23

not going to keep the flame of these memories

55:25

alive. And so, you know, a lot

55:27

of times they get completely forgotten, but there's

55:29

a sort of excavation obligation

55:31

on our part to find these traditions

55:34

and connect with them and see ourselves as operating,

55:36

not in a vacuum, but in a deep

55:39

tradition with, you know, brave figures

55:41

and noble people and historic

55:44

events that we can rightfully claim as

55:46

ours. You know, I think that's really important. Absolutely.

55:49

And I think it speaks to the role that political

55:52

organizations can play in that process

55:54

as a kind of, you know, storage

55:56

facility for historical memory.

55:59

and

56:01

shining a light on those struggles

56:04

that predate us and that we're standing on the shoulders

56:06

of. And I

56:08

did want to

56:10

circle back to one thing you mentioned

56:12

in terms of how do

56:14

we relate to these moments of uprising?

56:17

Because you did mention forces of

56:19

what some folks call a counterinsurgency

56:23

forces, right? And these include

56:26

in many

56:27

instances the Democratic Party,

56:29

agents of the state, it includes

56:32

in many ways nonprofit industrial complex.

56:35

And

56:36

I think we saw beautiful

56:38

moments during the George Floyd uprising

56:41

where people

56:43

sort of just outright rejecting

56:45

these

56:46

appeals from these forces and

56:50

seeing them on the back foot

56:51

trying to catch up with us was incredible.

56:54

But

56:54

I think one of the

56:57

sources of counterinsurgency that we tend to

56:59

see

57:00

in these moments and again, we

57:02

can point to

57:03

Occupy or George

57:06

Floyd uprising and so on is

57:08

electoral politics. And

57:10

it's a major force

57:13

for demobilization

57:15

in these moments. And you know, we saw

57:17

it in

57:19

my lifetime too was the anti-war

57:21

movement getting stuffed up by Obama's

57:23

campaign,

57:24

Occupy being channeled

57:27

toward

57:29

electoral politics,

57:32

the priority of ceding

57:34

Trump and getting Biden

57:36

in office, taking center stage,

57:38

so on and so forth. We see that time

57:40

and time again. And to

57:43

your point earlier about the

57:45

New Deal, I mean, you can

57:47

really see the New Deal

57:50

as a

57:51

ruling class compromise in the face

57:54

of a credible threat from

57:56

the left. And I think our

57:58

task is to become a credible

58:01

threat

58:01

that forces concessions from the ruling

58:04

class.

58:05

And we're not quite there

58:07

yet

58:07

on a national scale, although I

58:10

do think we saw the potential

58:12

that we had during the George Floyd uprising.

58:14

And

58:18

we saw that in

58:21

burning police stations, occupied police stations,

58:23

tearing down statues, you name it. And

58:26

I think

58:28

we need to harness that potential

58:30

that we saw for

58:31

the long term. Yeah,

58:34

absolutely.

58:35

Well, I have one more question for

58:37

you before we wrap up here. And it's sort of... Well,

58:39

it has to do with everything we've been

58:41

discussing. There's a new element

58:44

on the historical scene, as it were, that

58:47

our comrades in the past and both anarchists

58:49

and Marxist traditions haven't had

58:51

to face. And we will absolutely have to center

58:53

it in our struggle, which is climate

58:55

change. Right now, we're living through

58:58

the hottest month of July. Well, now it's

59:00

turned over to August. But the last month has been the

59:02

hottest on planet

59:04

Earth

59:05

in 120,000 years. People

59:08

in Phoenix were just tripping and

59:10

falling on the sidewalk, burning the skin off

59:12

their bodies, having to go to burn units. We've

59:14

seen the wildfires. We've seen the

59:16

floods. This is not going away.

59:19

Even if we stopped all fossil fuel production

59:21

tomorrow, the momentum of the system

59:23

itself is still going to make the rest of our lives

59:26

incredibly precarious with regards to

59:28

climate destabilization. And we all know we're

59:31

not stopping tomorrow, not even close. So

59:33

what does that mean for our future?

59:35

Well, one thing it means is that whatever

59:37

left tendency you're coming out of, whatever organization

59:40

you're in, whatever vision for the future you have,

59:42

you're going to have to wrestle

59:44

with the elephant in the room, which is

59:46

climate change. And as with every crisis

59:49

and every terrible thing, it presents

59:51

both daunting challenges as

59:53

well as an array of opportunities

59:56

for those of us on the left interested

59:59

in building.

59:59

an egalitarian and just world.

1:00:02

So what role does climate change sort

1:00:04

of play in your personal analysis

1:00:07

or in Black Rose's collective analysis or

1:00:09

just have an open discussion about the importance

1:00:12

of addressing climate

1:00:14

change and taking advantage of the opportunities

1:00:17

that are going to arise from it while also trying

1:00:19

to, through mutual

1:00:22

aid or organizational structures that take

1:00:24

care of people, trying to meet the material

1:00:27

needs of people who are going to be

1:00:29

increasingly

1:00:29

attacked by these

1:00:33

chaotic weather patterns and these climate shifts.

1:00:35

So what are your thoughts on climate change and the importance

1:00:38

of climate change to all of this?

1:00:39

Yeah.

1:00:42

This is a central aspect

1:00:45

of our conjunctural analysis.

1:00:48

Obviously of all the sort of

1:00:50

overlapping crises that we're facing, the

1:00:52

ecological crises is the most existential

1:00:55

that we face and it's

1:00:57

something that we're looking at closely

1:01:00

and experiencing personally.

1:01:03

And if you look at our

1:01:07

short term strategy or

1:01:09

general strategy, I

1:01:12

think some people might say, well, this

1:01:14

doesn't necessarily center

1:01:17

explicitly interventions around

1:01:20

ecological crises, but I think

1:01:22

one of the important insights

1:01:25

of the late Murray Bookchin,

1:01:27

who I know a lot of people have

1:01:29

been

1:01:30

revisiting in recent

1:01:32

years, particularly because of his work

1:01:35

on sort of shining a light

1:01:37

on the ecological crises well before a lot

1:01:40

of the left did in the 60s and the 70s.

1:01:44

One of the key insights that

1:01:47

I think he put forward around the

1:01:49

concept of social ecology is to say

1:01:52

that the ecological crises that we're

1:01:54

facing is rooted

1:01:56

in social problems, essentially,

1:01:59

and that you can't...

1:01:59

can't neatly disentangle those things.

1:02:02

And so I think it's important

1:02:04

to highlight

1:02:05

that to the extent that we are

1:02:08

fighting white supremacy or settler colonialism,

1:02:11

we are

1:02:12

fighting ecological crises. To

1:02:14

the extent that

1:02:15

we are waging class struggle

1:02:18

in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods,

1:02:20

against landlords, against bosses, we

1:02:22

are fighting against ecological

1:02:25

crises. And so there is

1:02:27

a sort of, I

1:02:29

think, indirect relationship there that's

1:02:31

not always appreciated or

1:02:34

understood

1:02:35

when

1:02:37

it comes to how to respond to the ecological

1:02:39

crisis. And I think

1:02:41

there's a sort of similar

1:02:44

point to be made around, say, feminist

1:02:46

struggle, for example,

1:02:49

where I think when people think

1:02:51

about feminist struggle, they think

1:02:53

about these kind of marquee

1:02:57

feminist fights around bodily

1:03:00

autonomy, around domestic violence,

1:03:02

all of which are critical, all of which are central.

1:03:06

But then you can't somehow see

1:03:08

that nurses going

1:03:11

on strike is part of feminist struggle,

1:03:13

a significant part of feminist struggle in the United

1:03:15

States or that the strike wave

1:03:17

that myself and other

1:03:21

public school teachers were a part of

1:03:24

in 2018, 2019 as a feminist struggle, for

1:03:26

example, and also an ecological

1:03:29

struggle.

1:03:30

And so I think

1:03:32

a kind of social ecology

1:03:35

framework is useful to

1:03:37

think about how

1:03:39

we start to

1:03:41

approach this really deeply

1:03:44

entangled problem that

1:03:46

is a global one that we're all facing.

1:03:49

And I think related

1:03:51

to that

1:03:52

is, I think,

1:03:54

strengthening our bonds internationally.

1:03:57

And that's something that

1:03:59

I've always appreciated about

1:04:02

Black Rose, Rosa Negresense. I came

1:04:04

in that we've always had very

1:04:06

strong international ties and

1:04:09

we're part of an international anarchist coordination

1:04:12

of

1:04:15

organized anarchist groups around the world. Includes

1:04:18

over a dozen, if

1:04:22

not more, organizations globally.

1:04:25

This is a global problem and it's going to require

1:04:28

global coordination to

1:04:31

think through and address.

1:04:33

We don't pretend to have all

1:04:35

the answers,

1:04:37

but I do think that there's going to be aspects

1:04:40

of

1:04:41

the struggle that include more

1:04:43

legible interventions

1:04:48

around the ecological crisis that we've seen, whether

1:04:50

it's the fights around

1:04:52

the Dakota Access Pipeline and

1:04:55

other

1:04:57

struggles.

1:04:59

And indigenous folks have definitely been on

1:05:01

the front lines of these battles.

1:05:04

And then there's a way in which I think

1:05:07

we can see the broader

1:05:10

class struggle that we're

1:05:12

seeing various expressions of in this moment

1:05:15

as also

1:05:16

part of an ecological struggle.

1:05:19

Because to the extent that we're able to

1:05:22

balance the forces

1:05:24

in our favor,

1:05:25

then we're going to be better positioned

1:05:27

to really chopping at

1:05:30

the roots

1:05:31

of the ecological crisis, which

1:05:33

are rooted in capitalism and

1:05:35

so on.

1:05:36

And not just these

1:05:38

sort of surface level manifestations

1:05:42

or

1:05:43

these kind of liberal interventions around

1:05:45

dealing with our consumption patterns

1:05:47

and so on and so forth, right? We got to get enough

1:05:52

electric cars on the road or things

1:05:54

like that.

1:05:56

It's a major

1:05:58

lift that I think...

1:05:59

we're all going to have to

1:06:02

struggle around together. But

1:06:05

yeah, it's by far one

1:06:07

of the most central and

1:06:10

critical struggles

1:06:12

that we're facing. Yeah, definitely. And

1:06:14

I really appreciate how you showed

1:06:16

how all these seemingly disparate struggles

1:06:18

are actually profoundly and inexorably

1:06:21

interconnected. I think that is the

1:06:23

starting point for any coherent

1:06:26

analysis has to be the understanding

1:06:28

of that all of these struggles are not separate

1:06:30

entities or separate events happening, but

1:06:33

they all are intertwined with one another

1:06:35

and bolster one another. I think it's incredibly

1:06:38

important. So the document is

1:06:40

Turning the Tide, an Anarchist Program

1:06:43

for Popular

1:06:43

Power put out by the wonderful

1:06:45

Black Rose Anarchist Federation. Thank

1:06:48

you so much, Enrique and Roxanna,

1:06:50

who had to leave us a little bit earlier,

1:06:52

but I really appreciate her time as well, and

1:06:54

all the folks over at Black Rose doing

1:06:57

really important and crucial work. Even

1:06:59

if you are not an anarchist

1:07:01

or not an anarchist organization, there's

1:07:04

so much to learn from this. And as

1:07:06

a Marxist myself, I would love to see Marxist organizations

1:07:10

continue to do stuff like this,

1:07:12

to do this sort

1:07:13

of deep analysis and this

1:07:16

political programming within organizations

1:07:18

I think is crucial. And Black Rose is really

1:07:20

giving us a wonderful example

1:07:22

and template of just how to

1:07:25

do that. Before I let you go, though, Enrique,

1:07:27

can you please let us know where listeners can find,

1:07:29

support, or even join Black Rose

1:07:31

Anarchist Federation online?

1:07:34

Yeah, so you can find us at

1:07:36

blackrosefed.org. We're

1:07:39

also on Instagram and

1:07:41

Twitter and all that good

1:07:44

stuff. There

1:07:46

is a Join tab that's on the website

1:07:49

if you're interested in joining. I'm

1:07:51

actually the integration secretary, so

1:07:54

I'll probably be the one fielding

1:07:57

the calls.

1:07:59

to thank you Brett and Rev. Left

1:08:02

for giving us the opportunity and

1:08:04

hopefully it won't be another five years until

1:08:06

we talk again. Always appreciate

1:08:09

conversations with y'all. Yeah, thank you so much. I

1:08:11

was just gonna say that. Let's talk again

1:08:13

before five years, but yes

1:08:16

it's very cool to see Black Rose continuing

1:08:18

to put in the work as many organizations

1:08:21

rise and fall. Black Rose has

1:08:23

stayed steady and it's really admirable,

1:08:25

laudable, and I love to see it.

1:08:27

So yeah, you have a home here at Rev. Left

1:08:29

anytime.

1:08:29

I would love to keep a connection

1:08:32

going and see how Black Rose continues

1:08:35

to evolve in the years to come, but whatever

1:08:37

happens please keep up the good work

1:08:40

and know that you always have Rev. Left as

1:08:42

a platform to come on and keep people in

1:08:44

the loop as to what's happening.

1:08:46

Thanks, we appreciate it.

1:08:57

We're living in a death machine.

1:09:28

We're steering. It's just gonna

1:09:30

keep on killing. You'll be fine. No way

1:09:33

to finally break the routine.

1:09:35

But you might as well face the music. You're

1:09:38

living in a death machine. This

1:09:49

ain't no call to action.

1:09:51

Can't give no satisfaction. Not even sure

1:09:54

what I was trying

1:09:56

to say. At least until

1:09:58

it stops existing. This fucking

1:10:01

time bomb keeps ticking, shit man,

1:10:04

god damn that's just obscene Living

1:10:09

in a death machine In

1:10:13

the belly of a death

1:10:14

machine Everybody

1:10:19

to the death machine Living

1:10:24

in a death machine www.LRCgenerator.com