Reportback on the Everything For Everyone Festival

Multi-Tendency Meeting of 60+ Activists
in Seattle Represents A Small Step
Toward An Open Network of Activists

http://artfrancisco.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/a-reportback-by-ben-seattle-on-the-multi-tendency-meeting-during-the-everything-for-everyone-festival/

Nice

Why the slam against SA as a cult? Socialist Alternative candidate Kshama Sawant was able to place 2nd in the primary via write-in and is now running against longtime state house speaker Frank Chopp (D-43). While electoral politics is increasingly frustrating, we have to start somewhere in knocking off ossified elected officials. We have to stop giving Democrats a free pass in winning these seats.

While I don't know all the particulars of SA, I appreciate that there's an actual candidate to vote for in a deeply blue district.

I used to be a member of SA, and while I left that organization because of their rigid adherence to their doctrine and crappy business sense, I have never seen them disrupt a multiple tendency meeting.
Indeed disruptions usually came from individual " anarchists" and a misplaced paranoia of anything that smacked of organization or leadership.
Who were these activists mentioned in the first few lines of the article? If you read between the lines it seems that the " multiple tendency" meeting begins to suspiciously look like an " anarchist only" meeting.

The multiple tendency meeting included activists from about every major anti-capitalist organization in the country including Marxist BOC, The Kasama Project, Open Network, Take Back the Block Atlanta, Bring the Ruckus, Culture of Resistance, multiple members representing different groups from Oakland, Chicago, Philly, and NYC. There were several Anarchists from different cities as well including activists from the Troy Davis Collective, IWW, SeaSol, etc.

Regarding the SA being disruptive, they have gained a reputation among both Anarchists and Marxists for disrupting anti-capitalist meetings and debates--wasting valuable time. Kshama Sawant (who is not a Democrat) represents a break into a third party, Sawant was endorsed by the Democratic party's main newspapers Capital Hill Times and Stranger (which have publicly attacked militant anti-capitalists since the beginning of Occupy. Not a single militant anti-capitalist in town supports the Social Democratic cults as they have destroyed all of their credibility through the course of both the Anti-War mvmt and the Occupy mvmt.


The two main Social Democratic Newspapers (and historical lackeys of the Democratic Party) on Sawant.. indicating that the bourgeoisie is giving the nod to toothless third party Mensheviks in order to recoup their losses with the Democratic party:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/meet-kshama-sawant/Content?oid=14483326
http://www.capitolhilltimes.com/2012/04/your-third-party-alternatives/

Some of the most damning critiques of the Socialist Alternative (blue trots) have been made actually by red trots like the IG, other groups have raised similar public criticisms such as the Marxist-Leninists.

http://www.internationalist.org/naderfootsoldiers1004.html
http://www.internationalist.org/libyaopportunistleft1104.html

I can only report what I have seen with my own eyes.
From what I have seen, the SA membership is adamantly opposed to seeing itself or the Occupy Movement being co- opted by the democrats.
I guess they drew the ire of advocates of " direct action" ( i.e. breaking the personal property of ordinary citizens and lighting fires) for condemning that approach.
Sorry comrade, I'm not buying a chart drawn by a campus radical and a couple of 'zine articles as proof.

Say what you will about The Stranger, but you have to know that there's a lot of ex-Democratic Party people like myself who are looking for an alternative. Frank Chopp is a bad actor, and anyone with the cajones to run against him has my support. Chopp has been part of the problem with squandering a progressive majority in Washington State for the better part of 25 years. The Stranger is providing an outlet for this frustration, and last time I checked, there simply isn't a pure socialist media outlet with the circulation of The Stranger.

You talk of Mensheviks, blue trots, red trots, and tendencies, but for "average folks", that kind of rhetoric has no resonance. I protested at WTO, support Occupy, and a socialist alternative to our current capitalist system, but I don't attend multi-tendency meetings. Does that make me a sell out? At what point do we stow away "labelism" and get our sh*t together to change this country for the better?

I completely understand those who don't want to engage in electoral politics. But with a system in crisis, we must have both the direct action component and the electoral component, if to at least show resistance to the powers that be in multiple forms. When those of us still on the sidelines get re-engaged in electoral politics, its all the more easier to then take the next step and engage in direct action.

At what point do we stow away "labelism" and get our sh*t together to change this country for the better?

This, either you are for the means of production being owned and more importantly controlled by the people, or you aren't, we can argue semantics and nit picky stuff after we've done away with capitalism.

gendoikari87 wrote:

At what point do we stow away "labelism" and get our sh*t together to change this country for the better?

This, either you are for the means of production being owned and more importantly controlled by the people, or you aren't, we can argue semantics and nit picky stuff after we've done away with capitalism.

Yeah, we have to go there to make this happen. Even the threat of this occurrence might be enough to start seeing change.

I used to think we could get things done with progressive taxation and wealth re-distribution, but the owners decided to stack the system with the lobbyists, think tanks, and corporate ownership of the elections process. Funny to think that the conservatives once panicked about the potential for a majority of votes wanting to redistribute wealth, when as it turned out they just bought the whole system.

FelidaFAL wrote:Say what you will about The Stranger, but you have to know that there's a lot of ex-Democratic Party people like myself who are looking for an alternative. Frank Chopp is a bad actor, and anyone with the cajones to run against him has my support. Chopp has been part of the problem with squandering a progressive majority in Washington State for the better part of 25 years. The Stranger is providing an outlet for this frustration, and last time I checked, there simply isn't a pure socialist media outlet with the circulation of The Stranger.

You talk of Mensheviks, blue trots, red trots, and tendencies, but for "average folks", that kind of rhetoric has no resonance. I protested at WTO, support Occupy, and a socialist alternative to our current capitalist system, but I don't attend multi-tendency meetings. Does that make me a sell out? At what point do we stow away "labelism" and get our sh*t together to change this country for the better?

I completely understand those who don't want to engage in electoral politics. But with a system in crisis, we must have both the direct action component and the electoral component, if to at least show resistance to the powers that be in multiple forms. When those of us still on the sidelines get re-engaged in electoral politics, its all the more easier to then take the next step and engage in direct action.

+ 1

I think you'll find that any degree of success by the SA or any other electoral third way socialist parties will lead to a degeneration similar to France or the ANC in South Africa (since they actually embracing and accepting assimilation into the capitalist system instead of overthrowing it). The SA by the way took plenty of heat for their endorsement and support of capitalist Ralph Nader.

http://www.communistvoice.org/45cFrance.html