The Big Other Doesn't Exist (Keith) by X.

“The question of revolution is a question of seizing power”
-Mao

“We must organize to take power where we can literally put our hands on it”
-Amiri Baraka

To see the immediate relevance of these seemingly radical comments we must use imagination. Power is available now. It is not a question for a revolution in some distant future. During the “People’s Campaign of 2000”* we learned power can be something as simple as a roomful of angry parents.

The New Brunswick Board of Education (appointed by the mayor) decided to use a series of trailers as classrooms for elementary school children while new schools were being built. An outrageous plan, it drew the ire of the teachers union and parents. Over a hundred people gathered at the board of ed meeting where the plan was to be discussed. The board, as is its custom, appeared on a platform, saluted the flag, pledged allegiance and then adjourned to a “closed door session” for about a half hour before returning to the platform to address the assembly. The custom is an outrage and a scandal against democracy, but also our opportunity.

After the board left the room, a hundred odd people had nothing to do but sit and wait for their return. A number of campaign organizers attended this meeting including two of our city council candidates. We decided to use the opportunity to hold an alternative meeting and while the board conspired behind closed doors, we would hold an open democratic meeting. The board had left microphones (they intended them to be used under their direction.). Our candidates turned the microphones on, power was seized. We spoke to the audience about our campaign and the question of education and invited parents and teachers to take the microphone themselves. It was a bold but simple move. Nothing stopped us but our own fears. We are socialized, in school, in families, in churches etc. to sit quietly, to give our consent to idiotic un-democratic authority. Although the system is not afraid to resort to the gun, they don’t have enough of them. They must rely on our consent, our fear of acting without authorization, our fear of acting without credentials--our instinctual submission to authority or anything that sounds like an authority. Although I am not religious, what makes Jesus so radical is the comment he makes over and over before he teaches: “You have read such and such in the scriptures but I say this and that.” Who authorized him to say “this and that”? No one. As X has been saying “there is no spoon.” This is something that we have to learn as a movement and as individuals.

Indeed, realizing “there is no spoon” is only a beginning, and on this occasion it was as far as we got. We might have been able to make more of it if we were better prepared. We could have organized the parents and teachers into a more forceful opposition, placing the question of democracy before them in its most radical fashion —self-determination, democracy means, in part, you do it yourself— nor did we succeed in moving the crowd out of protest mode, but we learned an important lesson. When the board returned they were surprised to see the people getting along quite well without them, and although they immediately restored their version of order and the meeting proceeded according to their agenda they were not able to carry forward the trailer plan, and I like to think that in the moment they returned from backstage and saw people taking the matter into their own hands they got a glimpse of their future irrelevance.

* The People's Campaign was a progressive, grassroots, independent and democratically-run campaign that ran three candidates for City Council in New Brunswick in the 2000 elections against the long-entrenched city machine. The progressive platform of the campaign was developed by surveying over 1,000 homes throughout the community and it was approved -along with the three community candidates- at an open convention of New Brunswick residents and allies. The People's Campaign won 28% of the vote in this first attempt at applying a revolutionary democratic organizing approach to an electoral campaign in New Brunswick. More discussion of the People's Campaign and its impact will soon appear on the Pirate Caucus blog. (X)

Keith, who contributed this article, was one of the three People's Campaign candidates for the New Brunswick City Council in 2000. (X)