In 1996 the New Brunswick the police murdered Carolyn “Sissy” Adams in the middle of the night. Local organizers (the group at the time was called the New Jersey Freedom Organization (NJFO) learned of the murder and released a flyer that hit the street before the morning newspapers calling for a demonstration that evening. Thousands of people turned out and the crowd grew as we marched through the city. We marched onto the highway and shut down the courts for the evening, it was thrilling and we made lots of radical demands like an “all elected civilian police control board” (still a good project). But we didn’t really know what to do next. So we called for another rally... surprise, surprise, there were a lot less people at the second rally. We still didn't know what to do so we went on to call for another rally, although we could see the writing on the wall and had the good sense to call it a “vigil.” We were, like much of the left today, stuck in protest mode. After discussions, thinking, and more practice we started to draw lessons. We concluded that protests are very limited if they are not linked up with a movement building revolutionary democratic organization of people working and deciding together and struggling seriously for political power -- school boards, dog catcher, PTA, student government, City Council, whatever, as long as it is piece by piece and step by step building and growing a revolutionary democratic movement, building dual power and undermining the power of the bourgeois state. BTW, the national anti-war movement is stuck in protest mode—the demonstrations started very large, just like our initial demonstration, but they keep getting smaller and smaller. This is probably a predictable pattern. An initial large rally in protest of whatever heinous act perpetuated by the bourgeoisie against the people, and increasingly smaller rallies as the people increasingly realize nothing will come of these protests. The people are right, of course, we must organize for revolutionary democratic power.
Protests can be an excellent way to build a movement, but protest mode is an excellent way to destroy a movement. “Protest Mode” makes demands on the “powers that be” but never organizes to take power. Before the war in Iraq began, millions of people participated in demonstrations of protest in the United States and throughout the world. Despite these protests the war started and continues. The problem is relatively simple. The people currently in power, Democrats and Republicans, work for the same rich people, the same corporations (well different corporations—but they all work for corporations) and they will continue to make war regardless of protest.
Protest mode is stuck, then, either in this realization, or the fallacy of benevolence. The fallacy of benevolence fails to realize there isn’t anyone to protest to. The people who run our local, state, and federal government are not good people with the wrong facts. They know exactly what they are doing-- the people that fund their campaigns profit immensely by making the world hell. They can’t be convinced to do otherwise. They must be removed from power. Others stuck in protest mode can’t think of anything else to do. So they organize more “militant” protests: die-ins, fist-shaking, smash the windows of corporate buildings, overturn Fox-New vans, confront the police, or the most militant of all: get arrested! You would only allow yourself to be captured, handcuffed, and jailed if you believe in the ultimate benevolence of the system. We shouldn’t, we should know that it is a malicious system that will not stop war and murder until it is revolutionized.
The question is this: if the people in power will not end the war then we need new people in power. If the Democrats and Republicans both work for corporations who should we put in power? The answer is: US!!!! Not “us” as in “ourselves” narrowly conceived. We need to put representatives of the diverse trends of the revolutionary democratic mass movement in political office. We must transform the way we choose candidates and we must take special precautions to hold them accountable to the decisions of the movement.
In bourgeois representative democracy leaders are elected who are supposed to make decisions that the masses of people can’t understand—that’s why there is always more focus on their character and personality rather than issues of substance. They are “enlightened representatives.” Representatives of the revolutionary democratic movement, on the other hand, actually serve the demands of the masses of people directly and one of their key tasks in office is to breakdown all the undemocratic structures of the bourgeois state, so that representation gives way to direct democracy. We are not confronting the state (protest mode) we are taking the state and transforming it.
This is the revolutionary path, the revolutionary process. We must organize to take power wherever we can put our hands on it—school boards, student governments, student newspapers, PTAs, City Councils, state legislators, governors and so forth. We must transform the way we choose our candidates and the ways that we hold them accountable, there will be no sell out. As we win local power we can connect with others who have also organized successfully. A protest is great if it is linked to a movement struggling for power, then we are not protesting the powers that be, but organizing to take power. Taking power little by little is the essence of the revolutionary process and we can start now.
In New Brunswick, NJ we analyzed our history of practice and the way that local government is organized. In order to win local power, we concluded, we must organize first to transform the local electoral system from one where candidates are elected “at-large” to one where candidates are elected in “wards”--neighborhood by neighborhood—so each neighborhood can elect their own representatives and people power can defeat the power of money. This will radically democratize the city. Corporations rely on the suppression of democracy to wage war. The ward campaign will begin to reverse this so that anti-war sentiment and other projects of the majority of the country will be realized.
Winning the campaign—that is transforming the electoral system of the city from an at-large system to a ward based system—is necessary if we are to win seats in the local government and revolutionize that power. But the most important aspect of the campaign is the development of a mass revolutionary democratic movement—people working together and deciding together. We must concentrate on building the movement and deepening the level of democratic participation of more and more people.
The war in Iraq will not end until the people are organized as a power to end it. The ward campaign is a crucial step on the road to revolutionary democratic power. By democratizing the city we can propose and agitate for laws that will bring the war to an end. We can pass laws that require anti-recruiters to be stationed at all army recruitment posts to ensure that potential recruits are told the truth about the war, we can propose a lie tax so that army recruitment stations must pay higher property taxes, we can close the recruitment stations, or make it illegal to recruit in high schools. We can refuse to enforce the patriot act and other undemocratic measures of the so-called war on terror. We can create a liberated territory of amnesty for all military personnel who refuse to fight, and whatever other real measures we can develop backed by the power of organized people to end the war and revolutionize the society.
