Discussion on the meaning of Revolution in our movement (Erik, X., Steve) by Steve the Pirate

This is a conversation started by Erik one late night in which he discusses the framing of using the word REVOLUTION and what it means to our Revolutionary Democratic Movement. The latter messages are responses.

-So I had this long conversation with my mom about how I view the world. What we are trying to accomplish, what Rev Dem is.. etc. etc. It was fun but she kept being focused on how to her the word revolution had a negative connotation, and blah blah, I tried to talk it out with her, but it only went so far, but at the end she said hey, "why don't you call it...... instead.(if you want to know what she suggested, you must read along!)

Revolutionary Democracy- So it's a little late in the game to mess with a brand that's been working. But I been thinking about it, I say we really have something going with this whole "Not Left, Not Right, but Forward" and the whole EON "millennium" vibe. It's slick my mom will give to an org like that. Also they played around with a bunch of names for my generation including the "zips" "zeroes" "nothings" but in all the election coverage of the "youth vote" we were referred to as the "millennials".

SO I also think a theme we push with great success is the differentiating ourselves from the traditional left. I say we keep on with that motif. I think that the more we demarcate ourselves as something new, original, and based on a wide variety of influences, some from the left, some from corporate, some from our experience at New Brunswick, the more we have a chance of getting people really excited about what we're doing. The fact is the world Revolution is not a good one, I mean don't get me wrong to those of us who are in a place to understand this word in an unfettered context I will always consider myself a "Revolutionary", but to be honest I've always had a problem with the word "Revolution."

When I was at the first TSU retreat and we were in some abstract discussion about Revolution and Mark Pruce said something and he said, "remember what the word revolution means" it means to go in a circle. And he seemed to think this was a good thing, but I distinctly remember thinking, "Wow it does mean go in a circle, that's kind of lame". Now I know if you throw in the concept of a dialectic Revolution actually means progression of some kind, but the fact is that the average person is never going to want to deal with dialectics at 8am in the morning if you know what I mean.

SOOOO, My point is this. X we've talked more often about how with the law of accelerated returns that things are going to happen quickly society is going to shift quickly and what really matters isn't forcing that future to have the identity we choose, but to ensure that it is determined democratically.

Soooooo my mom said "why don't you call it" Evolutionary instead. And I thought about it, and I said, "Mom ya know if we do change the brand I promise you'll get quite flattered." I really think that these are a real viable way to go, and I think it is a really important decision. I know we say not to argue over words, but I'm making the case that I think as much as we ground what we do in a firm understanding of the past. We need to be bold, Keith, you always have that poem at the bottom of your emails, about how we can't take our poetry from the past but have to come up with our own images. I really think we need to complete the break with whole conception of 19th century storm the barricades. Especially in these economic times. It's the complete wrong sort of idea. Unless there are food riots in America, people are not going to seize the state by force, and I cannot imagine any scenario where we do seize the state by force in the foreseeable, ending positively for us, or the rest of the world. So let's break with the idea.

The truth is think about it, and i want to offer Two options.

Evolutionary Democracy
rEvolutionary Democracy

They suggest what we are doing which is allowing more efficient systems to take over in society, and to give people control over how their society changes evolves and where it's going.



We'll talk more about this some other time,

Red Erik

X's response

Time is just too short these days...Anyways...

I use the word revolution because it is accurate. From dictionary.com:

-An overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed.

I would add, most importantly, economic. And social, cultural, etc.

Democracy, when allowed its full revolutionary swing, will mean a complete repudiation of capitalism as people build a completely different world. The capitalist system will be as alien to the future denizens of Revolutionary Democracy as the Middle-Ages are alien to us two hundred years after the bourgeois revolutions (we can barely imagine what it was like to live under the despotic rule of king and church). Whether it ever involves barricades to resist martial law or mass street mobilization to prevent the overthrow of the emerging revolutionary democratic rule (as with the attempted coup in Venezuela) is irrelevant. The scope of the transformation (and thus the essence and sharpness of the struggle for and against it) will be revolutionary. I would feel dishonest calling it anything else.

But we don't need to "convert" everyone to the idea that democracy requires revolution! We just need to organize people to practice democracy. Hence, EON should not require that its members adhere to "revolutionary democracy" (anymore than Tent State should, even as it is freely discussed). We don't need to come up with a single brand and a single formula to satisfy everyone's comfort level (that always fails, including in corporate advertising). We should work with all our allies to develop ideas, projects and organizations that accurately represent the many different sections of the 21st century progressive class alliance. In the case of your Mom, who has been a great supporter of the movement for years, I would recommend asking her what she would like to see in terms of ideas, projects and organizations rather than trying to ask her to join the Pirate Caucus...

One love,

-X.

A Pirate Response

I agree with both of you. We have to show "outsiders" or people not in the movement,what we are really about. Now it is not easy to get what we are about in one paper or one meeting, for most of us, it took months becoming organizers to conceptualize the work we are doing and the big picture. I know my own parents have had some misconceptions from " Now all of a sudden, you're a communist!?" to "Why do you spend so much time with this, they will not care about what happens to you after you graduate!"

It is so hard to slap together something catchy and slick, to a movement that has become an extended family and a new culture to counter the "American" culture and "counter-culture." There is nothing wrong with playing with ideas like pirates and the Matrix, if it works. YAR!!

Maybe the economic crisis is just the atmosphere to get ideas out there to people, offering them new and "revolutionary" ideas. I think we have already broken away with the idea of "waiting for the revolution," we are making sure that Revolution happens without capitalism knowing it, that its "legs being cut from underneath," to use a figurative metaphor. The "revolution is happening" is more our thinking, slowly, but surely.

We can't get caught up in words because they are easily turn against us. A lot of use the WORD "revolution" a lot because it means different things to different people, even jokingly. The MOVEMENT knows what we mean because it is almost like an inside joke. So is it so hard to open ourselves to "outsiders," or are "outsiders" open enough to accept new possibilities?

This idea of "THE MOVEMENT" could be emphasized, its' really up to us. Erik, your parents have been nothing but supportive and so have mine. It's up to us to keep them connected to the movement (plugged in). Look at that used "movement" in a sentence without realizing it. It was because of people like Mrs. Straub and others who challenge us to not get "comfortable" with being the "new left," but going beyond that, despite what simple minded reactionaries say, right or left.

Let's take some time in the retreat to seriously consider where we are going and how we are getting there. The movement's at the 7 inning stretch of a decade of organizing. It's time we show the rest of the world was going down in the Bruns.

TAKE EVERYTHING YOU CAN, GIVE NOTHING BACK,
Steve the Pirate

Please tell us what you think!