May Day Again!

May Day in NYC

While some cities might have had exciting May Day celebrations, the one in New York City was the same except that there were fewer people. The bad weather might have been one reason why the crowd was smaller  However, after listening to most of the speeches, my feeling is that the Socialist movement here might be suffering from attrition. For the speeches will do little to attract more members.

Now some conservatives might respond with a "what do you expect from socialists?" remark. And the answer is I don't expect Socialists to sound like every other group in America including its two major parties.

The strident all-or-nothing speeches were designed for the choir. Unfortunately, the choir is an already small audience. For any movement to grow, it must reach out to others. And for all that those speeches did, they didn't reach out to others. While the speakers said some horrible things about police officers in general, they were speaking to the choir. I have asked a couple of officers what they thought of what was said about them they counted what was said as just words. 

As the speakers spoke against Capitalism with great anger I wondered who of my friends would stay around to listen. It was a rhetorical wondering.

While the speakers described how immigrant families are targeted by officials or about how the US is interfering with the domestic concerns of other nations, I wished that my friends could be there to listen. But they would have never made it past the angry words spoken about the police. 

In short, the speakers at May Day resembled, in general, Democrats or Republicans when they talk amongs themselves. They also resembled the Conservatives I talk to on the blogs. What is the similarity between all of the groups? They all talk about needing to win control over all other groups. In other words, the two major political parties, many of the religious and political conservatives I talk with, and my fellow Socialists are acting like authoritarians. And for as long as we do that, Democracy will be dead because Democracy is about sharing power, not seizing it. And until my fellow Socialists of many stripes, except of course for the Stalinists who are irredeemable, continue to speak that way, they will never make any inroads into other groups and thus will never grow to a critical mass that could make a difference. 

I was interviewed two times. While being interviewed, I was asked about whether electing Trump would set our cause back. I had to say 'no' because we were to small and insignificant to be set back any further. However, the nation will pay dearly regardless of whether it is President Hillary or President Donald. So while the speeches fire up the crowd, because they are written for the choir, they accomplish little if anything.

Now before someone is ready to just write off the authoritarianism that I witnessed, we should note that not only do the two major parties speak in the same way, the leading candidate for each major political party are authoritarians themselves. And this says something about our nation. Democracy is dead here because we don't want it; we prefer to be saved/led by hero leaders. And if Democracy is dead, Socialism doesn't have a chance. 

For an alive Democracy would mean our involvement, participation, and constant vigilance. And neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton are calling on Americans to exhibit those behaviors. Rather, each one is telling us that they alone have the qualificatoins that would enable them to get the job done.

In addition to speaking to fellow Socialists and listening to speeches, I spoke with some police officers and with counter demonstrators. The police I spoke to did not seem to fazed by any of proceedings. Their desire was that the celebration and march would be violence-free and I shared that wish. And for as long as I was there, there was no violence.

The counter demonstrators I spoke to were enthusiastic, easy to talk to, but they needed to do more thinking. As I talked to one counter demonstrator, we both agreed on workplace democracy and how places of employment should be run democratically by the workers. However, this person seemed unaware that such an idea is a Socialist one. I also mentioned that Rosa Luxemburg's criticisms of Lenin's "Communism" was that it was really a bourgeois dictatorship because workers were not the ones in control of the government.

I talked to another counter demonstrator about immigration. I ask him if he thought foreign policy issues and trade bills should be tied to our immigration bills. I then mentioned that the 3 top nations that have produced the most illegal immigrants in America are nations where we have either overthrown their government or made a disastrous trade agreement with. That was not his concern because he was focusing on the idea that the rule of law not kept by the government in terms of how they fail to legally handle immigration can be a gateway policy causing government to ignore other laws as well. I then asked what good is a law if people have to break it in order to survive violence and starvation.

Despite the kinds of speeches being made, it was certainly worth attending this year's May Day celebration. However, for as long as we Socialists are content with preaching to the choir, I am sorry to say that, for the foreseeable future, May 1 will be the only day I will get to celebrate with my fellow Socialists.

Reflections On The Good And Bad Of NYC's May Day, 2015

I love May Day. On that day, I get to congregate with fellow Leftists. And this particular May Day would be special for two reasons: 1) I was eligible for a half-price bus ticket to NYC because of my age and; 2) I didn't know what to expect after the Baltimore riots. See, the May Day celebration in NYC has always addressed unjust law enforcement. 

Having gone down early so I could browse a couple of book stores,  I waited for the festivities to start. There were the usual speeches about workers' rights and how American Imperialism ties in with immigration problems. The speeches contained some good content as well as a justified anger at the current conditions and events.

While down there, I talked to a few police officers as well as some fellow leftists. What I wanted to know from the officers was how they felt about the celebration/protest. I know they could not give a personal opinion but I asked anyway. For a couple, they only cared about the protest being peaceful. Another officer stated that he would be glad to tell me what he thought if he was off duty.

I talked to a fellow leftist who was wearing the emblem from the flag of the Soviet Union on his shirt. This emblem has always bothered me and I count it as the leftist equivalent to the 'stars and bars' of the Confederate States of America flag. He made it clear that he didn't want a return of the old Soviet Union under Stalin. Instead, he wanted a new Soviet Union based on democracy. However, when I asked him about Lenin, he demonstrated the key weakness shared by many of the young protesters who participated: a lack of education. 

My leftist friend seemed quite unaware of the criticisms of Lenin made by some of his contemporaries from within the ranks. These criticisms came from people such as Rosa Luxemburg, Anton Pannekoek, and Karl Kautsky. Noam Chomsky (click here), not a contemporary of Lenin,  echos many of these criticisms when he states that when Lenin took control, his elite-centered takeover of the Revolution and his rule over Russia was, politically speaking, a turn to the Right. My leftist friend also did not know about the purges practiced by Lenin.

His lack of knowledge of Socialism seemed to typify the same in many of the young protesters. Many of these protesters were chanting 'shut the system down' and 'f___ the police.' They would also occasionally yell at bystanders who seemed to be well off. Such expresses the sentiments of Russia's Bolsheviks who wanted revolution to be followed by a centralized government under their control. These Bolsheviks would eventually go after anyone not belonging to their own group.

In contrast to the Bolsheviks were the Mensheviks. They were different from the Bolsheviks in at least 2 ways. First, The Mensheviks believed in the soviets. A soviet was nothing more than a workers' council where decisions were made. The Mensheviks wanted Russia to be ruled by the soviets. The Bolsheviks opposed that because decisions made by the soviets could be made independently. Second, the Mensheviks perceived that Socialism needed to take place in stages and develop over time for it to succeed.¹ The Bolsheviks spoke revolution now because of a lack of patience. The result of how Lenin and the Bolsheviks pursued revolution was that they became another version of the Tsar's regime. Here we should ask if the slogans chanted by my young fellow Leftists indicate that they would follow the Bolsheviks' example if they had the opportunity to get power.

But if that is not enough, what the chants listed above showed was an ignorance what Martin Luther King Jr taught. King not only opposed external violence, he was against internal violence as well. Internal violence was the violence that comes from hating or being bitter. One way such violence is expressed is through words. Rather than fighting people, King sought to win his opponents over. And when that would not work and his opponents were oppressive, he sought to use the law to restrain their abusive behaviors. Here, we should note when one's goal is in winning people over, one is not seeking to conquer. 

Now, especially toward the end of his life, King was a fan of neither the Communism of the Soviet Union nor Western Capitalism. But he was a Socialist of sorts. He accomplished much in his life and he did that by trying to persuade rather than trying to intimidate or force people to join. So we should ask how the chants described above could possibly win over opponents. Rather, such chants were challenges supporting the survival of the fittest. Again, that was the kind of Socialism practiced by the Bolsheviks as they sought to dominate not just the counter-revolutionaries, but dissenting fellow Socialists as well.

In addition, regarding the chant aimed at the police, we have to consider the job of the police officer. There are at least several parts of a police officer's job that I could never do. Yes, the anger at those police officers who practice abuse and racism is justified. But the chant used against all police officers was not. And judging a whole group by the actions of some is nothing more than bigotry. We should also note that in nonviolent revolutions, which is the only kind where the revolutionaries do not seek to subjugate all, cooperation of those who enforce the law is required for success. This was shown in the removal of Milosevic from power in Serbia as well as in the Arab Spring.  And it was also shown when Chavez was briefly overthrown in Venezuela in the early 2000s, but he regained power when a massive number of peasants came into the city causing those who initially supported the coup to give up. If we are really concerned about conducting successful nonviolent revolutions, how is it that we can win over the police when we verbally attack them?

If the Left  is going to have a chance at changing this country, we must learn the history that tells us what has succeeded and what has failed. And we have to decide is whether we prefer to conquer others or persuade our opponents to join us. If the young protesters at NYC's May Day celebration are a reflection of where the Left is, then those who afraid of its politics can rest easy not just for tonight, but for many nights to come.

References

1. A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924, by Orlando Figes, pg 190, 211

The Kind Of Revolution We Need For Ferguson et al

There is something that has gone wrong in the exchanges between the police and the protesters who are reacting to the grand jury decisions in Ferguson and New York. While one side chants 'shut it down,' the other takes offense at any sympathy shown to the protesters and their cause. And as for my fellow Leftists, as long as we are content with the current divisions, we are missing an opportunity to further democracy.

Some of the protesters want to exert their power by stopping events or processes by their mere presence. At this point, such is actually a call to maintain the current power game only to change the identity of those who are in charge. It's not that I couldn't protest with them, it is that we are focussing more on who is in control rather than how to change the control game. So though I could join them because of the rampant racism and abuse of power that exist in law enforcement, a Leftist perspective to solving the problem is missing here.

And when we combine that with the negative police response to sympathetic expressions made to the protesters shown by NFL players, the end result is that we see ourselves in a tribal war between those who favor team Black versus those who favor team Blue. And what confirms that this war is tribal, that is what is right and wrong in this war is mostly determined by who does what to whom, is that we are being forced to pick sides. It seems that we are not allowed to show understanding to both the police, whose jobs can be excruciatingly difficult and even life risking, and people who belong to minorities who have continued to suffer from a harsh racism exercised by those in power.

There is a Leftist solution to our current tribal struggle that has been perhaps deliberately overlooked by many on the Left. That solution would not replace the protests, such would be wrong. Rather, that solution would be added to the protests. That solution would consist of creating groups of representatives from both law enforcement and minority communities who would both listen to each other and share their concerns so that they could perhaps come up with a list of joint suggestions and even demands on which our elected officials would act on. And here, we should be clear that there should be multiple such groups of representatives from  both groups across the whole country who would be participating in such a venture.

Such a getting together is more of an exercise in democracy because we would be involving more of the stakeholders in our  society in making decisions. The more stakeholders involved here, the more self-rule we are exercising. And the more self-rule we are exercising, the stronger is our democracy. 

And for these meetings of the minds between those in law enforcement and those from minority communities to contribute to democracy, they must be put together voluntarily and in great enough numbers. If we wait for the government elites to put together these meetings or to speak for all of us, we would be showing our passivity. Here, we should note that citizen passivity and enjoying a strong democracy is a contradiction in terms. We can't have both. We should also note that democracy is not just exercising the right to speak one's mind, it is working to both create the opportunities for others to speak their minds and to listen to what they have to say despite any possible disagreements one might have with them. To work to have one's own group seize control so that they tell others what to do is undemocratic. 

This blog stated in a previous post that democracy is a state of being for a society. That the more democratic a society is, the more all of its citizens are involved in self-rule. Thus, how democratic a society is, is at least partially determined by the number of democratic processes we practice and employ. Our problem is that we are so easily divided by ideologies and other differences and our personal identities have become so tribally determined that we easily sacrifice the practice of democracy in order to preserve our own group loyalty and advance the causes of our ideological and other tribes or gangs. And proof of how we have sacrificed our democratic processes and state of being can be seen in how unwilling we are to listen to our "opponents" speak. Proof of how we have forsaken democracy can be seen in how willing we are to live in our ideological and other ghettos. 

So thus far, those who have been orchestrating the protests to the Ferguson and New York City grand jury decisions have repeated the mistake that we in the Occupy Movement committed. That mistake was not the mere conducting of protests and establishing encampments. Rather, that mistake was not including with our protests and encampments the inviting of our opponents, the 1%, to come to the table to break bread and talk. This invitation to come together to both listen and make demands should be extended by those from both the minority communities and law enforcement in multiple instances across the whole nation. And the refusal to accept such invitations or to manipulate the proceedings will tell all of us who is for or against the rest of us.