Rev Left Radio - Black Rose Anarchist Federation: Revolutionary Organizing

Episode Date: February 26, 2018

Black Rose Anarchist Federation is an organization of active revolutionaries who share common visions of a new world – a world where people collectively control their own workplaces, communities and land and where all basic needs are met. We are Black Rose Anarchist Federation / Federación Anarquista Rosa Negra (BRRN) and believe in the need to build a specific political organization united around a common set of ideas, strategy, and practice that should speak to the needs of our time, and act as a catalyst in struggles to expand their revolutionary potential. Learn more about Black Rose Anarchist Federation here: http://blackrosefed.org Outro Music: "Which Side Are You On" by Rebel Diaz ft. Dead Prez and Rakaa Iriscience Reach us at: [e-mail] follow us on Twitter @RevLeftRadio Follow us on FB at "Revolutionary Left Radio" Intro Music by The String-Bo String Duo. You can listen and support their music here: https://tsbsd.bandcamp.com/track/red-black This podcast is officially affiliated with The Nebraska Left Coalition, the Nebraska IWW, and the Omaha GDC. Check out Nebraska IWW's new website here: https://www.nebraskaiww.org

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Welcome to hit in and turn it up loud Revolutionary Left Radio starts now. Welcome to Revolutionary Left Radio. I'm your host and comrade Brett O'Shea, and today we have on two representatives from Black Rose Anarchist Federation on to talk about how to organize revolutionary movements and some other issues facing us in the United States and globally currently. Would you guys like to introduce yourselves and say a little bit about your background? Sure, I can go first. So my name is Jan Rogue. I live in Texas and live in different aspects of the class struggle, anarchist movement for probably about 20 years or so. I am currently focused on work around health care and have historically been worked in different feminist and queer social struggles as well as many other. areas. I'm Servius. I'm located in Northern Ireland, and I've been mainly involved in student organizing on campus, and also am involved with the incarcerated workers organizing committee.

That's really where I have most of my energies focused on. Yeah, wonderful. When I was doing the research for this interview, learning more about Black Rose Anarchist Federation, I absolutely loved what I was reading. I think it's an incredibly important organization. So can you talk more about Black Rose Anarchist Federation, what it is, why it was created, and what are some of its core values and goals? Sure. So from my perspective, the origin of Black Rose kind of starts, like a couple of decades ago, at least, there was a lot of folks who were involved in different regional anarchist organizations. Like, you know, one of the more long-term examples was the Northeastern Federation of anarchist communists that eventually came common struggle that was, you know, established in late 90s or early 2000s, I want to say. And then there were also several other organizations like Amanacer in the Bay Area and Miami Autonomy and Solidarity, the Worker Solidarity Alliance, which is an anarchist organization that is national, but then a few other, you know, regional groups. after, you know, a lot of coordinated conversation through, you know, the internet and meeting up in person and stuff kind of led to identifying that there's a lot of common politics between these different groups, you know, with this sort of anarchist communists, focus on social movement, organizing. And that came to establish the class struggle anarchist conference. The first one was in New York City in, I want to say, 2008. And that became a space for coordinated conversation.

an activity between all these different regional organs and some unlined individuals. And, you know, from there, after a few years of organizing and talking about shared politics and shared strategy, Black Rose was founded, and a lot of the organizations that were organizing that conference kind of folded into Black Rose. So that's sort of like the historical origin. And then Black Rose really kind of focused on, you know, a revolutionary organization of anarchist communists that are seeking to, you know, organize with the working class as members of the working class and also incorporated a lot of analysis around white supremacy and heteropatriarchy and, you know, drew a lot from specificism and abolitionism and like share a lot of

strategy as far as social movement work being the main focus versus a lot of the other organizations that in anarchism in the 90s and 2000s, times were more focused on. on the already organized radical left? I mean, I think that there is at least the background of the Federation. Why it was created, you know, gentileged on it, to be able to participate in social movements in ways that we can advance our vision of libertarian socialism within and through those social movements. And that's really all that I would add.

Yeah, and I know you guys describe yourselves as social anarchists. So what is social anarchism and how does this strain of anarchism? differ from other prominent forms of anarchism? So I think in some perspectives, like my own, I would argue personally that social anarchism is anarchism and that other strains are kind of different approaches that I don't know are really consistent with anarchism history, in my opinion. I think that a lot of the times that I come across the term social anarchism,

it's kind of positioning itself as a counter to individualist anarchism or things that are like really focused on sort of lifestyleism or you know the kind of cultural pieces that can surround anarchism in the United States. So I would posit frankly that social anarchism is the foundational understanding and in form of anarchist philosophy and that different strains outside of that theoretical perspective kind of required the differentiation. Absolutely. I think that's I think that's important and I do think that anarcho-communism is, I mean, inherently social. And so, you know, the term social anarchism, as Jen alluded to, is sort of set up as a way to differentiate it from

other sorts of individualist or lifestyle forms of anarchism. I did read your important and insightful strategy document below and beyond Trump. In it, you analyze both the tensions in the ruling class as well as the current social movements on the ground. Can you summarize the analysis, in this document for our listeners and talk about both of these aspects in the process? Okay, yeah, sure. So one of the things that should be mentioned is that although this is a strategy document, this is just a beginning strategy document, right? So this isn't our blueprint for strategy or at all a finalized one, right?

The way that we see this, this is a conjunctural analysis, which is basically a reading of the moment and a reading of the terrain. We wanted to see if we agreed about what the balance of forces were, and what the trends were in the current social and political landscape. So I'm going to try to just go through quickly a few key points in many ways that the document itself is a summary of many discussions that we've had within the organization and informally over the years. So we see the current moment as a political crisis of the elites at the top. There's many factors, but some key drivers and examples are, number one, a decline of West power of global. globally. The role of the U.S. as the leading to power that sets the political rhythm and the rules of global capitalism has been a retreat, right? So we definitely don't see that the U.S. is no longer a superpower. It definitely is. It's just undergoing this political crisis that in the rest of the global forces, its role is being challenged and it's undergoing

you know instillity right so closely tied to this we also see that climate change has also presented growing threats and disruptions driven by changes in the climate obviously which we have seen with you know Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Maria just more recently but of course this goes back further back to Katrina even further than that so the increasing disasters have heightened and increased inequality for poor and working class people throughout the U.S. and throughout the globe. Another point that is worth reading as a driver as an example is internal dissent within the U.S.

So protest is no longer at the margins of society and instead has become increasingly part of U.S. social life, right? So we saw this most prominently with the Occupy movement. And then we also saw a pretty big wave of protest with the anti-police violence. movements that have then become known as Black Lives Matter, right? And all of these have had huge impacts on the political terrain, and I've also opened up huge questions and challenges for all of us. Underlying all of this is the ravages of 40 years of neoliberalism, you know, attacking

wages, unions, de-industrialization, et cetera. And something worth mentioning here, too, is that even neoliberalism itself was a response to crisis in the 70s. So we see that these things are kind of falling at that solution that was initiated in the 70s and affected throughout the 80s and 90s and then in 2000s has just begun to come apart, right? Again, we don't see this as capitalism or the U.S. power becoming irrelevant. It's just that capitalism undergoes moments of crises and the recomposition. With each of these issues, the ruling class is deeply divided.

There's no consensus on how to address these things. This reality has pulled apart the ideological glue, which some people refer to as a ceremony, that holds together the U.S. political system. So the idea that the American dream and increasing prosperity is promised for all has started to go out the window. The idea that we live in a post-facial society has definitely started to go out the window. and this has even already been occurring within Obama's presidency. Another thing also is that the idea of America being a benevolent and global force for good in the world has also started to go out the window, even though for many around the world and for also many within the U.S., that hasn't even been the case, but it's been becoming more of a normalized understanding, right?

For social movements, you know, there's a lot of detailed commentary. in the document that we recommend people check out, the key trends that we see are retrenchment. So seeing this largely coming from institutional left forces, that being nonprofit organizations, NGOs, mainstream unions, and there's a pivot towards a mode of simply hunkering down and defending what we supposedly have and trying to lay down the groundwork for local level victories

for Democrats and other political forces, to return to power in 2018 and 2020. We also see that there's a growing trend on the left of left electoralism. There's various strands of this, you know, the idea of reforming the Democrats to become a more left populist party and that type of thing, the way that organizations like a working family's party is relating to the Democrats and other forces. there's a lot of interest in playing the inside outside game and there's also pushes towards a third party you know of the left or a mass party of the workers and things like that they all have in what they all have in common though is the idea that

the left can build its power through leveraging electoral victories which we don't you know see it to be really a viable alternative or path so while we may understand that people see this and feel like it's exciting and and, you know, as can potentially lead to building on victories, we feel that this is short-sighted, and it's not actually building the actual power that we need. We really see it as kind of like a get power quick scheme or approach. We see the need to push back on this type of approach

and advocate instead for building social movement power, what we tend to refer to as popular power from below. and I highly recommend every listener to go read that document because it's extremely enlightening and it's really it's analytical in a way that we don't often see and I really enjoyed reading that document and it opened up my eyes in a certain directions that I thought were really helpful for my own development but in that exact in that same article you said quote in the same way that socialist organizations argue for the need to build an independent political party we should make our argument for building independent social movements and

quote. We recently had on Jody Dean, and her argument from a communist perspective was building up a party structure in the United States, not necessarily an electoral third party, like the Green Party, but like a revolutionary communist party. Can you talk about the differences between these two positions? And more importantly, and do you think these two strategies can be taken up simultaneously in a way that strengthens both? As far as the first part of your question is concerned. You know, I think from, from at least my perspective, some of the difference is really kind of the, like, where is the focus of struggle, right? So I think from the perspective of, you know, Black Rose and class struggle anarchist organizations and stuff, it's, there's more of a focus

and an interest in building dynamic social movements more than our organizations, right? Like, Because, you know, seeing the social movements as the vehicle for revolutionary change makes that the focus, rather than seeing a party as the focus and the space where the revolution will be, you know, fomented or whatever. Another distinction, at least in my experience, has been the approach to some of the organizing. So the difference between working as like rank and file members of the social movements and unions and, you know, the spaces that were involved in, having that be a position of advocacy from the. the shop floor rather than, you know, trying to achieve some sort of formal leadership within those movements or even staff membership in those movements and imposing or, you know, advocating strategy from more of a top-down approach. You know, that's just been sort of my experience in seeing the difference in the approach of a party orientation versus a specific

political organization that has a focus on social movement. So I think that that is like one of the major distinctions. And another thought is just like that there's a difference in strategies and orientations like, you know, within social movements and how they interact with social movements, but also a different vision in how those social movements should be functioning and what the goals of those social movements might be. And so I think that that is like, you know, another piece of the difference between the two approaches. Definitely, I want you to jump in on this. But I think as far as like kind of the second portion. With the two strategies kind of function simultaneously in a way that strengthens both, you know, I personally I would say, I mean, it's certainly not within the

same organization. I would say no, because I just don't think historically that's how things have worked. One takes precedence over the other, and I have my own thoughts on what I think usually ends up, you know, winning out. And what that looks like, I think is probably a big part of the the distinction between what I would argue top-down approach versus bottom-up approach. Because I really think that's like a key and pivotal part of our analysis. Social movements is that they're self-managed, you know, like that that is like a big piece of our vision and ideas and strategy around revolutionary change. For sure. Related to that, you know, the placing an emphasis on, on like the self-management

of social movements, what that means for us is encouraging, you know, social movements that currently exist, those that have yet to come into being but may emerge, we encourage social movements to come up with their own type of analysis, about the balance of forces, about what the differences are within those social movements, and we could very much see that. I mean, with the anti-police violence or anti-police power movement, we can definitely see that there are different orientations to that, right? And so what we see that the role of a specific political organization, To even be more specific, a specifically anarchist organization is to kind of like be able to have a space to be able to step back and assess our own participation within those social movements, right?

And then, you know, develop strategies of social insertion to participate in social movements to make them as anti-authoritarian as possible, as independent as possible, as having the most directly democratic principles in them. And so, you know, I would agree with what Jen says about where we place our emphasis. We place our emphasis on trying to build the power of social movements to be able to combat the state and capital and other, you know, reactionary forces. And that to us is of primary importance, again, instead of trying to build even our own organization in relation to these things. It's a very interesting point, and I definitely, it's well noted. Ultimately, in that document, you argue against a merely defensive posture and advocate instead for going on the offensive at this crucial historical moment.

Can you highlight what going on the offensive would mean and look like and what we're failing to do now that we should do? So, for one, I mean, it's tough to even answer this question in the U.S. context because we're almost pretty unfamiliar what it can look like to go on the offensive because we really have been on the defensive for quite a long time, right? Sometimes what, you know, supposedly offensive solutions have looked like is kind of like a prefigative, you know, for anarchists has been kind of like a prefigurative infrastructure building type of approach to things. We want to push more of a vision beyond that, right? And let's say an example of an offensive type of outlook and strategy could be what we've been seeing from the anti-police violence movement. related to disempower, disarm, and disbanding the police. And so the reason why we see that as offensive, there's a defensive element to it because the movement won't have grown.

If we weren't put on the defense because black people have been killed and others as well, but mainly black people. But the offensive dimension for us is, you know, disempowering means actually chiseling away at police power in all sectors of society, because we do live in a police state. And we see that that type of vision of disempowering, disarming, and disbanding, kind of gives us some type of a strategic orientation

for how to get to a safer society from the bottom of. And directly related to this, we can think of things like establishing solutions for safety, self-managed solutions for safety on a popular basis. And in some places this has looked like establishing no cop zones or trying to establish no cop zones, which has included building out alternative numbers for emergencies and rapid response networks, which has become pretty popular

within this type of moment of ice rays and other stuff. Again, there's a defensive dimension to this, but we also see this as an offensive. One way to think about it is kind of like a negative power approach and then a positive power approach. Negative being, what is it that we want to negate? And positive being, what is it that we want to create and how can we augment our capacity to create? Reaching back to history, there was a pretty interesting movement in the late 80s and early 90s, the squatters and homeless people's movement that kind of foregrounded what we saw in the 2010s of the Occupy movement. There was an incredible offensive undertaken to secure housing for homeless.

people across different cities. This happened on May Day 1990. And what this looked like was scoping out different, you know, abandoned buildings and abandoning houses and apartments and literally taking them over, restoring water, renovating them and stuff like that, right? One of the things that kind of came out of this was that the federal government actually granted housing to some of these people because they were embarrassed that these homeless people were able to actually take over these houses and make a living for themselves. So out of that, it pressured to stay into creating and broadening housing access. No doubt, of course, you know, the question of how long this was able to last is questionable.

But that's kind of one of the things, right? There wasn't much in place to be able to retain that win. And so we see that, you know, that we need to go, we need to learn from those. lessons and we could even see the reverberations of that type of approach in the midst of the Occupy movement with the take-back-to-land you know in initiatives and occupy the homes types of initiatives again some of those it's questionable how it sustained it was but it gives us a glimpse as to what's possible another offensive type of thing to think about is is the demand for

Medicare or health care for all so you know we believe that it's possible to win and it's not simply out of willpower or anything like that but it's going to take mass popular organizing to achieve these things but it's important for us not to simply try to defend the meager scraps that we have but to actually try to well take over the bakery if you will i think yeah i think the only thing i would add to that is you know i think that there is a lot you know within anarchism and you know like i think the the idea of kind of the prefigrative infrastructure building stuff is often pointed to and can be really valuable, but it's very important that those things are grounded in social movements, that they come

at the organizing of social movements. Because I think that in the times that we see alternative counter-institutions and counter-infrastructure kind of fall down, from my perspective, it's usually because the foundations are based on, you know, anarchists or other radicals identifying the importance of creating this counter-institution, and it's not from like a groundswell of popular support for developing alternatives. So I think that's kind of like the tension in some ways is that we need to be doing these like building counterpower, building counter-institutions, building these alternatives. But, you know, one of the problems that the anarchist movement in the United States over the last

several decades has been, is that it's very, it's been pretty isolated and focused in some, and in some circles kind of focused more inwardly than outwardly and less grounded in social movements. And so that's like kind of one of the things that I would say is a challenge is that, you know, breaking out of that and not having it be based on, well, everybody should have access to space for free schools for and create this community center. Everyone should have access. you know, to health care, so we're going to create this clinic, like that should be a demand that's actually coming from the folks who see the need and through social organizing, not like a kind of moral dress.

I guess that's more like, you know, just a caveat that I make is that, you know, part of expensive strategy is creating counter institutions, but those counter institutions need to come out of organizing and demands of social movements, It's not as a, you know, tack-on pet project from already radicalized folk. Undoubtedly, and if it's okay, I can add some more thoughts to that. For sure. You know, with counter-institution building or, you know, institution building more broadly, at least in the way that I see it, it's also about increasing the confidence and capacity of people

to manage their own problems and solutions. again from the bottom up and to seek solutions that actually directly relate to our needs but then also to have desires and wants because I don't just want to survive I want to thrive and live and I'm quite sure that other people across the working class want that as well right so right now there's a willingness to fight back I mean there's also a recognition among regular people that things are getting worse and instead of channeling that into voting we should ask how can we help take those everyday needs and outrage against the system and build the real social movements that we need and real social power that we need, again, to build a thriving type of life,

right? Another example that might be worth pointing to is the demand for free public education. The Chilean student movement has demanded, for example, you know, free and public education and anarchists have participated within those movements to push to add demands around a more democratic education, as well as a non-sexist education that push people to demand more than what the system will easily give. And we definitely don't think that it's a matter of just waiting for the capitalist system to give us these things, but the value of raising these demands is to broaden our horizons, and stretch our political imaginations for the things that we can actually win. So, you know, that's at least the way that we see the power of offensive demands.

Yeah. That's extremely interesting. And I really hope people pay attention to the notion that it's not about going into communities and telling people what they want or just sort of thinking that you know what is best for a community. But it's also listening to and being entrenched inside of communities. such that their demands can be made clear to you and then you can help the community themselves create that alternative. Because when you just have a sort of party, walk into a community and say, we'll do this for you, that might be good compared to what they get from the capitalist state,

but it's also very important to realize that the community needs to have inside of it the sort of mechanisms by which to produce this own thing for themselves going forward. So I think that's extremely interesting and extremely important. One of the ways that I think would be beneficial to think about these things is that we're not organizing the people. We are the people who are organizing, right? Another way, for example, that the indigenous peoples in Chile, you know, the Mapuche people on South America have thought about this in terms of ecological defense, they're not defending the earth. We're not defending the earth. We are the earth defending itself. Yeah, and I would even also add to that, because I think one of the things that when I've seen several, you know, mostly in, you know, I'm mostly familiar with my own organizing context, but I think when I see organizations that have a strategy that is very oriented towards the vanguard, you know, there's definitely repeated attempts to create organizations and projects and campaigns and different, you know, different, you know, different.

things in communities that historically those people are not actually from but even leaving that aside it is this sort of it ends up being a moralistic approach where it's like well everybody should have access to this or be opposed to that so we are here to set up shop and then you know why don't y'all come join us and so one thing that i see is that that doesn't work it it's this weird. If you build it, they will come thing, and they don't show up because it's weird. But then on the other side, what that also does is really reinforce this other problem that I see happening on the left in the U.S. is, you know, years of nonprofits dominating everything has led to this very service expectation when it comes to change. And I think that

that approach really reinforces it. It's like, hey, show up to our meeting, sign up for a thing. and we'll do this, this, and this for you. It makes it transactional. And that's part of why it does, it's not sustained. These projects are fly by night, at least from what I've seen, they don't last for as long as that particular person is in town. And I think that's a piece. There's many problems too, but I think a piece of why is that it just really continues

this idea that change happens when you show up and sign up to join a thing that does all of the thinking and the work for you. because that's what, I mean, that's, you know, nonprofits have really generated that understanding of trying to change your situation is that you show up and that this person acts on your behalf. And I think that that is a big piece of why the kind of like vanguard front groups that drop into a neighborhood and bring ideas that are like, yeah, I mean, I support people having access to school and health care and food and all that kind of stuff. but that's, it didn't come out of the community organizing. It comes out of people saying, well, you should have this and sign up for it and we'll give it to you. You know, that doesn't build power. That builds even like even more so, it builds the idea that other people have the power and that you just support them.

Yeah, food for thought. I mean, that's extremely interesting, fascinating. I think it's important to wrestle with those ideas and figure out ways of kind of getting around those problems and really building up power inside communities. But let's go ahead and move on a little bit to another document that you've released. It's the role of the revolutionary organization. I'm really focusing in on the organizational aspects of Black Rose because I think at this point in time,

it's extremely important for people to organize, and I think people are really thirsty for concrete ideas about how to go about that. So in that document, I absolutely loved your commitment to participation in mass movements and your dedication to working with different types of leftists with different strategies while simultaneously striving to counteract authoritarian, bureaucratic, and reformist tendencies within mass movements. Can you talk about this document, summarize its contents for our listeners, and tell us why it's so important for organizations to have these things thought out like this?

Sure, I can start us off with that. So I think some of the kind of key points that are in that particular piece is, you know, one, like the focus on mass work, like on social movements, like that those are the agents of change, not the revolutionary organizations, that that is really where the work happens is in social movements of our class. And then within that, the role of anarchist communists is to advocate within those social movements as rank and file members of them for horizontal directly democratic organizing to position what we see as the best strategy to sustained and powerful and legitimate change from within those movements, you know,

organizing along anarchist principles. And so, and then some of the other, you know, pieces of what we see as important and for revolutionary organizations is also, you know, internal member development. So continuing the process, the lifelong process that we all have of education and discussion and applying our understanding of theory and analysis to our social movement work and then incorporating the lessons from our social movement work to adapt our theory and analysis. And so that's kind of an ongoing constant process for the membership, as well as the development piece, which is everyone has skill sets and maybe some deficits.

And so trying to like highlight what people have, you know, knowledge. and skills and, you know, helping augment the stuff that, you know, fill in the gaps that they might be missing. So that way we really are an organization of equals rather than leaders and followers. And then, you know, just a piece of, you know, the sort of external education as well. Like, you know, so advocating openly in our communities for our politics through, you know, propaganda, through events, through, you know, different kind of external education pieces. And so, yeah, and just having that really important piece in my mind is, is that really big focus on strategy and constantly reassessing that strategy. Because I think that

that is another trap that sometimes the left more broadly can fall into is slapping band-aids on things over and over. And it's really understandable why people fall into that trap because there are so many gaping wounds. But, you know, really the, like, having that piece of here's our strategy, here's how all of our work fits into this strategy, and constantly reassessing that strategy to make sure that it is relevant and accurate and productive. I think, you know, that's like another piece that I think is really, really important for revolutionary organizations to not get stuck in just kind of like a loop. And then just creating some structure and space to have conversations, you know, especially given that there isn't a lot of space carved out in our

in like US society generally to have those kind of strategy conversations and talk about revolutionary organizing and ideas and do it in a way that like is about creating an organization of accountable militants. So, you know, not just, you know, there's like a big focus on members being open and accountable in in the social movement work that we're doing that we're not just trying to like seize leadership and impose our will from the top down, but like to really be like open and active and engage as members of social movements, but also being accountable to each other and really breaking down and discussing internal power dynamics that can happen informally because we live in a white supremacist, capitals, heteropatriarchy that teaches us

all kinds of hot garbage about how to relate to one another. And that will impact our organizing and our ability to organize well together and our ability to create, you know, dynamic, powerful organizations and social movement. So I think that the kind of the piece of creating space for us to interact accountably with each other and talk about this stuff is another

really important part of what it means to be in a revolutionary organization. You know, and just, I mean, but really in a lot of ways in my mind, it's just like really clarifying, like clear roles and goals and

approach. I think it's just a big piece of it because it really lays out, you know, it's the importance of laying out concrete tasks, like being really clear about our outlook and our approach, even if we, you know, we want to revisit it. It's not set in stone. We're not just going to follow the same blueprint from, you know, 1917. But like, so it is changeable and, and updatable, but still just having that, just having a strategy, having a plan that isn't just moment by moment, making it through the moment, you know, not just focus on short-term goals, but medium-term goals, long-term goals, really long-term goals, and making sure that all of those goals feed into each other so that it's not just one-off

symbolic, you know, actions or whatever, like, just really having a vision of where we're headed, because I think that that is a big deficit on the left in the U.S. is that there's not strategic planning. Yeah, for sure. And something that I would add to is that, I don't know, I really like this document, because it kind of like, again, lays out exactly what it means to be part of an organization. One of the things that happens in organizations is that, cool, all right, we're part of the same organization. Word.

But what does that mean to different people who are part of that organization? We don't have, sometimes we really don't have a clarified understanding of what it means to be part of that. So I think that's one of the value of these types of documents. And, you know, the educational piece, for example, you know, we believe in mutual education. and internal member development, and we see that this organization can act as a repository and a vehicle for a repository of memories, right? So retaining institutional memory

and memories of failure, memories of success, and things like that, right? But also a place for people to develop their politics that doesn't always have to do with the university. And I think that's one of the biggest, not the biggest, let's say, but I think it's a big detriment of the left, the US left. There's not many places that you can kind of like go to to develop your your political

analysis. And so that's why an organization like Black Rose can serve as a location through which people can develop their understanding of the world and kind of hone in on how they understand the world and stuff like that. Of course, we definitely have, you know, college educated folks within the organization just because I mean that's part of you know it's kind of like part of it that's also not you know we don't place too much of an emphasis on on that type of way of relating to knowledge production and intellectualism but we undoubtedly do value intellectualism just you know kind of like a philosophy born of struggle type of thing right and grounded in popular movements and stuff like that so yeah I that's that's what I see

that this document kind of helps clarify for us and you know as you can tell there's distinctions about where our role is when it comes to mass work and then you know on the mass level and then you know kind of like on the revolutionary level or the political

level and you know that harkens back to traditions of a specifismo and other dual organizationalist anarchist orientations historically so of course, you know, we don't work off of blueprints, but we undoubtedly seek inspiration. And it's 2018, so there's always an ongoing need for recreation and remolding.

So this isn't set in stone, but it definitely helps us orient our work. Yeah, and speaking of philosophy born of struggle, I do want to transition away from organizational praxis to more theory, because theory is important. So what is the problem with state power? Not in the social democratic sense necessarily, because I think that's pretty much clear to many of our listeners, but in the Marxist-Leninist sense. What is the argument against using the state

as a way of building and defending proletarian power? There's many things I think about this. So what is the problem of state power? Well, all right, one of the problems of state power is that's not where the people are. The people are where they're struggling. The people are where they're hungry. The people are where they're being arrested,

where they're being confined. So, you know, I believe it was Fred Hampton who used to argue something about building power where the people are. And so that's definitely one of the things that I see the most important things in terms of this question of state power. And the other way that I think about it, too, right, I'm not the most versed on Marxist-Leninism. I've been trying to brush up my knowledge around that type of stuff. And so I don't know if what I'm about to say has more so to do with like social democratic type of orientations, but a way that I tend to think about power is that there's parliamentary orientations. Basically, there's parliamentary power and then there's popular power, right? A lot of the times people try to orient themselves towards trying to capture state power through parliament, be that municipal level, state level or national level type of parliament or whatever it may be. But instead, you know, Again, where the people are is where they live, is where they study, where they play, where they cry, where they laugh, where they are confined again, right? And so I see that's one of the necessities of building popular power instead of having a fixation for trying to codify our wins to do state power.

And even, let's say, a militant seizure of state power doesn't necessarily promise that all the contradictions. that exist in the broader level of society are even going to be worked out and it's kind of like an epicenter thing right so there's an idea that once you capture state power in whatever way it may be that power can emanate from that center outward we definitely don't see that to be the case

and at least I more so see it to be a matter of again coming from below and a dispersed type of dimension or aspects to power So I don't know if that's necessarily clear But that's at least the way that I see it And, you know, another thing about this too, right Is the way that we interpret action

How do we go about action, right? So I believe that, you know, engaging in forms of direct action Again, where we live, study, work, play, and are incarcerated that's that when we can exert our power directly through the you know points of production through the points of reproduction through the points of you know incarceration and criminalization that's when we're actually going to be able to augment the popular power of regular people throughout society so rather than you know indirect forms of power that try to you know pass off the responsibility to professionalize revolutionaries for example

I know that's definitely one of the things that you know in the history of Marxist Leninism there's been an emphasis on that we believe that people can actually figure out their own problems and that you know that they slash we can we can win on our own accord and that we don't necessarily need a you know professionalized red bureaucracy to kind of like again codify the wins for us

yeah I think I would add to that that like I think that that that sort of like professionalized piece is really key I mean in my mind in a lot of ways even though I do recognize the distinction between

revolutionary you know communist parties and the Democratic Party I still do feel like the a lot of the poll to the people drawn to these approaches are very similar, which is that it is the easiest way to quickly address

things, right? Like, I think of, I see the draw being that it's a shortcut, that here is an existing institution, and if we seize power within it, then that is like a much, it seems like a much simpler and, you know, faster, I mean, frankly, quicker approach to addressing, you know, social inequity, you know, no matter what your goals of how that might be addressed, that is like a shortcut path in some ways. But, you know, and not to, you know, the classic debate is, you know, the Marxist-Leninists bring up, you know, anarchist failures to maintain anarchism. And then the anarchists bring up Marxist-Leninist's, you know, betrayal of the revolution and imposition of

authoritarianism. So not to really like fall down that rabbit hole, but I really do. But I really do feel like that for me in a lot of ways is something that is not is worth not just dismissing as part of a part and parcel of the general, you know, debate because I'm not convinced, like, you know, nothing has convinced me so far that that is how we have to seize power is by, you know, is, you know, dictatorship of the proletariat. Like that is not, I have not seen anything that has, that has taught me that that we can't do it outside of, that approach, but what I have seen is lots of evidence that that approach does not achieve the aims that at least I as an anarchist communists have. And so I think that's kind of a piece of

it is that I understand the desire to shortcut and the desire to use the tools that the masters have already created for us or whatever and just, you know, turn it upon them. But I don't really feel like that is, I don't think we've seen historically that play out super well. And I also don't think that there's anything saying that that is how we have to seize power as people, like, you know, in addition to everything that was already said. Yeah, no doubt. And, you know, something else that I think would be worth adding is that, for example, the idea of seizure of state power kind of already takes for granted that that is the locus of power. That state power is the locus of power and that, you know, we have to take that established power. And I think

it kind of like indicates a certain um you know just like the idea of the need for professionalized revolutionaries i think it indicates a certain um lack of confidence in you know regular poor and working class people uh to build power amongst themselves particularly in the context within which they're located in right so so a distinction between a seizure of power and then the need to actually build power you know so uh you know there are attempts to try to marry those two types of of things. Again, I'm not so convinced that that'll work on the long term. Yeah, and I guess I would just add two points into this conversation. Everything that's been said so far is extremely important. But I would also say that once you capture the state and

once you start filling it with whoever you want to fill it with, there's an almost universal tendency for the state apparatus itself to diverge from the people it's supposed to represent. And so there seems to be a sort of diversion between the interest of the state over time and the interest of the people and the working class that the state is ostensibly supposed to support. And I think that's something that Marxist-Leninist should take very, very seriously because it's a pattern that's repeated itself throughout history. And then my second point would be I had a conversation with it's going down. And we talked about these sorts of debates. And one thing that they said that really stuck out to me is that in the U.S. specifically, The opportunity to seize the state apparatus in its entirety seems very, very far-fetched.

It's not going to be a situation where the workers can all of a sudden grab the United States government and take it over. In reality, what it's going to be is a slow breakdown of the state's legitimacy and maybe territories being abandoned, especially as climate change picks up speed. The state retracts from certain territories and then anarchists or revolutionaries can flood into those territories. and start to build alternative societies in those territories. And I think that seems way more possible to me than a wholesale capture of the U.S. state. I feel like I wanted to, like, respond, because I feel like that is really similar to something

that we were talking about earlier today. Because, like, well, on the one hand, I would say, it's the fundamental nature of the state to maintain itself. It doesn't wither away. I'm, you know, like, so that, I mean, that, So, yeah, it becomes the project of the state to justify its continued existence. So that is where I see the departure of, like, where it serves the people to, like, become its own self-sustaining institution. And then specifically in the U.S. context, I think you're exactly right with that, where when you look at, you know, I was speaking to this, so this is going to be kind of a half-form thought.

So I was kind of, like, speaking to this offhandedly thinking about, like, folks that I know and grew up with and my family and stuff, where it's like they're way more sympathetic to me when I talk about being an anarchist rather when I foreground the anarchism and downplay the communism because in their mind communism is big C communism because to them they see the idea of basically exactly what you just said the idea of some sort of revolutionary uprising of the people that involves taking over the state and implement and that's how the that's like the vehicle of the revolution is through. all of a sudden, you know, millions of anarchist communists are elected to local state and national positions of the government is absurd. It's laughable. And it seems much easier for them to be like, oh, yeah, but I could see, like, all of the workers of the U.S., like general strikes slash uprisings in the cities. Like, that seems way more plausible. And I think that that is, like, really interesting to me is that from my anecdote or whatever is that the more romantic, the more romanticized and you know considered harder to to develop and maintain version of revolution

which is you know kind of uprisings in the street and just you know shutting down of the entire economy seems more feasible to a lot of the people I know than the idea of taking over the government and and implementing change from there I really feel like that's a relevant piece of US context yeah and another extremely relevant piece is what's the of capturing state power from a set of structures built on settler colonialism and African enslavement. We need to figure out a way to actually destroy the state, right? So we don't, you know, one of the, I think, strongman that gets thrown at anarchists is that we just want to ignore the state. Now, fuck that. We want to destroy the state and we have to have a plan to actually do

so. Well said. Yeah, super interesting, super interesting discussion. We could talk about that forever. but given these differences, how willing are you to work with, say, Marxist, Leninist, and Maoists in the short term around shared goals? I don't know. So, for one, it's really hard to say because we don't necessarily have a shared agreement about this within the federation, you know. Frankly, we're less interested in working with the established left than we are with engaging, you know, the broader working class in social.

movements that we're involved in, right? So I'm pretty soured on the left, on the idea of the left, and that type of stuff. And I don't know. I think it's like unlikely for us to form any kind of formal coalitions within these groups with these types of groups. But we do have, you know, friendly relationships with the more like closely politically aligned members of, you know, certain segments of the left, you know, for example, an organization that I know the Providence Local has, of Black Rose has built, you know, pretty strong affinity

within the rest of the organization as well is unity and struggle and they're undoubtedly a Marxist organization, but the currents of Marxism that they, you know, draw from and the way that they relate to, you know, and the currents of socialism, that they draw from do have pretty strong resonance with our goals right and we also very much see that there's a huge difference between an organization like unity and struggle as Marxists and then Red Guards for example you know so again there's no there's no formal black rose position on this and it likely varies by social context and by particular political goals it could be sometimes that we have like tactical unity around certain things and

and maybe some shared goals, but there's really no uniform way that we've related to this. Yeah, yeah, no, I really think that that touches on most of my points. Like, yeah, I think that the blanket of Marxist, Leninist, Maoists, et cetera, is challenging because there is so much, you know, political and strategic diversity within that. But, yeah, so really, like local context, for sure. I think different locals have different relationships with the folks in their area. And, yeah, again, we don't have a formal position on this in any direction. Yeah, I would also add, coming from Omaha, which is a smaller to medium-sized city,

this is something else that it's going down, mentioned that I thought was worth, you know, talking about is, bigger cities have more diversity of organizations. When you're operating in a city as small as Omaha is, especially with there's really no revolutionary culture embedded, you find yourself, regardless of your tendency, working across lines. You have anarchists and Maoists working closely together or Leninists and, you know, Marxist or more platform-oriented anarchists working together. And so I think that's kind of, it also differs by localities. And I think that that does matter. If you're in a smaller city, don't have that many people to choose from and you have to work together. So, I don't know,

just things to think about. The very last question I'll ask. and I had to sort of toss some questions out the window just because of time. But the last question I want to ask, which I think is important, is what is La Al-Zada and what can anarchist feminists in the U.S. learn from them and their struggles in Chile? For one, I mean, you know, I'm a dude answering this question about, you know, feminism or whatever, but this is one of my favorite, you know, documents and one that I'm semi-familiar with. The document that La Alsaada is an organization based in Chile.

Al-Sada means, what does it mean? A rebel or rebellion, something like that. It's, you know, the feminine version. And we talk about La Al-Sada within our document called Breaking the Waves, challenging the liberal tendency in anarchist feminism, something like that, right? And in that document, what we were trying to do was challenge the tendencies or the the assumptions of what it even means, what anarcho-feminism even means, right? And there was an attempt by the writers to place more of an emphasis on a class struggle-oriented type of

feminism, and one that actually emerges from working-class struggle. So La Al-Sava kind of like exemplifies some of these things that we see as like a libertarian, you know, oriented feminism. you know, Alzada, basically, they're militants that participate in social insertion work with working class women and within the student movement as well as in like territorial-based work and stuff like that. And they advanced their own political interventions within the anarchist as well as the feminist movements. Membership is open to all and they encourage the inclusion of male identified militants. You know, it's an interesting organization that was actually born of struggle, meaning that those who ended up forming LaGsada saw the limitations of the

established feminist organizations and movements in Chile at the time that tried to kind of like, you know, achieve a certain type of, you know, what's turned in the document as sexual diversity, which we more so would probably understand in the U.S. is kind of like an inclusion, kind of like what we see with the, you know, with the mainstream LGBTQ movements that have tried to, like, codify inclusion within the power structure type of thing.

And instead of, like, a sexual diversity type of thing, they've tried to raise, like, a sexual, like, dissidents or disobedience type of thing. So, really challenging the foundations of gender relations at the material basis of it.

So they engage in territorial organizing, which refers to like geographically based type of organizing, what some people in the U.S. referred to as community organizing. And they also engage in labor organizing. So they've been mostly involved with the domestic workers unions in Chile and have also demonstrated solidarity with major labor organizing activities, such as being present at like, you know, the port workers strikes that have occurred in Chile and things like that.

So they advance a politics of feminist union. unionism. And they've also been involved in a student organizing and have participated in things like Confech, which is Confederation of Estudians of Chile, which is Confederation of Chilean students. And, you know, they've been part of raising demands. There's already been, you know, demands for democracy, for free education, but they've also raised demands of democratizing the university and demasculaneism politics. So for them, sometimes that has included, and look like demanding not only tuition-free education, but again, democratic, and most importantly, a non-sexist education, right? And so those are some of the activities that Ladsada

has been involved with. In terms of, well, what feminist movements in the U.S. can learn, I don't know. There's a bunch, but I don't know how qualified I am to really finish off the question. I don't know how much time do we have left to know we both talk to. That's all right. That's right. I love it. I love it.

I mean, I think, I think, yeah, I mean, to kind of piggyback a little bit on, like, one of the points is that I do think that one of the main sort of thrusts that I see is the struggle of just defining what anarchist feminism is because it's not a clearly defined, you know, philosophy. It doesn't even, like, have, like, necessarily a. a big body of written work to draw from. And even more so, even more than that, I'd say that there's not a lot, enough documented, and I say that documented pieces of it being in practice. You know, I think, you know, Al-Zad is a great example, but, you know, I do think that that is part of the problem

is that there's not really enough of a cohesive idea and history of anarchist feminism. But kind of, you know, more broadly, and I think what was kind of I was chuckling about when I think about it in the local context that I have worked in and just, you know, in the U.S. is what I think is really important is it's, and not even just so much challenging, you know, bourgeois feminism and, you know, so I think it's like challenging bourgeois feminism and grounding feminism in the working class. Like I think that those are two really important pieces. And when it comes to challenging, from my position, like, you know, when it comes to challenging bourgeois feminism, to me, the importance is to out-organize and organize, like, with a

revolutionary feminist lens that is, like, you know, focus on the role of working-class women that has, you know, a materialist analysis, and less so trying to counter this, you know, massive movement, which, you know, is kind of colloquially called white feminism. you know, which is going to always have more visibility and, and bigger platforms and more space, you know, to present their perspective. I think I would rather out-organize them than to argue with them about their approach. But I do think that like some of the really important pieces that anarchist feminism, however, one might define it, has drawn from, which has drawn from like lots of schools of feminist thought, the kind of, counter that it presents to the kind of contemporary liberal feminism, you know, bourgeois feminism is really like the importance of focusing on like a revolutionary, you know, working class

centered, anti-whites supremacist approach and not just, you know, creating a, you know, a new, the whole glass ceiling focus, right, where it's like, oh, we just need to have a diverse leadership base like if the if the board and staff of the nonprofit are diverse or if the politicians if the city council is gender diverse that that is like a goal and that is a focus and that has been a huge driving focus of feminism and you know especially recently and i think that that is kind of what the the the important counter that you know in the broader sense that anarchist feminism has, you know, along with like, you know, just critiques of individualism, which I think is really missing from a lot of the conversation. I think a lot of U.S. feminists don't understand

how deeply grounded bourgeois feminist philosophy is in intensely individualist philosophies and ideas is that it's not even that it's accepted. It's just invisible. It's not even challenge. And so I think that that is another big piece of that. I mean, this is definitely something I could go on about for a while. I think it was beautifully said and I think it's super important. Thank you both for coming on. It's been an honor. I've learned so much in this conversation and I'm going to take it back to my organizing efforts here in Omaha. I'm going to re-listen to it and pick up those sorts of wisdom chunks and the sort of advice and tips again because I think this is super important and I really love the focus on building social movements and thinking deeply about how to organize effectively that Black Rose really focuses on. So it's been an absolute honor to talk to you. I'm sorry we couldn't get to all the questions. I would love to have Black Rose back on at some point in the future to talk about more because there's so much we can talk about. But before I let

you go, how can listeners find support and join the Black Rose Anarchist Federation? And if you're comfortable or if you want to, where can listeners find you two online? well real quick i mean just as far as black rose generally you know if you go to blackrose fed dot org that's our website you know if you look at our you know check out the points of unity the mission the role of the revolutionary organization we have a lot of our documents posted on there and if you're interested in joining um you know there is a process for that for sure but but you know there the information is on the website um and And as far as contacting me, I'm not as savvy as some, but I do have a blog that is at, I think it's at genrogue.

Wordpress.com, and that should link to my email and ways to contact me. Yeah, and you can also find us, you know, obviously on different forms of social media, that being Instagram, we're on Twitter. we have a mean meme teams so definitely check this out in terms of getting in touch with me I don't know I'm on I'm not really on Twitter I'm mainly on Facebook

and I have a blog that I really don't occasionally update or that I really don't update because sometimes frankly I struggle with writing nonetheless you can find me at a semi-cheezy name Scholarpunk0 wordpress.com Um, that mainly has my stuff on, like, kind of like local analysis of providence and, uh, uh, kind of like trying to connect contemporary organizing history locally to past, uh, endeavors to, to win, um, and to organize. So, you know, I'm on there. Um, sometimes Hori Veda on Twitter, uh, whenever I pop in or whatever. So, um, I'm a person that, that pops in sometimes. you could definitely hear me you will sometimes seem

wonderful well thanks again long live black rose and solidarity to both of you I love what you're doing thanks for hosting us yeah thank you for having us with all you own boy with sure you vote my daughter

with that are you own boy with sure you own my god see before I draw the line let me welcome you close to all the folks who knew Obama sold the people a hoax gave the money to Suckers while our communities still poor withdrew the troops but started another war

colonizing terrorizing we ain't in the oil crisis so they can make a killer no food and gas prices prisons and spiller they try to lock up the future militarized borders and control of computers wanting stupid bumping music that ain't healthy for the shortest privatizing schools and policemen in the hall is can't be dormant I'm woke and rise up be ready brought the family with us and we hold the machetes riding the fence Riding the fence. Too many people be riding the fence. Yeah, you say you're ready for war, but are you convinced? I'm not convinced.

If you're a ride of freedom fighter, crowd excited, then let's do this. We can make one big united middle finger to the U.S. Give me the bravest and the truest. Fuck the hippest and the coolest. We're gonna spark this revolution and cross this off our to do list. Put your foot down if you look down on this criminal system. Put your hook down and get shook down like my niggas in prison. They'll be condemning and condoning their actions in one sentence.

But keep your mind, you decide. Is you a patriot or a menace to society? So riot or sit by quiet? or sit by quietly, but don't pull out the flag and try to say you're gonna ride with me. You flip-flopping like hip-hop, I don't get locked in that trick box. Get got like big and pop. Shit's got to stop. I am the people, not the big.

I repeat after Fred, so please blow my brains out if I ever forget. I'm with the independent thinkers. I'm down with the movers in the shakers and the ex-hanny drinkers. The non-smokers. The health advocates, the non-voters. The young bloods in the hood training like soldiers. I'm on the side of the tracks with the hood gardens. that don't color inside the margins.

I don't ride the fence. I cultivate my strength, because if it ain't about power, it don't make sense. I bid down with boogie down since BDPs and brown pride, and black power make RBG. A OG told me choose battles wisely. In the struggle, don't forget your children and your life be. If you don't see me on the podium preaching it,

every day I hope my every action is teaching it because revolution is a process. It's not a speech or a panel. Don't bite off more than you're a panel. off more than you can handle. Shadhaar you want. Shadhaar you want. Shadhaar you all.

Shadhaar you want. Shat city. Palestinian. Palestinian. Venezuela. The cell phones, baby. Y. Yo.

I still rock car like slim shots in Palestine in Palestine. With all the students for education gratuitous. I'm with workers uprising and the right to unionize. We ain't crossed the border so you better legalize. I'm with La Bena than Bronx. I'm still with Victor Toro because gentrification is polluting my borough.

So bro never. South Bronx forever. Decolonize the block, make your neighborhood better. I ain't down with the rich. I'm more rich you Perez. Don't talk to grand juries or cooperate with feds. I'm with students, doctors, janitors, teachers, union living wages, but they don't believe us. Monida, Barreto, Spofford, Front's Point, my point, my hood, I love, we join forces

forming our deck, BX, taking over builders' rebel Diaz for the children. Politics to sickness, streets express symptoms, caught up with a quickness, big business pimpsom, scholars play the simpleton, fools play with wisdom, who will stand and fight back, who will play the victim. Trial tribulations, ancient generations, stolen history and outsourced innovation. Babel Tower fell. Tribes are at war. The battle story's not represented in the score. The game's fixed. Most of the faces and names switched. Credit stolen for art, science, religion, language. Technology, philosophy, and were strangers. They paid in Haitian for the knowledge of the ancients. Powered in words, actions, guns, swords.

Aim, Panthers, brown, but raised young lords. Pick aside, one sickness, one cure, one love, one blood, one world with one war. Wish I heard you home Wish I heard you all Wish I heard you home Wish I heard you all You are you home Wish I had you home Wish I had you all

Now Please I have you all You workers I knew that you have held The rich bump In the vendors trying to send to save you out.