One year after the Revolutionary Summer School in August 2008, the RWIOT collective held a strategic dialogue in Chicago attended by more than 250 revolutionaries from around the country, representing several revolutionary organizations, study groups, collectives and networks. Plenary and workshop descriptions are below.
Plenaries and Workshops from the 2009 RWIOT Strategic Dialogue
Plenaries
Economic Crisis and Left Alternatives
The plenary will focus on the impacts of the economic crisis, and then get into questions about how the left is or should be responding. Should we be making demands on the state, or should we be building alternatives? What demands should the left be making, and what alternatives should we be advancing? How do we confront the particular impacts of the crisis on oppressed racial groups / nationalities and women?
State of Resistance
This plenary will focus on the current state of mass resistance in different social sectors in the United States, including the role of the left in these different movements. We will be holding sector-based breakout sessions (e.g. labor movement, urban struggles, etc.) before this plenary to give participants a space to discuss the state of work in their particular sector and to reflect as leftists on their mass work; these breakout sessions will report back to the plenary, allowing us to develop a multi-sectored map of the “State of Resistance.” We will then have a dialogue about the key contributions the left can make to strengthening social movements, as well as the relationship between building stronger social movements and building a stronger left.
Revolutionary Process in the Age of Obama
This plenary combines interactive presentation and small group formats to get at our ideas around which social group(s) will be at the center of a revolutionary movement in this country, as well as the kind of alliances that will need to be built to move a revolutionary process forward. We frame these questions in the larger context of exploring the objective and subjective conditions for revolution asking in particular how/whether the election of Obama and the economic crisis have changed these conditions and how we can achieve our longterm revolutionary goals building from the realities of the current historic moment.
What Does it Mean to Be a Revolutionary in the 21st Century?
As the political, economic, and ecological conditions rapidly change around us, our roles as revolutionaries shift. This plenary will use a variety of activities to reflect on lessons learned from revolutionary movements in the 20th Century and share our visions for creating the kind of world that is healthy and just for all people in the 21st. These activities will highlight the differences, and similarities, in the thinking and actions of a number of different forces on the Left. Prepare to be inspired and challenged.
Breakout Workshops
Session #1 (Friday 7-8:30 PM)
Revolutionary Strategies in the Workers Movement
Led by Solidarity with participation by FRSO/OSCL, Socialist Project, United Students Against Sweatshops, Transnational Information Exchange. How can we make change in the workers’ movement— and what’s standing in our way? In this fishbowl discussion, activists on the front lines of workers’ struggle will compare different left strategies for work in the labor movement. We’ll look at how community-labor alliances, rank-and-file struggles, and changes at the top are changing the workers’ movement, and how we are re-connecting radical politics and workers’ struggle.
Grand Theft Automated, Other Crimes And Workers’ Strategies
Led by LRNA with participation by Solidarity. LRNA and Solidarity will analyze the crisis of capitalism as it manifests itself in the U.S. manufacturing economy today. The first panelist will offer a visual presentation on automation in the world economy, with examples in the auto and defense industries. The second panelist will concentrate on the restructuring of the auto industry, the introduction of lean production, and other capitalist strategies in the age of “globalization.” The final two speakers will specifically address organizing strategies and solutions. We’ll close the presentation with a poem. The four panelists will speak for half the time, leaving 45 minutes for discussion.
Suggested Readings:
- Feeley, Dianne, "Bailing Out Banks, Smashing Unions" from ATC 138, Jan.-Feb. 2009
- Rosenfeld, Herman, "The North American Auto Industry in Crisis" from Monthly Review, June 2009
Prioritizing Race and Gender in Work Around the Economic Crisis
Led by FRSO/OSCL. The economic crisis is making conditions that already were stacked against people of color and women harder, especially in the working class. What varieties of organized responses are possible in relation to these strategic sectors? What are left organizations already doing, and what is the best way to prioritize work for the long term? There will be a short presentation followed by general discussion of the projects people are engaged in, both practical and theoretical. People can share their experience fighting back and digging deep, working at the base and in coalition form, and carrying out campaigns locally and around policy at the state and national level.
Making Demands & Building Alternatives
Led by the New York Study Group. From the emergence of the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas to the factory occupation movement in Argentina and the street protests in Seattle, the question of whether social movements should make demands on the state or build alternatives to the state has been at the center of strategic debates on the left. This breakout session will explore these two strategic approaches, looking for the differences between them as well as identifying possible areas of connection and synergy.
Political Impact of Obama’s Election On the Revolutionary Process
Led by Hip-Hop Media Lab and FRSO/OSCL. Come and join us as we engage in a critical dialogue about revolutionary organizing and the revolutionary process in the age of Obama. We will focus on these three strategic questions: 1. Should revolutionary forces work with in coalition with Obama and the Democrats? 2. How should we engage with the grassroots of that coalition and the expanded electorate? 3. How best to build mass militant organizations in this era? There will be debate and discussion.
Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine and the Gulf Coast: Can the Left Respond?
Led by Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and Left Turn. As the people of Palestine and the Gulf Coast face concerted campaigns of forced removal and genocidal economic, military, and political violence, the weaknesses of the organized Left in the U.S. have been highlighted. This breakout will examine the role(s) that a more organized Left could play in the movements and discuss strategies for moving forward.
Session #2: Sectoral Breakouts (Sat. 10-11:30 AM)
The social movement sector breakouts are designed to build towards the following State of Resistance plenary. These breakouts will give participants a space to discuss the state of work in their particular sector of the social movements and to reflect as leftists on their mass work. These breakout sessions will report back to the plenary, allowing us to develop a map of the State of Resistance in a range of different sectors of the social movements in the U.S. in this period. These breakout groups are designed to be spaces for reflection and dialogue between activists and organizers who are rooted in particular sectors of the social movement, so please attend the breakout group that most closely reflects your on-the-ground political work (rather than going to a sector that you don’t work in but would like to know more about).
Sectors: Educators, Labor, Environment, Media, Youth and Students, Community Organizing, Gender Liberation and Queer Struggles, National Liberation Struggles
Note: We chose these sectors based on the self-described work of RWIOT participants. If you would like to suggest that we convene an additional breakout group, you should: (1) make sure that there at least 5 people who would participate in your suggested social movement sector breakout, (2) have a potential facilitator to suggest and (3) check in with Harmony Goldberg by Friday evening.
Session #3 (Saturday 5-6:30 PM)
Movement Building in the 21st Century & the USSF 2010
Led by LRNA with participation by Grassroots Global Justice, Solidarity. This breakout will discuss the World and US Social Forum process as a powerful movement building space and process in the context of the current moment: the crisis of global capitalism, the growing struggles in the US, and global social movements and socialism in the 21st century in Latin America. We will share the story of the USSF, the road from Atlanta to Detroit, and discuss developing movement convergence, a vision and a strategy for another world and another US. We will also collectively answer two questions: What is the role of revolutionaries in the USSF and social movement struggle? How do we plug into the USSF process?
Electoral Work:
Led by FRSO/OSCL with participation by LRNA. This workshop will focus on how to use electoral work as part of a strategy for base building, strengthening the left and contesting for power. The workshop will have short presentations at the beginning. There will be much time given to open discussion of the various uses of electoral strategies in revolutionary organizing. The purpose will be to draw lessons from electoral work, like the MXGM Jackson, Miss. experience, to discuss concrete proposals for collective work (including a possible gathering of leftists to discuss electoral strategies flowing from the recent Electoral Left listserve), and imagining what role electoral work will play in the revolutionary process in the coming years.
Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex: U.S. Social Movements in the 21st Century
Led by Left Turn and the New York Study Group. Incite’s critique of the “non-profit industrial complex” was an important contribution to left conversations about revolutionary organization and non-profit organizations in particular. This breakout session will build on that critique, pulling out the key lines of debate and working to complexify the basic criticisms. We will spend a significant amount of time developing our collective thinking about new ways forward that proactively address the political challenges of foundation-based funding and the non-profit model without dismissing those models altogether.
Mujerista Política for a Diverse Left—Aprendiendo y Tranformando (Learning and Transforming)
Led by Solidarity. We will be discussing transforming the left through building social power with immigrant communities. We will focus on mujerista politics, and analysis of unique risks and benefits for immigrant communities engaging in leftist politics. After introducing these themes in an interactive discussion, we will then apply our collective knowledge into tangible strategies grounded in our own organizing work.
Who’s in the Lead?
Led by LRNA. This breakout will be a roundtable discussion about “who leads” and the new alignment of forces in relation to the revolutionary process. What are the changing relations between capital and labor, and different sections of the working class, given the growing displacement of labor from production and massive dispossession due to the widespread use of labor replacing technology? How does this new alignment impact racial, national and gender oppression? How is this revolution in the economy connected to social destruction and growing political struggle against the state?
Session #4 (Sunday 11:15 AM-12:45 PM)
Revolutionary Self-Care
Led by Devi Health and Be Present. Why is burnout seen as the necessary consequence of movement work? Why is self-care thought of as a private individual practice, separate from the “real” “hard” organizing, institutions and communities we are a part of? In this workshop we will engage our minds, bodies and spirits in self-care and community care techniques that allow us to think through what care looks like in our communities and organizations and brainstorm ways of incorporating care into the structures that hold us.
No One on the Bloc Has Swagga Like Us: Reflections on Leadership & the Left
Led by FRSO/OSCL. Drawing on queer, hip-hop, and Marxist traditions, this breakout calls for Leftists to shake off stifling fears of leadership and insists that the working-class and the Left must develop confidence in their ability to lead and eventually to govern. We’ll explore ways of practicing leadership dynamically in ways that help oppressed people bring out their own capacities to lead and transform the world we live in.
Power: Identifying, Addressing, Obtaining
Led by YCL. This workshop will facilitate the development of a collective consciousness when identifying, addressing and obtaining power as we engage in revolutionary struggle. Using interactive and multi-media presentations, participants will not only develop an understanding in a theoretical sense, but also in terms of our everyday struggles and goals. Space will be provided for open discussion and dialogue. “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” - Frederick Douglass
Queering Left Organizations and Politics
Led by Solidarity with participation by Audre Lorde Project, Sylvia Rivera Law Project. What would our movements look like if queer folk were in the lead? What kinds of movement strategies and organizational forms are most likely to encourage/support/educate queer activists for leadership? How might the politics of movements change when queer issues and queer activists are at the center? For example, what are the links between the exclusion of undocumented workers and queer people from the benefits of citizenship? How is the “right to the city” denied to both low-income communities and queer youth? We hope that participants will come prepared to share their ideas and experiences in developing queer leadership, building
alliances between queer organizations and other groups, and infusing queer politics into movements in workplaces schools, and communities.
Reflecting on Revolutionary Organizations
Led by the New York Study Group, FRSO/OSCL, and Left Turn. The question of revolutionary organization is on of the most hotly-debated topics in left politics today. But whether you believe we need a new vanguard party or we should only build decentralized networks, none of us have all the answers we need for how to build the kinds of revolutionary organization we need to build a more effective liberation movement in this country. This session will draw on the concrete experiences of speakers coming from three different approaches to left organization - Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the New York Study Group and Left Turn - to open up a reflective conversation about what kinds of organizations we need and what we need to do to build them.
Shattering Models, Lessons of the World
Led by the Kasama Project. As revolutionaries in the U.S. scramble to gain a foothold, there are experiences internationally that combine highly radical visions with deep popular support. How have the Nepali Maoists reconceived strategy to build a revolutionary movement of millions in the Himalayan foothills? What should we learn from the Zapatistas’ innovations in base organization and political tactics? What are new models of revolutionary organization, and critical approaches to our own inherited theories? This breakout will focus on the lessons and new thinking in a world straining for real change.
