[Imc-dnc-discuss] DNC FAQ

Sat Jul 3 16:55:52 PDT 2004

So, does the lack of response to this mean everybody's down with it? Or 
that you're all too insanely busy to read it? -- Matt

On Tuesday, June 29, 2004, at 08:21 PM, Matthew Williams wrote:

> Hello all --
>
> This is the DNC FAQ that I've been working on in an on-and-off fashion
> for a while. For those of you who are new, the idea behind it is that
> during big protests like the up-coming DNC ones, the IMC sites covering
> them often get curious people, who don't know much about the issues but
> are potential supporters, who come to the sites for more information.
> IMC coverage tends to be geared to those in the know, however. And, when
> such potential supporters ask questions, I've seen them get very hostile
> responses from dogmatists who think if you aren't already part of the
> movement, you're the enemy, driving these potential supporters away.
> This FAQ is meant to be something of an answer to that problem.
>
> So, all that said, I'd been hoping this would be a collaborative project
> and I did it on our DNC Wiki, but I think I've been the only one who's
> worked on it. I'd at least like other folks' feedback (especially yours,
> Pete, on the sections related to the Boston DNC Coalition--see questions
> 4 & 7). (All the weird stuff with the URLs and brackets is how you
> create links in Wiki. I'll convert it to HTML before putting it up on
> the Boston IMC site.)
>
> One other thing I've been wondering about. Should this be just a page,
> or should it be posted as an article so folks can use the "Comments"
> section to ask additional questions or just add their five cents? I lean
> towards the latter, since there's probably stuff I haven't thought
> of--and any obnoxious postings will hopefully be defused by the contents
> of the FAQ.
>
> bread and roses,
> Matt
>
>
> ---+++ Anti-DNC protests FAQ
>
> This FAQ is intended to be an orientation to the protests around
> [[http://www.boston04.com/][Democratic National Convention]] (DNC) for
> people who aren’t part of the movement and want to find out more about
> why people are protesting, who those people are and why they are doing
> what they are doing. Most of what appears on the Boston Independent
> Media Center’s (IMC) website assumes that you are already part of the
> movement or at least familiar with it. If you are not part of the
> movement and are trying to figure out what’s going on from the rest of
> the website, you may end up feeling a little lost. We intend this FAQ to
> be a remedy to that.
>
> Disclaimer: While we try to represent the views of various activist
> groups in this FAQ, the Boston IMC does not claim to speak for all or
> any part of the movement. The ideas here also do not necessarily reflect
> those of the Boston IMC as a whole or its members.
>
> _1. Why are people on the left protesting against the Democrats?_
>
> Most people on the left feel like the
> [[http://www.democrats.org/][Democrats]] no longer represent popular
> interests--the interests of working people, women, people of color,
> queers, and people who want a clean environment and world peace. Indeed,
> many would argue that the Democrats never represented popular interests
> and that they have always been a party of the elite, representing the
> interests of big business, big finance and the military-industrial
> complex.
>
> There have been times when the Democratic Party did enact policies that
> represented popular interests--welfare legislation, worker health and
> safety legislation, civil rights and affirmative action, and
> environmental protection laws. Democratic politicians never did so of
> their own accord though. They always did so in response to popular
> pressure from below--the labor and welfare rights movements of the 1930s
> and the civil rights, women’s, queer, and environmental movements of the
> 1960s and 70s. They did so both because they were trying to contain and
> co-opt social protest and because they were looking for a broader
> electoral base. [[http://bernie.house.gov/pc/][Some Democratic
> politicians]] may have been genuinely sympathetic to these movements as
> well, but were not in a position to do anything until there was a lot of
> heat from below. While some of the legislation the Democrats passed in
> response to popular pressure may inconvenience big business, none of it
> has ever genuinely threatened the power of big business as a whole.
>
> The social movements that once put a lot of pressure on the Democratic
> Party to pass popular legislation have grown weaker and many Democratic
> politicians no longer feel the need to be as responsive to them. The
> [[http://www.ndol.org/][leadership of the party]] has moved to the
> right. If we want to make the Democrats specifically and the political
> system as a whole responsive to popular interests once again, it is
> necessary that we revitalize popular social movements and turn the
> pressure on the elite back up. The protests against the DNC are part of
> that process.
>
> There are also many on the left who will not be participating in the
> protests against the DNC, mainly those in large, liberal organizations
> like the [[http://www.aflcio.org/][AFL-CIO]] (the main federation of
> labor unions in the US), the [[http://www.now.org/][National
> Organization for Women (NOW)]] and the [[http://www.naacp.org/][National
> Association for the Advanced of Colored People (NAACP)]]. While these
> people are certainly critical of the Democratic Party leadership's move
> to the right, they still consider them better than the Republicans.
> Although they may be lukewarm in their support, Democratic politicians
> nonetheless do not actively oppose reproductive rights and affirmative
> action. They also still support some labor-friendly measures like
> raising the minimum wage, even as they support the forces of  corporate
> globalization that undermine labor. More to the point for these liberal
> groups, they do not see any viable alternative to the Democrats now
> since no left-of-center third party is very strong.
>
> _2. But isn’t getting Bush out of office the most important thing?_
>
> Many people participating in the protests against the DNC agree with
> this and will actually vote for the Democratic presidential candidate.
> They nonetheless feel that is it is important to keep the pressure up on
> the Democrats to force them to be more responsive to popular interests
> and less responsive to the interests of big business. Many of these
> people pursue an insider-outsider strategy, trying to put pressure on
> the Democrats to move to the left both by
> [[http://www.dsausa.org/dsa.html][working within the party]] and by
> protesting outside of it. Others will vote for the Democratic
> presidential candidate just this one time because they see the Bush
> administration as exceptionally bad.
>
> Many other protesters reject the idea that we should simply settle for
> voting for the lesser of two evils and will vote for an independent like
> [[http://www.votenader.org/][Ralph Nader]] or the candidate of a third
> party like the [[http://www.gp.org/][Greens]]. Although they oppose the
> Bush administration and the Republicans, they also think that the
> Democrats are so beholden to big business interests that they are part
> of the problem. Instead of trying to work with them, we should be
> building an alternative party that will really represent popular
> interests. If we keep putting this off to fight the greater of two evils
> by supporting the lesser of two evils, we will never get around to
> building that alternative. Some supporters of third parties advocate a
> “safe states” strategy: people should only vote for third party
> presidential candidates in states where it is certain that all the
> electoral college votes will go to either the Republicans or the
> Democrats; in states where it could go either way, people should vote
> Democratic in order to defeat Bush.
>
>
> Finally, a small group of protesters reject voting altogether. These
> people are mostly radicals who believe that the electoral system is so
> hopelessly flawed as a way of creating social change that it is part of
> the problem. Instead of trying to work with it, they think we should
> boycott it as part of a wider strategy of working for social
> transformation and social justice.
>
> It should be pointed out that there are also
> [[http://www.counterconvention.org/][large protests]] happening against
> the [[http://www.2004nycgop.org/][Republican National Convention]]--most
> likely far larger than anything that happens at the DNC. There is thus
> no way that the Republicans can take advantage of the protests against
> the DNC for their own benefit.
>
> _3. I’ve heard that there are anarchists involved in organizing the
> protests. What’s up with that?_
>
> There are indeed [[http://www.infoshop.org/][anarchists]] involved with
> organizing the protests. “Anarchism” and “anarchist” are terms that are
> very much [[http://www.infoshop.org/fake.html][misunderstood]] these
> days. Many people think that anarchists are terrorists or
> anti-organization. These are both wrong. To avoid the negative
> connotations of “anarchist”, some anarchists call themselves
> anti-authoritarians or libertarian socialists.
>
> Actually defining anarchism is a little tricky because it is a broad
> movement with a lot internal disagreements. The following is a
> definition that most anarchists would probably be comfortable with
> though. Anarchists oppose all systems of domination, any situation where
> one person or group of people is able to control another person or set
> of people’s life--whether it’s the boss at the workplace, the
> old-fashioned patriarchal family where what father says goes, or the
> nation-state where some people pass laws and others obey them. Many
> anarchists emphasize opposition to authority (thus the term
> “anti-authoritarian”), that is a system where it is generally considered
> right for one person--a boss, a state official, a military commander--to
> have the right to give another orders. Many anarchists particularly
> emphasize the struggle [[http://nefac.northernhacking.org/][against
> capitalism and the state]] first and foremost (thus the term
> “libertarian socialism”), while those anarchists more influenced by the
> movements of the 1960s also emphasize equally opposition to racism
> ([[http://www.illegalvoices.org/apoc/][1]],
> [[http://colours.mahost.org/][2]]), sexism, homophobia, and
> [[http://www.social-ecology.org/][humanity’s domination over nature]].
>
> As an alternative to the top down hierarchies through which our society
> is usually organized now, anarchists advocate bottom-up decision-making
> through participatory, inclusive democracy, sort of a permanent town
> hall meeting. Typically, they emphasize decentralization and making
> decisions at the community level wherever possible, with communities
> forming federations to deal with issues that can’t be dealt with
> locally. The basic idea behind all this is that people, both as
> individuals and communities, should be able to run their own lives
> democratically without other people controlling them or giving them
> orders. In order to achieve this future democratic, communitarian
> society, anarchists try to structure their own organizations along
> radically democratic, communitarian lines as well. Anarchists thus do
> not oppose organization--they just advocate a very particular type of 
> it.
>
> Every movement has its lunatic fringe, and a small number of anarchists
> have embraced terrorists like the Unabomer. The vast majority of
> anarchists oppose terrorism and are not crazy about violence in
> general--they support its use only when other means of securing social
> justice have failed, a position most people would agree with. Many
> anarchists are in fact [[http://www.warresisters.org/][pacifists]] and
> see any use of violence in working for social justice as
> counterproductive.
>
> The most obvious anarchists in the protests will be those dressed in
> black and wearing face masks, a tendency in the anarchist movement known
> as [[http://www.infoshop.org/blackbloc.html][the Black Bloc]]. Many
> anarchists, however,  don’t engage in Black Bloc tactics and prefer to
> work with community organizations most of whose members are not
> anarchists. Although they will stress things like democracy and
> community empowerment in their organizing, they will not necessarily be
> in your face about their political philosophy.
>
> _4. Aren’t all of you protesters a bunch of upper middle class, white
> kids?_
>
> No. There are in fact many individual working people and people of color
> and community groups representing them involved in the Boston DNC
> Coalition, which is organizing some of the protests. These groups
> include [[http://archive.aclu.org/hiphop/classrm.html][Project
> Hip-Hop]], the [[http://www.madison-park.org/][Madison Park Development
> Corporation]], and the [[http://www.jpndc.org/][Jamaica Plain
> Neighborhood Development Corporation]].
>
> That said, upper middle class, white youth are sometimes overrepresented
> at protests. This is not because more working people and people of color
> don’t support the issues the protests are about--often more of them are
> supportive of these issues than upper middle class, white youth. Working
> people and people of color, however, are often struggling to make ends
> meet and have trouble taking time away from their jobs and families to
> protest. Because upper middle class, white youth have fewer
> responsibilities and more flexibility, they have an easier time making
> it out to protests, where they are using their privilege to help those
> who are not as privileged. That said, it would be better if the movement
> found more ways, like scholarships and child care, to help working
> people and people of color to be able to come to these protests.
>
> _5. Why are some people protesting in a way that is so confrontational
> and disruptive? Why can’t they just have a legal march?_
>
> Some protesters do think just having a legal march is the best tactic.
> These marches will be happening the Sunday before the DNC officially
> starts. Many activists, however, think a combination of a legal march
> and more confrontation, disruptive tactics (known as “direct action”) is
> necessary. Most supporters of direct action believe such confrontational
> actions should remain nonviolent though--while being disruptive,
> protesters should not attack other humans. Direct action is necessary to
> create the popular pressure from below to force members of the elite,
> like the leadership of the Democratic Party, to change the way they do
> things. If there is only a legal march, the elite can ignore it if they
> wish--just as the Bush administration ignored the popular anti-war
> marches. When social protest is disruptive enough, the elite are forced
> to take action to control it so business as usual can go on. This may
> involve repression, but it may also involve granting concessions to
> social protest groups. Many social movements, such as the labor movement
> and the civil rights movement, won their victories through the use of
> direct action. Although direct action may sometimes disrupt the lives of
> ordinary people, they are not meant to be the target--the targets are
> the elite who have the decision-making power. That is one of the reasons
> protests are organizing around big meetings of the elite, like the DNC.
>
> _6. Why are some protesters destroying property?_
>
> This is a [[http://www.zmag.org/trashing.htm][very controversial
> tactic]] within the movement. Only a small number of protesters, mostly
> radicals, actually engage in it. They distinguish property destruction
> from violence, arguing that something is violence only if it is directed
> against living beings, not inanimate objects. They usually choose their
> targets carefully, selecting chain stores and other representatives of
> big business, usually ones guilty of particularly outrageous acts, like
> union-busting or environmental destruction. They target them as a way of
> calling attention to and putting pressure on them to change their
> business practices. Such protesters do not target small businesses. If
> someone has attacked a small business, they are either a non-political
> person taking advantage of the chaos to loot or police agents trying to
> discredit protesters. At large protests in other cities like Genoa,
> Italy, police have actually dressed up as protesters and destroyed small
> businesses.
>
> Whatever one thinks of these tactics, it is worth pointing out that the
> amount of destruction they cause is trivial compared to the destruction
> of human and other life caused by poverty, violations of worker health
> and safety laws by big business, environmental pollution and wars. The
> focus should not be on a small group of protesters, but on the
> destruction done by the larger system against which they are protesting.
>
> _7. What groups helped organize the protests?_
>
> The Boston DNC Coalition (BDNCC) is organizing a series of neighborhood
> "People's Parties" in public parks on Sunday, July 25, the day before
> the DNC starts. These parties will be within shouting distance of places
> where delegates to the DNC will themselves be having parties and thus
> hopefully turn up the pressure on them. The BDNCC is backing the Fund
> the Dream Campaign, a project of the
> [[http://www.house.gov/cummings/cbc/cbchome.htm][Black Congressional
> Caucus]] to have the military budget cut and the money put into social
> services,in accordance with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream.
> Unfortunately, the BDNCC has been dogged with
> [[http://boston.indymedia.org/feature/display/21690/index.php]
> [controversy]], with many activists accusing its central organizers of
> working in a heavy-handed, undemocratic manner. This may result in low
> turn-out for its People's Parties.
>
> Boston [[http://www.internationalanswer.org/][Act Now to Stop War and
> End Militarism (ANSWER)]] is holding a march against the Democratic
> Party on that same Sunday before the DNC. ANSWER is also a
> [[http://authoritarianopportunistswhocozyuptogenocidaldictators-
> forpeace.org/][[very controversial]] organization, with many activists
> charging that it is a front for the Marxist-Leninist group
> [[http://www.workers.org/][Workers World Party]], which they also charge
> with being very undemocratic, both internally and in its dealings with
> other organizations.
>
> The [[http://www.sp-usa.org/][Socialist Party]] (which is an advocate of
> democratic socialism, not Marxist-Leninism) is holding a
> [[http://www.sp-usa.org/democracy/][Dump the Democrats march]] on
> Monday, July 26 to protest the limits of what advocates of social
> justice can accomplish under the two-party system.
>
> The [[http://www.blackteasociety.org/][Black Tea Society]] is an
> anarchist group who have organized a convergence center (meeting space)
> for other radicals. They are planning two major events for the DNC. On
> Tuesday, July 27 they will host a Really, Really Democratic Bazaar on
> the Boston Common, during which people will give away goods and services
> for free, in a generally festive atmosphere. The idea is to create an
> event that looks like the society that anarchists want to create. They
> will also be hosting meetings to coordinate the actions of small groups
> (known as affinity groups) that are planning a variety of independent
> actions on Thursday, July 29, the Day of Action.
>
> Finally, there is a 258-mile [[http://dnc2rnc.org/][Democracy Uprising]]
> march planned from the Democratic National Convention to the Republican
> National Convention, calling for a reinvigoration of community-based,
> grassroots activism as the solution to our social ills, not mere
> participation in electoral politics.
>
> _8. What is the Boston Social Forum?_
>
> The [[http://www.bostonsocialforum.org/][Boston Social Forum (BSF)]],
> which is happening the weekend immediately preceding the DNC (Friday,
> July 23-Sunday, July 25), is a meant to be a place for groups from all
> over the left end of the political spectrum to engage in dialogue with
> each other and to begin to find a way out of the crises facing the
> American left. It is not meant to be a counter-convention to the DNC,
> but a place where progressive groups who both oppose and support the
> Democrats can come together. The organizers of the BSF are also hoping
> to showcase the best ideas of the left while the mainstream media is in
> town, in order to counter the charge made by critics that the left has
> no alternatives to offer. The organizers are not planning to issue any
> points of unity or to create a coalition at the end of the
> conference--they are instead interested in the cross-fertilization of
> ideas and the creation of stronger activist networks.
>
> The Boston Social Forum is inspired by the
> [[http://www.wsfindia.org/][World Social Forum (WSF)]], of which four
> have been held now, three in Porto Allegre, Brazil, one in Mumbai,
> India. They were set up as parallel meetings to those of the
> [[http://www.weforum.org/][World Economic Forum (WEF)]] that happen
> every year in Davos, Switzerland. At the WEF meetings, business and
> political elites from around the world gather together to informally
> network and make plans to advance globalization. Since it is a closed,
> informal meeting, there is absolutely no democratic accountability, even
> though many of the decisions made there have a huge impact on people all
> over the world. The WSF was set up to create a place for grassroots
> social activists from around the world to engage in similar networking
> and to develop visions of a better world. Unlike the WEF, the WSF has
> not tried to produce a single plan for the direction of the world, but
> tried to create room for multiple visions and foster cooperation among
> different social justice groups. While the elite have said of
> globalization, “There is no alternative”, the slogan of the WSF is,
> “Another world is possible.”
>
> Regional and local Social Forums have been held in many other places as
> well, including a [[http://www.fse-
> esf.org/english/index1.html][European-wide Social Forum]]. The Boston
> Social Forum is thus part of a much larger process within the movement.
>
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