August 2017 – Page 2 – Anarres Project for Alternative Futures

The Fight for the Soul of White America is Raging in the Streets of Charlottesville

By Chris Crass (August 12, 2017)

Republicans falling over themselves to denounce the views of white nationalists in Charlottesville, while promoting legislation and implementing policy that enacts those views on society.

White people denouncing the Klan, Alt-Right, GOP shock troopers marching in Charlottesville, while giving these racist Force the political space to grow, by arguing “All Lives Matter” against Black Lives Matter, by staying silent as immigrant and Muslim communities are terrorized by state violence and vigilante violence.

But, for those of us working in white communities, let’s also use this moment when white people who have been silent, speak out, as an opening to support them to become outspoken and involved.

Progressive people talking about both sides in Charlottesville being wrong, which actually gives cover to the violence of hate groups, while demoralizing and dividing the Left, turning the Left inward into irrelevant debates, while the Right institutionalizes violence, and tears apart all that we love. I know in times of feeling horrified and powerless turning against each other feels momentarily important, resist this urge, and turn outward and fight to save our people and our world.

Folks talking about these racists as ignorant poor, rural, working class white people, which further alienates poor, rural; and working class white people from the Left, undermines the Left leadership and organizing in poor, rural and working class white communities, adds to the enormous confusion on the Left of how racism shapes class, of why we need class conscious anti-racist politics and approaches, adds to the divisions the ruling class wants, and leaves the real villains invisible and untouched – namely the wealthy, formally educated, elite that are the architects historically and today of these movements.

White anti-racists of all class backgrounds, we must confront and eliminate anti-poor people, anti-poor white people narratives that are intended to keep the Left divided. We must love ourselves and love our people so hard, we will fight for our/their lives. And no I ain’t talking about hugging alt-right fascists, I’m talking the communities we come from and the large number of white people who have not been exposed to, let alone invited to join the anti-racist Left fighting for a better world for everyone. Hating other white people doesn’t make you anti-racist, it makes you less effective, abandons white communities to the Right, and let’s supremacy systems narrow our imaginations and hearts.

The fight for the soul of white America is raging in the streets of Charlottesville and in every legislative chamber in the country.

White anti-racists, we must fight for the hearts, souls, and minds of white people, to win as many as possible to the multiracial movements for racial, economic and gender justice, to unite white people to multiracial democratic values and destroy the hold of white supremacy in white communities.

Charlottesville makes clear: white people, we are either actively working against racism and for racial justice, or we are aiding and abetting the rising racist movement taking their violence into the streets, while also aiding and abetting the embolden leadership of the GOP who are furthering an agenda of racist violence at every level of government.

Let us destroy white supremacy in the hearts and minds of white people, build the multiracial Left, and eradicate white supremacy at every level of society!

Love to all fighting for justice and collective liberation in Charlottesville!

To help out with the struggle in Charlottesville, consider giving here:

Solidarity Cville Anti-Racist Legal Fund

Defend Cvill Medical Fund

Anarchism is About Love and Play and Getting Free

By Alexander Reid Ross (August 11, 2017)

Earlier today I made a mistake. I stumbled upon what I thought was a funny juxtaposition in my feed. First, an article headlined, “White House adviser says people should stop criticizing white supremacists so much,” and just beneath it and article from the Washington Post asking “Why are so many Americans are turning to anarchy?”

I thought the headlines danced with one another in a way—Sebastian Gorka, the WH aide in question, is a Hungarian immigrant honored by an international ultranationalist extremist organization, and he purportedly represents our anti-immigrant, anti-extremist White House. The hypocrisy in itself, let alone in the context of a country that is nearly majority non-white, would lead one to question the legitimacy of the state in general.

At the same time, the photo used by the Washington Post was obviously misleading that I thought it would clearly prove comical. Two people looking like they just stepped off the set of Natural Born Killers, the cookie cutter image of Hollywood-version “anarchists,” one of them holding a baseball bat in a real macho pose. I don’t even think anarchists have all the appropriate answers, but the photo was so obviously misleading about what anarchists really do beyond posing like tough guys with baseball bats. Too many people are taking this bait. I apologize for being the first.

(Photo: Bonnie Jo Mount for the Washington Post)

Yes, it’s real that anarchists are joining in and coming from embattled communities defending themselves from the alt-right. Let’s not fall into the typecast role of violent provocateurs who center their identities around ultraviolence. That’s not what anarchists do. Anarchists are about love and play, joy and providing for others. We are good people. The state wants to warn everyone that we’re volatile bomb throwers all over again, that we’re responsible for political violence. No! We have the right to defend ourselves and the right to live unharassed. Anarchism is about getting free, it’s not about falling into a dubious pattern of attacking whomever one thinks is wrong. That’s who our detractors want us to be, because they want us to be irrelevant and self-destructive. Let’s not fall into their trap.

Octavia Butler and the Journey Toward Utopia in the New Star Trek Discovery Series

By Joseph Orosco (August 10, 2017)

Lots of people are noticing that our pop culture seems obsessed with apocalyptic and dystopia themes lately. Father of cyberpunk William Gibson thinks our narrative vision of the future is shrinking because we are focused on the end of the world tales. Brianna Rennix is concerned that the only people that seem to hold onto the dream of exploring space are right libertarians. In particular, she thinks we live at a time in which the picture of humanity as represented in something like Star Trek appears hokey and unduly optimistic. Hollywood actor and producer Seth MacFarland says he is fed up with the single-minded fascination with dystopia and his new TV sci fi space series intentionally harkens back to the old optimism of Star Trek from the 1960s.

This past year, the Anarres Project hosted a series to mark the 50^th anniversary of the network premiere of Star Trek: The Original Series. One of the events was called Star Trek and Black Lives Matter. We hosted a viewing of of one of my favorite episodes from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine “Far Beyond the Stars” in which Captain Sisko imagines himself living as a science fiction writer in the 1950s United States. The episode depicts the subtle bigotry, institutional racism, and state violence faced by Blacks in this era in a way that highlights the progress of racial justice into the 23^rd century. What is most striking about this episode–that came out almost 20 years ago–is that it dramatically crests with the police execution of a young Black man in a manner that is reminiscent of the all the shootings that have given rise to the Black Lives Matter movement. Watching that episode today demonstrates how some things have not changed in terms of racial progress—and why the future of Star Trek seems so distant.

During the discussion of the episode, one African American woman said that while she liked Star Trek a lot, she thought it was less inspiring than a lot of current science fiction. The future of humanity it portrayed was great, but it was so removed from our present that it seemed almost irrelevant or impossible to attain. I asked her what she did like and she responded that she felt Octavia Butler’s work, especially The Parable of the Sower, was much more appropriate to our world today.

Butler’s Sower series is interesting because it is set in a dystopian near future with societal collapse, not unlike something you see in current zombie stories such as The Walking Dead. But the story here is about a group driven by the hopeful vision of humanity travelling and extending to the stars–Earthseed. They are surrounded by death and danger, betrayal and isolation. Yet, what is inspiring in Butler’s universe is how the communities deal with these challenges and how the vision of Earthseed creates a kind of solidarity that can be experienced through such hope. Ultimately, it’s a story of how to cope and overcome dystopia with a rich sense of humanity and how take the steps toward utopia.

This current mood is why I think it makes sense that the new Star Trek: Discovery series to premiere later this Fall is one that is set in the timeline before Star Trek: The Original Series. Fans have been criticizing the choice to have a series in the early 23^rd century, a decade before Kirk and Spock; these fans want to see the future after the 24^th century in the timeline established by the series Star Trek: Voyager.

But we are in a dystopian and skeptical era. We’ve seen what humanity is like at its best already, exploring the farthest reaches of space and holding onto its best ethical principles–that’s what Star Trek Voyager was all about. We want a more Butlerian Star Trek now. What we crave is now is more guidance through adversity; we want to know how we get to the post-scarcity utopia represented by the Federation and Star Fleet. Mary Wiseman, an actor in the new series really captures this craving in her comments about Star Trek Discovery at this year’s San Diego Comic Con:

“’Star Trek’ is so idealist because it could feel like the end of the world right now, America feels extremely divided. People can’t hear each other people can’t have compassion for each other… What ‘Star Trek’ [asks is], ‘What qualities are we going to have to have, and what ways are we going to have to think to move forward to a better future? Not just survive in a dystopian one.’ And I think those qualities are compassion, openheartedness, open-mindedness, respect for difference, teamwork, rigor, strength.”

That is, we need sci-fi to assist us in reflecting on the hard challenges we face as human beings, what is it that we have to overcome about ourselves, in order to arrive at a world in which the need for a Black Lives Matter movement is unnecessary or unthinkable.

The Black Working Class of Ferguson Opened Up Human Rights For All of Us

By Chris Crass (August 10, 2017)

Three years ago the Black working class communities of Ferguson, St, Louis, and the surrounding area, moved the political landscape of the country towards Black liberation, racial justice and collective liberation. Black working class communities, with young people, women, and parents in the lead, refused submission in the face of yet another racist police murder, in the face of a Ferguson city government and police force that made racist punishment and extortion through ticketing, bail, warrarents and imprisonment of Black people their business model.

The Black working class communities of Ferguson and St. Louis opened up the political space for the movement of Black Lives Matter to challenge white supremacy culturally, politically and institutionally, and their courage, tenacity, and resistance – against machine gun wielding police, tanks, snipers, mass media calling them thugs, criminals, and animals – their affirmation in words and action of Black humanity in defiance of the nightmare of white supremacy, awakened, radicalized, and energized people hungry for justice and liberation, all over the world.

Black working class people, who took enormous risks, who brought leadership in hundreds of different ways, who asserted the values and visions of Black liberation for a whole new generation, made history and we have been living in the times of a renaissance of leadership, organization, and vision for Black liberation every since.

Yes, we are also living in the times of white racist reaction, but we must never forget that Trump and the GOP are in fact in reaction to the life affirming, dignity for all of humanity asserting, movement for multiracial democracy, for Black liberation, for racial, economic and gender justice, for Black Lives Matter.

The people of Ferguson and St. Louis who took to the streets day after day, night after night, facing the violence and vitriol of this white supremacist society, fundamentally expanded human rights, democracy, economic, racial and gender justice, for all of us.

For Michael Brown and his family and community, for the people of Ferguson and St. Louis, for the Black leaders in cities, towns, suburbs and rural areas all over the country who created and continue to build the Black Lives Matter movement, let us all continue to build.

For those of us racialized, raised to be white in a white supremacist society, let us remember that this day three years ago was a moment in which we all had to ask “what side of history am I on” and how will I bring as many other white people onto the side of justice, multiracial democracy, and Black Lives Matter, as possible. Let us fight to free as many white people as possible from being soldiers of white supremacy, from having their/our humanity devoured in the service of a ruling class agenda to divide and rule us. Let us fight to unite as many white people as we can to the multiracial movements for collective liberation all around us, end white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, and all get free.

Trump is Dangerous but Not a Fascist

By Marc Cooper (August 4, 2017)

I hope this is the last post EVER I do on the “debate” over whether or not Trumpism is Fascism.

As a student of 1930’s Europe I could give you a long and boring recount why it is not. I will reduce that whole history to two sentences: historically Fascism only rises to power to counter a revolutionary socialist movement that has been in power or threatens power. The primary focus of fascism is counter-revolution. If you think America faces the threat of socialist revolution you are crazier than Trump.

Now, I will speak from the personal experience of having lived in the flesh the fascist coups in Chile and Argentina and having also been in both countries during the dictatorships. In Chile I worked for the president at the time of the coup so with all humility I was more or less at the epicenter.

Here were their shared defining characteristics:

1. Seizure of power by the military backed by ultra-right parties and the immediate suspension or abolition of the constitution..

2. Immediate imposition of a state of siege and a prolonged curfew (10 years in Chile).

3. Closure of congress. Abolition of ALL civil liberties.

4. Abolition of all political parties and a free press. Round the clock censorship including of the arts.

5. Wholesale murder of leading peaceful opposition leaders and politicians. Mass jailings and systematic torture.

6. Squashing of an independent judiciary and an abolition of habeus corpus.

7. Outlawing by bayonet and gunfire all labor unions.

8. Deployment of govt and paramilitary death squads that engaged in forced disappearances, assassinations, throwing people out of helicopters and dumping of unidentified and sometimes mutilated bodies in mass graves.

9. Military control of all universities and schools, including grade schools.

10. Activation of a nationwide, organized support network that seized power in all major cities and rural districts. (Impossible in America where all big cities are Democratic).

11. An all-pervading FEAR that you were never safe, that at any moment your door can be broken down or you can be swept off the street and never seen again. And I do mean all-pervading.

This is what I saw and felt. I do not see anything similar here. If you do, you need to see an optometrist.

Saying that Trumpism is not Fascism no way denies he is personally an authoritarian, nor does it deny that authoritarians and fascists along with some other quite normal but confused people support him.

It does not mean that his administration is benign or that it has not and will continue to wreak as much damage as it can. Nor does it mean in any way he should not be confronted and resisted.

It does mean that the US in 2017 presents almost none of the social factors that are the building blocks of fascism.

So… then.. what difference does it make what we call it? IMHO, it means a lot. Calling his admin fascist grants him way more power than he deserves or has. It overestimates his strength and tends to make you overlook the splits and contradictions within the circles of power around him… or against him. That, in turn, renders you impotent to exploit and widen those splits. Susan Collins is a reactionary Republican… but hardly a fascist. The presence of people like her in the Senate clearly can make a difference.

Mostly, invoking Fascism scares people and has a tendency to DE-mobilize protest because, after all, no fascist state has ever been overthrown by peaceful marches or hashtags.

If you believe we are living under fascism or in its ante chamber you better get yourself an AK or an AR and learn how to use it. I have a couple extra if you want to buy one.

Trump is evil, malevolent and dangerous. He is also on the defensive and losing support. Nothing here is predetermined but we do have the political freedoms to oppose him and, yes. to defeat him. Defeating him will lead not to Deliverance but probably to Democrats. Not my first choice, but it’s better than what we have now.

Don’t let him off the hook by declaring him and the Americans who voted for him unbeatable fascists. You sound like scared crybabies.

Education No Longer the Sure Way in Our Reality

By Ana Castillo (August 4, 2017)

XICANISMA 2017

Sadly, I know of whence she speaks. It is a reality in this country that defies the belief that education is a sure way for all to climb up the economic ladder.

Instead, college grads are in debt, taking on jobs not related to their fields in order to make ends meet, must take more than one job to do so, relocating and leaving supportive communities not for a professional position but to try to put a sustainable life in place, some keep dreaming of start-ups or ‘branding; merchandise with little business savvy and/or little to no collateral or promising business plan.

We look at a world today where millions of human beings are risking their lives immigrating from home to try to survive and help families and are persecuted in every manner by authorities, where babies and children are dying of starvation because the greed of powers that be deny aid, where millions are suffering and dying from treatable diseases for the same reason, and above all, most tragically and shameful, all this should not have been.

With or without substantial income, we may use our learning, our creative minds, our hands joined with hope to continue a resistance of activism and spiritual fortitude. We may do this because there is no other way. No one can stand alone as the vicious agenda of a future dictatorship based on White Supremacy, misogyny and homophobia, xenophobia and further castigation of the growing have-nots grinds forward.

White Nationalism is the Core of Trump Administration

By Joe Lowndes (August 3, 2017)

Over the last week the White House appeared to be in a kind of free fall, marked by palace intrigue, organizational chaos, and of course, the rise and fall of the Mooch. In contrast this commedia dell-arte however, we now get two proposals that advance a clear domestic agenda: the proposed immigration “merit system” and a planned assault on affirmative action in college admissions.

Since the beginning, the white nationalists in the Trump administration have been depicted as fanatics and political outsiders who would ultimately get sidelined by the everyday imperatives of governing. Today, they look more like what they always have been – the most clear-eyed representatives of Trumpism as it was presented to voters on the campaign trail. Indeed, if anything rescues this presidency it will be a steady, focused agenda that continues to target black and brown people through various forms of policy, legislation and law enforcement (federal and local).

To the degree that other avenues are closed off to the Trump administration, it can exercise power in areas where it is relatively unconstrained. This is particularly true in regard to the DOJ which can and has bolstered and given freer reign to ICE and border patrol, has let local law enforcement agencies off the leash, and is now using its civil rights division on take on affirmative action – all the while turning a blind eye toward, (and in some cases actively collaborating with) militias, neo-nazi groups etc.. This is of course why so many on the right have been hell-bent on keeping Sessions in place.

Bannon has been given to elaborate flourishes and the occasional mention of a European fascist thinker here or there. Stephen Miller sounds like a race-crazed zealot whenever he opens his mouth (like nearly shouting at CNN reporter Jim Acosta because of his “shocking cosmopolitanism” today). And the Alt Right in all its forms is thrilling to both White House announcements. But that doesn’t mean that the white nationalists in the White House represent some kind of political exoticism unmindful of the need to govern soberly. Rather they are the steadfast stewards of Trumpism – ignoring the noise and drama of personalities in conflict and delivering to his broad electoral coalition exactly what the boss promised they would. This is the Middle America they aim to hold onto for the next election cycle.