astra and keeanga on socialist org
astra taylor and keeanga yamahtta taylor on socialist org
via nika dubrovsky rt [https://twitter.com/alex__han/status/1699149753303421225?s=20] of this article – You Can’t Be a Socialist Alone: Astra Taylor and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (aug 2023) –
Two intellectual and movement leaders talk candidly about the growing mass rejection of capitalism—and the challenges of converting that into real socialist organization – [https://inthesetimes.com/article/astra-taylor-keeanga-yamahtta-taylor-socialism]
notes/quotes:
keeanga: There has been a dramatic decline in American exceptionalism. People look at their lives and they look around this country and very few think, “Wow, isn’t it great to be an American? You can drown in debt, you can be unable to pay your bills, you can get killed by the police — this is the greatest country on Earth!”
to peter diamandis tweeting that this is the greatest time in history to be alive.. none of us are free et al
astra: The expanded welfare state was more of a threat to the economy than Covid itself, in a sense.
she wrote.. because things got better.. health.. more picky about jobs.. et al
astra: My solution is just to *keep organizing and keep going, which might be kind of delusional but it’s how I am. The current political and cultural dynamics are pretty awful, but we **have no choice but to keep plowing ahead..t
*this is why we have org fatigue et al.. org ing around non legit needs.. perpetuates same song while sucking the life out of us
**oh my
keeanga: So there remains a big gap between the kind of openness to the idea of socialism, and then the ability for the socialist Left to capitalize on that and to actually recruit into actual organization..t
deeper.. need to let go of recruit ing ness and focus on a problem deep enough that 8b people already crave it.. recruit/invite/engage ness as cancerous distractions
we need a problem deep enough to resonate w/8bn today.. a mechanism simple enough to be accessible/usable to 8bn today.. and an ecosystem open enough to set/keep 8bn legit free
ie: org around a problem deep enough (aka: org around legit needs) to resonate w/8bn today.. via a mechanism simple enough (aka: tech as it could be) to be accessible/usable to 8bn today.. and an ecosystem open enough (aka: sans any form of m\a\p) to set/keep 8bn legit free
astra: *How do we use elections to build a base without getting totally sucked into the vortex? Because we don’t just need good people, or even good socialists, in office. That’s not enough to get things done. **We need organized movements that can back them up by challenging the rule of capital, and that can also hold them accountable.
*you don’t/can’t
**no.. that’s same song.. we need 1st/most: means to undo our hierarchical listening to self/others/nature as global detox/re\set.. so we can org around legit needs
My own experience with the Debt Collective, a debtors’ union, is that it’s *really tough work to build something from scratch. There’s the strategic part of it — questions about the opposition, where the levers of power are that you might reach, about short and long term goals —and there’s the emotional labor. **You’re constantly having to push on people, whether it’s pushing them to engage with you and get involved or pushing our adversaries, which for an introvert like myself is super draining. And of course the opposition is pushing back. The history of the Left is one of organizations facing all sorts of external threats and being sabotaged in all sorts of ways — but ***we still have to somehow do the work of building these organizations. And it’s hard..t
*takes a lot of work as red flag we’re doing it wrong..
**super draining to everyone (aka: cancerous distraction) because invited vs invented et al..
again..
need 1st/most: means to undo our hierarchical listening to self/others/nature as global detox/re\set.. so we can org around legit needs
***need to let go.. and try something legit diff.. (and now we have the means.. via tech/ai as nonjudgmental expo labeling)
ie: imagine if we listened to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & used that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness as nonjudgmental expo labeling)
astra: A lot of people have something to gain from a different political economy, and it is *absolutely imperative that we create movements that invite people in and find that common cause. I don’t think either of us think you have to erase differences, right? **The trick is finding points of connection and overlap .. t— like being able to walk outside without choking on smoke or passing out from the heat, for example. Or not worrying that getting cancer will bankrupt you if it doesn’t kill you first.
*what we need to do is org around something 8b people already crave.. no invited ness needed et al
**
we need a problem deep enough to resonate w/8bn today.. a mechanism simple enough to be accessible/usable to 8bn today.. and an ecosystem open enough to set/keep 8bn legit free
ie: org around a problem deep enough (aka: org around legit needs) to resonate w/8bn today.. via a mechanism simple enough (aka: tech as it could be) to be accessible/usable to 8bn today.. and an ecosystem open enough (aka: sans any form of m\a\p) to set/keep 8bn legit free
*Of course people won’t just spontaneously come together around these issues — we need to organize people around their commonalities..t But I really believe that we’re in a situation that isn’t good for the vast majority of people. **It’s an anti-human system. I actually don’t think it’s good for the billionaires either — they seem totally miserable and weird and toxic. I think it’d be much better for them if we expropriated their wealth and said, “Sorry, you have to be more normal.”
*again.. because not problem deep enough
**it’s all of us.. so we need a way that is for all of us.. hari rat park law et al .. as global detox leap
I do think you have to be committed to that kind of solidarity of bridging differences and then really do the work of inviting people in based on those identities and categories, or specific problems they have. At the Debt Collective, we’ve been recruiting actively with older people — anyone over 50 who has student debt — partly to combat the stereotype that this is just a problem for young people. If you can’t pay it off when you’re young, things just get worse and worse as you get older. And just by naming that and calling people in, we now have these amazing assemblies with people well into their 80s coming out and finding, “Oh, this is a space for me. I’m welcome here, too.”
whalespeak.. dave’s campfire analogy et al
*You can’t just expect people to join your universalistic movement — you have to name people’s experiences. This is the **insight of identity politics, that you have to name people’s problems and then bring them into a coalition. You can’t just pretend experiential differences and structural inequities don’t exist. ***And I think socialism is key — an economic analysis is key — to actually having an umbrella worth being brought under.
*cancerous distraction.. if go deep enough.. don’t have to name anything .. because it’s already on each heart
**but you can’t name/know et al.. so need discrimination as equity.. infinitesimal structures approaching the limit of structureless\ness and/or vice versa .. aka: ginorm/small ness.. and for that.. we need (now have and we’re missing it).. tech/ai as nonjudgmental expo labeling
***all still cancerous distractions.. until we let go enough.. of all the analysis ness.. being brought ness.. et al.. need a means sans any form of m\a\p
astra: a full-on class traitor. Unless you recognize that the fights waged by people in lower income and wealth brackets *really are your fights, too. Because ultimately we’re talking about planetary habitability.
*well.. yeah.. none of us are free ness.. but if we focus on fights.. even on creative refusal et al.. sucks our time/energy and just perpetuates same song
keeanga: *When I think about where we are in this ongoing struggle — is it just a constant repetition of what we’ve done in the past? — I think there are new developments that require new strategies, new tactics. **I think we need a mass movement built on the interests of working-class people. As you point out, that might include class traitors, but there must be a political commitment that this is a struggle on the interest of the working class, which we know is multiethnic, multigendered, multinational. That is the kind of movement that we have to build right now.
*yes.. since forever.. same song.. need a legit diff way.. hari rat park law et al
**we will have a global detox leap if org around legit needs
astra: I mean, the Debt Collective gets grants. We need grants, I want more grants. *Movements need resources. And it’s hard when you’re mobilizing people based on their lack of wealth to get them to pay for membership or to sustain a group financially. But **I’m just 100% convinced that we will never reach the scale of power we want if we are completely dependent on foundation funding and the whims of wealthy donors. It just comes with too many terms and conditions and restrictions and fickleness. Democracy does have a price, it turns out.
*perhaps let’s try/code money (any form of measuring/accounting) as the planned obsolescence w/ubi as temp placebo.. where legit needs are met w/o money.. till people forget about measuring
**deeper.. if dependent on any form of m\a\p
keeanga: *I think that it is wildly accurate that foundation money has become unavoidable. To me, it makes the need for democracy within organizations and social movements even more important. How do we determine how those resources being utilized? **Who is making the decisions instead of the formulation that exists now — an executive director, a professionalized core of organizers? The wider membership base is either used to demonstrate why a particular grant is needed or mobilized to show up for things, but they’re not ***intrinsically involved in the decision making. The flood of foundation dollars goes hand in hand with the crisis of democracy and accountability in our social movements. ****We can’t actually have the type of breakthrough that we’re describing without democratic input and participation of people who might constitute a mass movement.
*oi.. or that any form of democratic admin is also a red flag that we’re holding onto cancerous distractions
**decision making is unmooring us law.. (wasting time/energy on finite set of choices et al) .. need to try curiosity over decision making
***makes no diff if still spinach or rock ing
****oi.. let go..
need 1st/most: means to undo our hierarchical listening to self/others/nature as global detox/re\set.. so we can org around legit needs
imagine if we listened to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & used that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness as nonjudgmental expo labeling)
keeanga: Reform or revolution? I think it’s still a good question to ask.
need something legit diff.. otherwise spinning our wheels in same song
The question for organizers, or people who are part of socialist organizations, or who see themselves as part of the Left, is to *try to generalize beyond a particular struggle that people are in. To generalize to show that this is not just about abortion, or the price of rent, or the price of groceries or just about climate, but how all of these things are connected to a system of capitalism that is dependent on the exploitation of human beings, of animals, of the Earth itself. And that is incompatible with human life, or with life at all. **Sometimes you need not just action, but people with a social theory of how the world actually functions, and an alternative.
*aka problem deep enough.. so we can org around legit needs
**actually just need a legit alt.. that is for all of us.. has to be all of us for the dance to dance
1\ undisturbed ecosystem (common\ing) can happen
2\ if we create a way to ground the chaos of 8b legit free people
astra: I resist the reform versus revolution binary a little bit because, where’s the revolution button? If that was an option, then we could mash it..t
it’s right in front of us.. and we’re missing it.. we can ‘mash it’.. if we just let go enough to try/see (what legit free people are like)
pearson unconditional law et al
*I don’t think you can just remake human beings like you’re wiping a slate clean. People are shaped by history, we’re shaped by our traumas and our positive experiences. So when we’re fighting for something like student debt cancellation, how can we frame that as a pit stop to a radically democratic, reparative higher education? We don’t just want people to have some debt relief — we want to completely change the way education is conceived of and structured.
*in a sense we can (i’d call it global detox leap).. but we haven’t done it and don’t beleive it.. because we keep missing the element that it can’t be part\ial ness.. it has to be all of us in sync.. for the dance to dance
humanity needs a leap.. to get back/to simultaneous spontaneity .. simultaneous fittingness.. everyone in sync..
Reform can be a stepping stone.
because of sync ness and everyone ness (and that today we have the means to facil that seeming chaos).. stepping stones.. reform.. will always be cancerous distractions
keeanga: I think that idea of reformism is rapidly becoming nonviable for most people. In some ways, Barack Obama’s campaigns were the dying gasp of electoralism. Obviously it hasn’t completely died out, but a lot of young people, disaffected people, believed the Obama campaign when it said it came from the people and would do the people’s will. And it just didn’t. It was so quick, the way that it just didn’t. If Barack Obama — with this narrative that he was an organizer and he was from the outside and different — can’t deliver change, then why on earth would we believe it from Joe Biden, a dinosaur of the political establishment? Or Hillary Clinton, a dinosaur of the political establishment? Or any other crook the Democratic Party offers up?
but he (no one to date has been ) wasn’t legit from outside and diff..
But *without a real organized alternative, it can turn into apathy and passivity. And you just get people kind of dropping out of elections, right? That has been a thing in Philadelphia with Black participation, which peaked with Obama. It can also radicalize people to the Right.
*need 1st/most: means to undo our hierarchical listening to self/others/nature as global detox/re\set.. so we can org around legit needs
ameeanga: Often what is being offered is condemnation and relentless criticism — not really a positive kind of view of a different kind of world..t
huge.. david on creative refusal et al.. is keeping us from something legit diff.. graeber make it diff law et al
ie: imagine if we listened to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & used that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness as nonjudgmental expo labeling)
astra: What the Left does, in its best moments, is speak to people’s grievances and then offer them something positive: You can actually have a better world, not just one where you’re better off than someone who’s worse off.
not unless/until we let go enough.. of any form of m\a\p
astra: At your most optimistic, what does human liberation under socialism look like?
keeanga: Freedom for capitalists is the freedom to buy, the freedom to sell, the freedom to starve. Socialism means living in a society that is not organized around exploitation. It means really having the ability to self-determine one’s life, *to make decisions free from economic coercion, to really engage fully in **what it means to be human — which is not to work desperately for one’s entire life only to die alone or broke or in debt, which is the reality for the vast majority of people in our society.
*rather.. to listen to daily curiosity over decision making
**almaas holes law et al.. need to org around legit needs
mufleh humanity law: we have seen advances in every aspect of our lives except our humanity– Luma Mufleh
astra: I think you just beautifully debunked the idea that capitalism is about freedom at all. It’s the freedom to exploit or be exploited — to live at the expense of others and the planet — or to be houseless and indebted and without medical care. *We need to refuse to accept that as a remotely reasonable definition of freedom.
*rather.. we need to let go of refusing ness and defining ness.. all the cancerous distractions.. for (blank)’s sake
astra: But I’m inclined to think freedom is always a concept that has tensions. If capitalism is a society where capital rules, then socialism is a world where the social or society rules. And that society is far from self-evident. It is something we have to make, and it is something that can change. We’re not just free as individuals; we are in relationship to each other. We find our freedom to live, to be secure, to breathe clean air, to be nourished, to have a complex society where people have to do all sorts of different things, by also having *obligations and living within limits, and living with respect. And that’s a good thing. I see us as fundamentally indebted to our ancestors and to the planet and as having not only rights, but duties or obligations.
*great ie of us not letting go enough to see (what legit free people are like)..
pearson unconditional law et al
*My vision of socialism is always that it’s a world where we’d have the freedom to ask better, more interesting questions, or where we could be preoccupied with better questions than whether 10 billionaires should have the wealth of 50% of humanity. **Questions like, how do we make decisions together? Who is in this community? Who’s outside? How do we live within limits? Can we invent some stuff that actually serves human purposes instead of extractive ones? I imagine a world where a lot of things are unsettled and open to debate, but we’re not having to deal with inane, hateful, transphobic, ableist, racist, destructive questions every day. ***It’s a world where we get to have better problems, more interesting ones.
*imagine if we listened to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & used that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness as nonjudgmental expo labeling)
**oi.. all cancerous distractions
***or perhaps a world where the idea of a problem is irrelevant.. ie: a nother way book et al
keeanga: *To me, socialism has never died — the idea of democratic decision-making about the way a society distributes and shares its wealth and resources — because that resonates most with what it means to be human. Humans are social beings who enjoy each other’s company, who like to co-create, to live among one another. Capitalism is the antithesis of all that.
*oh my.. not what it means to be human.. again.. decision making is unmooring us law.. any from of democratic admin.. any form of m\a\p.. the death of us
we need to try something legit diff..
ie: art (by day/light) and sleep (by night/dark) as global re\set.. to fittingness (undisturbed ecosystem)
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astra on organizing et al
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be you. 