Ep 385 - WCF Self Definition plus Resist or Order Pizza?

Episode 385 of RevolutionZ features our 28th excerpt from The Wind Cries Freedom, an oral history imagining and reporting from the next American Revolution. This excerpt follows organizers inside RPS as they build a second national convention with chapter-based delegates, intentional representation, and real mechanisms for deliberation. It continues our look at movement infrastructure. How did they scale participation, keep decisions accountable, and build cross-country solidarity without turning politics into a personality contest? How did they retain and radiate autonomy within solidarity? What lessons can we glean from their reports about their feelings, motives, and choices?

The centerpiece of that discussion is the Revolutionary Participatory Society's shadow government project, a parallel set of roles and public policy positions meant to challenge the real government while proving an alternative can be serious, detailed, and rooted. How did they set it up? What did it entail? Our "guests" from the future also address a hard strategic question by way of a report describing a thorny convention conflict. What happened when “revolution” got momentarily confused with macho violence? Their report  argues for nonviolent discipline, de-escalation, and the long game of building numbers, legitimacy, system changes, and real-world institutions that meet needs now. It says they fought state violence by creating circumstances in which state violence would benefit movements more than the state.

But, before all that, we of course live in the now, not the future, and where we are, where I am, Trump recently threatened to obliterate an entire population, an entire civilization, and then, incredibly, the news cycle kept rolling, and most of us still woke up, got out of bed, went to school or work, returned home, made dinner, and acted like nothing much had changed. We might have wept, we might have cursed or even screamed. But we accepted a bargain. We didn't reorient ourselves to openly, forcefully resist. I wrote a response that started as a moral howl about Trumpian threats, U.S. imperial violence, and the quiet danger of becoming “good Americans” like yesteryear's "Good Germans," people who perhaps disapprove in private but who don’t challenge, refuse, and disrupt in public. My howl addressed government officials, soldiers, media people, teachers, and students, as groups who could avoid the label "Good American" if they would just do their jobs as they claim to. Serve the public, protect the public, report what matters, teach the public, and become the public. 

Transcript

Welcome And What’s Coming

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, my name is Michael Albert, and I am the host of the podcast that's called Revolution Z. This is our three hundred and eighty fifth consecutive episode. It continues our focus on chapters from the oral history The Wind Cross Freedom, presenting chapter twenty eight this time out of thirty, but also before that, it includes a comment spurred by the most recent round of Trumpian and Israeli violence. What can one say that hasn't been said over and over? The morning that Trump announced his willingness to destroy a whole civilization, just one more threat evidencing a war crime, moral abomination, vile inclinations and intents, I wrote a quick reaction. I suppose it was a kind of plaintiff howl. As such, I think the best I can do here is to offer it to here, for you to hear, as I felt it, with perhaps some additional comments along the way. We'll see. It was titled something like I don't even remember at this point the exact title, are we all good Americans? When I was in high school, I used to wonder how did the German people put up with Hitler and his regime? Was there something about the German language that destroyed empathy? I interject, I kid you not, I seriously wondered about that. Had someone spiked their water, and so on. I wasn't wondering about the lunatics. I wasn't wondering about the macho sadistic souls gone bad. I wasn't wondering about the top mongrels either, not about Hitler, nor Himmler, nor the rest. I was wondering about what I had sometimes heard called good Germans, normal citizens, nice people, among the most educated and cultured in the world, millions upon millions of them. I interject. At the time in high school, I was addled that it could happen. I was seriously racking as to how it had happened. Not long ago, talking to a tenth grader, I learned they were doing a section in their social studies class about World War II, the Nazis, etc. I asked, in your class does the teacher bring up analogies to MAGA, Trump, and current events? It was a very high end high school, and yet the answer was no. I asked any students ask about it. The answer was no. Well is there any discussion of lessons from the periods you looked at to understand events now? The answer no. My Howell continues. Well, this morning our own Fuhr said a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. Many are saying in reaction, Yikes, that isn't the America I know. Well, truth be told, what did people think was our America? But I don't want to quibble about that. I get why so many people think of America as something wonderful, as a promise that persistently delivers, as the height of human achievement and freedom, and so on and so forth. It isn't those exalted things, of course, and it wasn't ever those exalted things, not at the start, not now, and not in between. But that obvious truth is at our moment, right now, beside my current point. The population of the United States, I suspect more even than the population of Germany circa Hitler's reign, has been told over and over that our government is hell bent on sadistic mayhem and gore. If Trump can, Trump gleefully acknowledges that he will. Technically he can. He's got the guns for it, he's got the bombs for it. What about socially? That is the question, isn't it? Will we be good Americans, perhaps frowning, perhaps weeping, or maybe even applauding, but in any event not working to stop him? If our country wipes out a civilization, and even if our country doesn't but was ready to, was even eager to, will we all have lunch tomorrow like any other day? Will we get up, get out of bed, get dressed, get blessed, and go to school or to work like any other day? I interject. Some of you notice I included a reference to John Lennon and to Bob Dylan there in the words, which helped me prepare this and not smash the keyboard. The Howell continues, well we maybe pick up a pizza for the family on the way home. Eat again, watch TV, put the kids to bed, maybe even make love with our partner, and then sleep, only to get up and do it all over again and again. While Iran suffers, while the world gasps and the environment withers, or will we sit on the sidelines, smiling and even weep a bit in private, but otherwise maintain our routines? I interject. There the verbal reference was to Jackson Brown. Doesn't it come down to that? Are we good Americans? We don't have to wave the flag to qualify as good Americans. We don't have to do business exactly as usual to qualify. We don't even have to applaud the mayhem. If we don't resist, that is enough. After all, isn't that what made the good Germans good Germans? So wouldn't that make us good Americans? If you are in the government to be truly good, really, really good, don't you have to instead stand up and say no? Don't you have to refuse? Not quietly resign, but resist with at least civil disobedience, or still better, with outraged obstruction. And is that true only for those in government? How about those receiving the order to obliterate a civilization? Don't they have to refuse such disgusting orders? How about teachers in their classrooms? Don't they have to say hold on, today's lesson is interrupted to address reality? And what about students? Don't they have to encamp, occupy, and organize? They face an abysmal future. They know it, they dread it, they fear it. Why aren't they so angry at it that going to class is deemed nonsense and fighting back is considered the way to be? What happened between the pro Palestinian encampments and so few young people demonstrating actively, seriously, militantly now? I interject. Anyone who has the answer to that question, please leave it as a comment. Back to the howl. Listen to the radio. Some highly educated, highly civilized social moron is likely pontificating on whether infrastructure that powers military activities as well as the whole population is due to the former a legitimate target. Ditto, I suppose, for providing water, food, and so on. Don't newscasters have to interrupt their daily dose of idiocy to proclaim that war is anti human and that Trump is a wannabe Hitler who is quickly attaining his goal? In fact, doesn't everyone who wants to be more than a good American have to resist? There is no longer much merit in just criticizing Trump. That alone, oh I don't like him, or even oh I hate him, even with piles of reason why doesn't violate the good American designation. Sure, it's not bad to criticize Trump, but at this point, at least in progressive outlets, and increasingly in much of the mainstream too, it is redundant in the extreme. Somehow, some way we all have to contribute to stopping the mayhem. It is not enough to just say we don't like it. I felt the same way over Vietnam when I was a youngster. And yet, honestly, this is so much more obvious, so much more blatant. I truly hated LBJ, Lyndon Baines Johnson. Hey hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today? Well, DJ T is no LBJ. He is immeasurably worse. Hey hey, DJ T, how many civilizations will you demolish before we the people stop you and your regime? We have been the world's biggest bully, the world's mafia don, the world's least ethical hitman ever since Hitler left us. We carpet bombed Vietnam, everything that flies on anything that moves. We bombed Afghanistan when people on the ground, people in the know, the aid workers, warned that it would disrupt their harvest and starve a couple of million people. The list of our atrocities is endless, and yet I don't think I am just caught up in the moment when I say that the lunatic now in the Oval Office is a whole different matter. This is Hitler's fascism armed in a way that Hitler couldn't even dream of. It is Hitler's fascism unfolding before our eyes, proudly proclaiming its inclination to destroy a civilization that's over there. And then where else? Here too when you think about it, supposing we even warrant the label civilized. When, oh when, will we the people really wake up and really resist? Not nine million on one day, but twenty or thirty or more million day after day. Will we go down in history as good Americans? The last incarnation of mass evil by way of popular obedience. The last incarnation because the difference between good and evil, truth and lie, science and self serving mysticism, and even love and hate are also being obliterated by the psychopath and the oval office. Leonard Cohn's song Democracy said America is the cradle of the best and of the worst. It's here they got the range and the machinery for change, and it's here they got the spiritual thirst. But do we have the spiritual thirst? Do you? Is democracy and then more than democracy coming to the USA? I truly hope so. I added a PS to the article. If you are looking for a way to resist, visit all of us directory dot org. It has hundreds of organizations and projects you can search to find a destination that suits your interests, or is in your locale and will welcome your help. Okay, my howl ends there, at least for the moment. Or does it? One last comment on the current situation. An old friend who I have had little contact with for some time, who is, I think, ballpark my age, and already quite actively doing what he can to resist, wrote me a nice note. He liked the original article that the above was morphed from. It was nice of him to write and say so. I appreciated it. But honestly, being liked by such folks doesn't really matter. To write a piece that gets compliments from fellow activists, so to speak, means as close to nothing for the value of the piece as you can get. It wasn't written to be liked by people who know all that it says and more, and who are already acting positively and effectively on the knowledge. A piece like the above wants to inspire people who are not yet in motion to enter into motion. They may be sophisticated politically. The question is the level of activism. I got another response from a sixteen year old woman who loved the article, was inspired by it, and went to the all of us site mentioned in the PS to find a destination, a cause by which she could join the resistance. That is why I and others write pieces like the above. Calls to act have merit to the extent that they inspire actions. I hope maybe a few of you Revolution Z listeners who are likely horrified and outraged by current events, who likely understand their roots and consequences, but who haven't found a destination, a cause to give some time to to resist will be moved to do so. Perhaps you will even cross paths with the sixteen year old young woman, and with other young men and women. She is exceptional, I think, so let's say eighteen to twenty five, who are not yet acting, who are horrified, and who are very much needed if we are going to stop the insanity and move beyond that to win a better world. Okay, that's really the end of the comments targeted directly to the present. Now for some comments oriented more to future possibilities, albeit with implications, I hope, for now as well. Our next excerpt from The Wind Cries Freedom, an oral history of the next American Revolution, presents imagined interviewees, Patty Cohn, Malcolm Mays, Lydia Lawrence, Bill Hampton, and Barbara Bethune to discuss RPS's second convention and its shadow government project. To start off, Miguel Guevara, the interviewer, asks, Patty, at her home in Kansas City, you came to activism with the discipline of the military and the conscience of someone who had seen its costs up close. You brought that clarity into writing, organizing, and connecting deeply with working class and ex military communities. At the first RPS convention, there was unanimous agreement that all decisions would be provisional, meant to guide us until a second convention with wider participation could be held. How did that second convention finally come about? And what do you recall about what it was like? Well, Miguel, at the first convention, those attending and voting were self selected and attended as individuals. We liked RPS's ideas, so we attended. Organizers circulated materials beforehand, but despite their efforts, people who attended hadn't all deliberated face to face in advance. For the second convention, the idea was that participants would all come from chapters. We waited over two years to have it, and during that time we established over eight hundred chapters. The average chapter had about forty members, so we had roughly thirty two thousand active members, very active members. Thirty-two thousand people couldn't attend a working convention. But we did want to gain cross-chapter solidarity by having folks from across the country meet, hear each other's experiences, and share each other's lessons. We would together ratify or perhaps reorient the prior basic RPS commitments and national campaigns. We had to decide who would attend and how things would function. Our plan was simple. Each chapter would send five people, at least three women, and at least two people of color. So about 4,000 people would attend. Chapters would choose who they sent using any method that they favored. However, each chapter agreed that all chapter members would share the costs, not just those attending. People from the many chapters in each city would meet citywide at least twice before coming to the convention to get to know one another better and to discuss ideas they wished to collectively bring. One statewide meeting of all the delegates from all the chapters in each state would also precede the National Convention. These meetings were themselves conventions of a sort. Finally, delegates from all over the U.S. would come to the National Convention. Even as we were planning, we had in mind establishing precedents and procedures for future conventions. The National Convention would last five days. Time would be set aside for presentations, discussion, debate, and for various elections and special events, including talks, social events, meals, and topical meetings. Each chapter's delegates would get time before major voting sessions to caucus online with their full chapter memberships. Chapters would receive reports and register their preferences with their delegates via these online sessions. Everything would be recorded and accessible, of course. Naturally, this was only one way to do all this, but it was the way we settled on the second time, and pretty much maintained thereafter. Miguel asks, how did the planning occur? A year ahead, each chapter could optionally propose a person to work on a planning committee and serve as convention staff. Everyone knew this would be a big job, and that the odds were good one wouldn't get chosen unless one was pretty well known. Chapters proposed about 400 people. Descriptions of all these nominees were distributed to all chapters. Chapters couldn't vote for their own nominee, and each chapter got four votes. Each chapter had to vote for two women and two men, and also had to vote for two people of color. Then the twenty women with the most votes and the twenty men with the most votes were on the committee, as were the twenty people of color with the most votes. The committee therefore had to be at least forty people and could conceivably be as many as sixty. It turned out to be fifty one. Those fifty one became the planning committee and staff responsible for getting a venue, preparing advanced communications, developing an agenda, inviting special guests, chairing sessions, and handling accommodations and food. Miguel asks, what from the first convention did the second convention change? The program was updated, of course, but the basics of RPS had been conceived wisely, and they didn't change too much, at least not that I can remember. I guess the biggest innovation was implementing the shadow government idea. Various factors led to that decision, and for that matter, it certainly wasn't original to RPS. The Green Party had established a shadow government during the second Obama administration, but on a much lesser scale than RPS undertook and with almost no impact. A precipitating factor of the RPS effort was that various RPS members had begun running for office and wanted an RPS project that those who did not win and had and their many supporters could plug into. But we also wondered, would this idea of creating a shadow government create tension over who holds office and even elevate some to persistent power? Would it get sucked into ratifying existing structures? At the first convention, there was an undertone of worry that we would blow our opportunity. At the second convention, just two years later, a little more, confidence and celebratory mood replaced worry. Almost everyone felt we were building a movement that was going to take society to a whole new place. Of course it wasn't certain, but there was considerable confidence. There was revolution in the air. It wasn't childish, it wasn't wishful thinking, no one thought it was imminent. It was a quiet, calm assessment. RPS was growing, and it wasn't going away. We had skits which poke fun at ourselves and even at particular prominent figures in RPS. Members laughed. There was no defensiveness. People were serious, but with a light touch. Discussions and votes on program and for the shadow government meant a lot to us, but nonetheless we were relaxed. RPS emphasized diversity and respect for minority positions, and that served us well. Most votes were lopsided, yet the losing parties were always accommodated with the means to explore their ideas further, so we would all be ready in case the winning ideas proved unsuccessful. I'm not saying we didn't have tense moments, particularly with close votes, but there was much less than at the first convention. And what was even more telling, when decisions were reached, I didn't detect bad feelings. Even more important, the unity wasn't an emergent hive mind. The reverse held. Since the first convention, far more people advocated for richer and more varied ideas. People had gained trust, confidence, and a sense of perspective. Numbers of people relating and growth of militancy are certainly signs of progress. But while those familiar measures matter greatly, what ultimately held the movement together was the interpersonal growth required for a peaceful, just, caring, self-managing society. That growth was what kept the greater and steadily growing. showing numbers of more militant participants functioning well together. Miguel asks, My apologies. I forgot to ask you how you became radicalized. Do you remember? Dealing death was horribly wrong. One day, and this actually didn't happen often, I saw someone I killed face to face. The next day I watched a buddy of mine die. Other days I killed and saw death on my side too. But it was nameless. After a time it was all just death. It was a palpable, nasty cousin of life. Death was unwanted and uninvited, but it constantly showed up. I was a product of military indoctrination, and that is not easy to overcome. It had two main parts ideology was only a small aspect since the first paramount part, blindly obeying orders, took total control over having any opinion at all. The second paramount part was contextually valid, at least to a point, but in the broader reality of social life it was entirely insane. It was that we are a team, we are a family each of us is dependent on and needs to regard others as a lifeline to survival, essential to save even at personal risk. So far understandable it was war after all. But more this family has borders and anyone outside those borders is an enemy. To the inside we were taught to show respect and incredible solidarity, limitless loyalty. To the outside show nothing but unyielding strength and if need be, and the tripwire for this was always set to snap way too easily deliver violent aggression. Horrific brutal regimentation was our dad, death was our child. Connections that formed on the battlefield endured, both positive ones with friends and negative ones with nameless others ran deep. In battle, our military mentality fostered survival and winning, but in life after war our military mentality bred antisocial isolation. My radicalization began when I started to jettison false beliefs and behaviors while in Iraq. It deepened when I later urged and helped others to do likewise. I looked at individuals' views but also at where the views came from and what alternatives existed. Before long I saw the link between imperialism and antisociality and between a life denying system and its mentally tortured soldiers of fortune. At that point RPS provided me with a natural home. It kept me on track and sane against my PTSD I like to think it made me effective in the struggle Miguel asks Senator King Malcolm from his session at his office in New York You ran for and you won your first local election not long after the second RPS convention What kind of attitude toward elections took shape coming out of the first and then the second convention and how did RPS influence your campaign not just then but in the years that followed as well Yes, I did win my first election back then. The RPS attitude, which hasn't changed all that much since, was that to run for office was potentially good. To win was potentially good. But there was but there were also serious pitfalls that could pervert good into bad. The main benefits we advocated were that running could facilitate outreach to new audiences, raise consciousness and boost morale. Winning could gain access to resources to help win more gains in the future. The main pitfalls were that candidates might fixate on winning votes and lose track of larger aims. We might worry more about vote tallies and fundraising than about actual program. Having won an election or even just done reasonably well, candidates might develop an elitist better than thou self perception. We might fall in love with holding office more than with achieving worthy aims. As individuals, RPS members aided campaigns we favored. We even ran for office, but as an organization to avoid getting sucked into electoral dynamics at the expense of our broader agenda RPS opted against collective electoral participation. RPS members helped immeasurably with my campaigns and my work while in office as well. They gave me a rooted sense of my role they helped me arrive at my views and practices. They pushed me to be publicly accountable. Later, during my Senate run almost everyone centrally involved in my campaign was an RPS. Yet as an organization RPS never officially had anything to do with it. Miguel asks Lydia from her session at her home in St. Louis did the shadow government idea surface at that time? How did you get involved? What did the shadow government do and what did you do in it? The idea was floated back when Ralph Nader had run for president as a Green, and Greens actually had one during the Obama administration. When Sanders lost the nomination in twenty sixteen the idea surfaced again, this time for him to undertake, but it didn't happen. I remember wanting Nader to do it and then Sanders, but I felt that without a prominent jump start such a project would accomplish little. Years later the idea resurfaced in RPS and it became part of the agenda for the second convention. I liked the idea and agitated for it, even though I worried that without a really well known national figure to generate excitement it might not fly. The logic was to set up a group that would have the same official positions as their counterparts in the real government. We would have a president, a vice president, a whole cabinet and various other positions as well, including Supreme Court judges, senators, cabinet positions, and other posts too. Ironically, given my desire for someone really prominent to galvanize the idea and despite the fact that I wasn't particularly prominent, I became the first president. But the key factor wasn't me or even my lack of prominence, it was the hundred and twenty thousand RPS active members and tens of thousands of other supporters who were not yet in chapters. They were what made the shadow government idea blossom. Members contributed on average twenty five dollars per month, totaling nearly thirty six million dollars in the first year. That amount grew dramatically each year thereafter due to our growing membership. And members also helped generate policy and demands and helped agitate for them. The idea was that our shadow government would operate in parallel to the real government. We would take stands on all major issues the real government addressed, but also on critical, though officially unaddressed issues. We would offer our views publicly to display an alternative and to agitate for policies we favored. We also generated our own projects and programs and fought for progressive policies. Lydia at the second convention you had one hundred and twenty thousand members. How did the first shadow government get formed? It was partly an election for the president, vice president and senators and it was partly a process of appointments for Supreme Court judges, cabinet members and others. The shadow senators were elected by state conventions before the second national convention. The shadow president and shadow vice president were elected at the second convention. During part of the convention the candidates gave speeches nominations were conducted earlier at the state conventions and were whittled down to four for each office by a prior national online vote of all chapter members. The vote at the national convention was of the whole membership, too, since each chapter got live reports from its delegates, saw the speeches online, and then held votes of its members at their local gatherings. For the vote at the convention, chapter tallies were conveyed. It was surprisingly dramatic and exciting. Lydia became the first shadow president, as you know, and Bert became the first shadow vice president. The shadow senators were all present and a meeting of all those elected began appointing judges, White House staff and the shadow cabinet. Then part of their time at the convention went to the new shadow government members setting up their subsequent online and live meeting schedules Miguel asked did it all go smoothly? Were there any serious problems? There were hiccups of course. Folks would argue about the merits of different candidates no one knew precisely what the new jobs would entail. Sometimes communications got confused or failed for technical reasons. But in my memory it was all so aggressively positive and optimistic that the good far outweighed any glitches. Serious convention problems? Regrettably yes. One dynamic arose and I was actually intimately involved. A group of ex military personnel made a collective proposal on behalf of arming so as to battle directly with police. They saw themselves as true revolutionaries, precisely because they equated their readiness to shoot it out with their being revolutionary, and they equated rejecting weaponry as being phony or even cowardly. To the extent they had a case it was that if those seeking change rejected the use of weapons, those defending the status quo would inevitably win by sheer force of arms and repression. It was a one step argument, and they were correct that if it was true that we could not win fundamental changes without overcoming state violence with movement violence, then anyone who said we should be nonviolent was conceding we could not win fundamental change. If the if part was true then the then part followed. But was the if part true? Well of course we now know from experience it wasn't, though some Ramboish types are probably still holdouts. But really we knew it then too, and much earlier as well. What made this a problem wasn't that such a view was offered, but the way it was offered. These guys marched in, armed with rifles and took the stage. This they felt demonstrated the power of guns. They offered their effectively one line logic and from then on their only stance was you are either with us or you are with the state with the state was everyone hell bent on maintaining the current system. Still, why was it a problem? In my view it was because the people present didn't want to take too strong a stance with these folks who had, after all, gone through wartime conflict. And that they held flawed and even suicidal views was considered a product of their history. And your involvement? I argued the counterview that violence would not only distort our ability to think straight and function well, witness them, but that it would play into the hands of the powers that be. Violence was a terrain where the state would inevitably win. Our task in confronting violence was to disarm it. We had to make it ineffective, such that more violence against us would mean more dissent from us. I was a veteran of active duty and a military organizer, so I quickly gathered a group unarmed, and we simply walked up on stage and said Now what? Are you going to shoot us? Or would shooting us do your agenda more harm than good? Surely you can see we aren't on the side of the state. Surely you can see we aren't cowards. So are you going to shoot us because we reject your argument? Shoot us or let's go talk further. And our act defused their claim that anyone opposing them was for system preservation by comparing our own history of organizing an activism to theirs, which was nearly nil. We got them to leave the stage and talk further with us. The ensuing talks were a bit cathartic for many. The truth was that rather than their history as it manifested in their thinking being a justification for their thinking, our time talking together revealed that their thinking was not carefully reasoned but something less. But still, the bigger point was different. They did have an effect which reverberated for some time. The truth is both sides of the argument had some merit. Our side was about overall relations in the large movements thinking they can fight the state play into the hands of the state, which itself wants nothing so much as to make politics into war, to move from our terrain of issues and aims to their terrain of pure violence. In that immediate confrontation, however, the armed guys on the stage did reveal a parallel truth. In a group, one guy with a club is a problem. Five guys with guns are an even bigger problem. We face two issues on the one hand could we handle police and military violence in local demonstrations? The answer was yes, but only by way of creating a situation in which if the police or military used serious violence against us it would rebound to our benefit, not theirs. The second issue was trickier could we handle personal violence from our own people, such as these vets, whether it was motivated by thuggery, lunacy, infiltration, or sincere belief? It would be hard, if not impossible, to make internal violence counterproductive for those doing it if those doing it were beyond reason, much less if they were actively trying to damage RPS. We did okay with the guys on the stage at the convention, but they weren't trying to harm RPS. What if they were? And so emerged the feeling that RPS needed to have a means to deal with internal or external craziness or sabotage. Discussions went on for some time could we address this threat without corrupting the style and modes of operation of RPS and distorting people's mindsets and views of one another? Could we prepare for such situations without attaining preparedness doing us more harm than the situations themselves? The first thought was well how about if we have a few people who have the training and experience for handling crazy violent interlopers, armed and prepared There were two problems with this. First, the secrecy contradicted so much else we were doing. We decided the decision had to be taken by the organization as a whole, including that those empowered for security would not openly carry or even be known. We decided to elect a group who would then secretly designate security folks. But second, what if these security folks themselves became problematic we decided the people picked shouldn't be the most macho and military and bearing and training. Experienced folks with de-escalation experience should train the people picked as needed, but the people literally providing security should themselves be mild mannered. We also decided that while that set of steps made sense, we weren't sure if it was really needed. After all, we had now completed two conventions and we had been involved in all kinds of demonstrations and campaigns, including often running up against police and state power. So maybe paranoia about the likelihood of internal lunacy was a bigger problem for us than such lunacy itself. As it turned out this cautiousness at undertaking the project was wise. We had the plan ready to propose for a wide discussion and vote, and we decided but we decided to hold off until and unless practical evidence suggested it was needed. And because of our huge growth that time never came. On the other hand, I and various others around the country quietly worked with folks on how to deal with intruders, drunks, ideologically intractable folks and infiltrators nonviolently but forcefully and here we are, so I guess all was well Lydia, what was the hardest thing about doing the shadow government and do you remember what you considered its first successes? Well truth be told it was a tremendous amount of work. After all, we were generating positions on an amazing array of issues and we needed to get the facts right even though we lacked the giant support bureaucracy real government had I was constantly meeting discussing holding press conferences and giving public talks. I was on the road two hundred to two hundred and fifty days a year for my four year term. It was exciting and there was a sense of accomplishment and joy in the work but it was also exhausting and honestly often quite boring. My regular habits and practices were crowded out. We didn't have office holders traveling first class and doing only that which was engaging. No, our office holders did a fair share of road work and work that was actually uplifting, though the responsibility we felt was difficult. But as hard as the work was and as tiring as the constant pressure to deliver was, I think the hardest part was psychological. And this had two parts first we formed our shadow government to mimic the US government structures and offices but of course everyone involved hated that set of institutions. That was strange. I hated the presidency and was shadow president but we wanted what we created to resonate with the country. When I gave a speech it was as shadow president and the same would hold for the rest of us. That way the media and the public would quickly understand the contrast between RPS and the actual government of the US but shadowing the government precluded at least at first a contrast of structure. Our difference was only in different policies. To redress that we decided to slowly alter our government structure, announcing organizational changes like other policies we advocated as things we thought ought to happen in the actual government. We changed various election laws and funding mechanics. Then we added and deleted various positions, changed their mandates and made other changes too, even during my four year term. I interject Hm this may sound a little bit like what Trump did and it's true he did make changes. Of course the difference is the motivation for the changes and the aim of the changes. Anyway the chapter continues the second tricky thing was also psychological, keeping my head on straight and likewise for other folks we didn't require that everyone call me Madame President and otherwise pay homage, but many did. And I was often interviewed, questioned and listened to as if I were some kind of oracle and so it would have been all too easy and I suppose even natural in some sense to fall or even rush into bad habits. I worked to avoid that. But I think what helped most was that I appointed people as my press secretary and chief of staff who would keep me in line. Assessing successes is not easy. People usually think in terms of winning sought gains but in truth that not that is not the only or even the main earmark of success. You can win and go home and have it not mean much for the long haul, even if there is some important benefit in the short run. You can, however, lose a battle a demand, or some or whatever else, but in the process establish new methods or a new organization or consciousness that persists and leads to later gains. You can win nominally but lose. You can lose nominally but win. I think the first significant success in both senses that we all celebrated was when after just a few months we countered mainstream government military policies, budgets and interventionism with our own foreign policy approach, emphasizing disarmament, reallocation of funding, use of military forces for social goods, retooling bases, withdrawing troops, and so on. Our proposals were so extensive, clear and sensible, and their immediate and long term benefits were so apparent to all involved that the whole process gained tremendous credibility. From then on, shadow presentations of policy were highly anticipated and taken very seriously by wide circles of people. Next, I would say our passing of dramatically expanded social service policies, minimum wage policies, work week length laws, and so on was also a very effective step. We didn't just contrast our desired policies and choices To the mainstream government's actual policies and choices, though that was part of it. After all, we said to the people, see what you get with them and see what you would get with us. We also went beyond that, with the shadow government investing time, energy, and funds into outreach, organizing, and agitation. And in that way we started to win policy gains, which was another massive achievement that in turn spurred us to do more. Miguel asks, Bill, the broad idea between the RPS shadow government wasn't limited to government. What was the general approach and how was it pursued? The shadow, or what some called the alternative idea, was grounded in a simple but powerful belief. We could begin building the future now. These weren't just protests, they were practices. They weren't just critiques, they were working models of what justice could look like. A shadow, alternative project, had a few key traits. First it took on a function already handled, maybe poorly, by existing institutions, but did it with new principles. Second, it met real needs in the present. And third, it pointed the way to a better future. You can see all of this in the evolving shadow government itself. It didn't just mirror what power was doing, it offered a map for what powered could be. Some of these projects were started by young folks coming out of school, full of ideas and eager to build something better. They started media outlets, co-ops, legal clinics, food distribution hubs, you name it, all guided by RPS values. Others came from older folks who had been around the block and wanted to do things differently. Some tried to reform their existing workplaces, others struck out on their own to build something new. And over time you could see a transformation. Clinics, daycares, restaurants, even a few law firms began to reimagine themselves, not just their services, but their internal workings too, how they made decisions, how they treated people, how they defined success. Now there's maybe a small but important distinction worth making. Some of these efforts were literal shadows, direct counterparts to existing institutions offering a different way of doing the same work. The shadow government is a good example. It didn't just critique, it legislated, it proposed, it embodied. Others were what you might call alternatives, not mimicking old institutions, but simply doing the work in a whole new way. A community health clinic didn't shadow a failing hospital system. It just served people better. But the line between shadow and alternative wasn't always neat. The shadow government itself began to evolve, to begin to blend its critique with practical innovations. In truth, the two models often fed each other, and both helped show that another world wasn't just possible, it was already taking shape. Miguel asks, Barbara, what impact did this approach have? How did it interact with more direct campaigns? It had pretty much the intended effects, I think, though Lord knows not every attempt blossomed. But each successful shadow or alternative project, each one that stood up straight and spoke its truth, educated not only those within it, but those who watched from the edge, wondering what might be. They gave form to our longings. They painted in humble strokes what a new society could look like, what it could feel like. And as these efforts multiplied, stretched their arms wide, they began to reveal and over and even gently test new patterns, new principles. When a shadow or alternative institution worked well, it brought light. It offered something better, something freer to those who learned or healed or labored within it. And it gave the world outside a glimpse of what justice might look like in motion. Miguel asked why did some efforts work, and others, as you say, not pan out. Ah, child, the reasons were many, and some as old as the hills. They weren't so different from what haunts any little startup trying to take root in the hard soil of a market system. There was never enough money. The dollars trickled in as slow as molasses, and most of the world, the big shouting, disbelieving world, either ignored these efforts or laughed at them. That ridicule weighed heavy. Even more so did the doubt that crept afloat from inside. People unsure of their own strength, their own right to stand up and speak something new. The real miracle, if you ask me, is that so many of these efforts did succeed. It's one thing to say we will change the whole world, make it fair and whole, but to actually try to do so in just one tiny corner of an economy that still bows down to wealth and status, that is something else. It's hard, it's holy. It asks more of you than most of us are ready to give. You see, if you have schooling and carry credentials and skills, the world opens doors. It offers you a job and a handsome check and a tidy desk and a roll that carries power. Or you can turn away from all that and work to and walk towards something fragile, something underfunded, where you must do both high and humble tasks, and where your people whisper in your ear, are you out of your mind? That choice isn't easy. It's also different to work in a large, well rooted institution than in a tiny one. A big place gives you people, community, variety. You can find your rhythm there. Balance is easier. But in a small place you may feel alone. There may be no one to hold your hand when the wind picks up. And building balanced jobs, ones that feed your mind and your spirit, that's harder too. And still you've got to navigate a marketplace that rewards greed, that sings lullabies to conformity. You're always being tugged off your path. Yes, there was joy, yes, there was beauty, yes, there was pride in building something real, something just, but to make it less painful, less anxious, we needed those projects to grow, to multiply, and in time they did. Now these kinds of workplaces are sought after. Even folks who once thought themselves too grand to clean the floors, who believed they deserved more, now even they see the value of peace, of respect, of shared purpose. The struggle changed them. And there were other storms too. Suppose you've got a big workplace, and two souls fall out. Maybe love turns sour, maybe anger lit a fire. You move them apart, the storm dies down, but in a small house you can't move the walls, the air grows thick, and when that happens, it can poison the water. Funny, isn't it? How most folks think the smaller the place, the easier the change. But truth runs the other way. The earliest projects, those little lanterns flickering in the dark, they bore the heaviest burdens. The people who gave their hearts to those first steps, they were the true pioneers, and too often history doesn't say their names, but it should. They laid the stones for every march that came after. Miguel asked, Lydia, it seems like there was a mentality that made all this much more real and powerful than it might have been, or even than similar efforts had been earlier. Can you try to convey what that difference was? I'm glad you asked that. I think it bears a lot of repeating, actually, because it's very easy to dismiss the answer as empty rhetoric or baseless optimism, but I honestly believe the mentality you mentioned was pivotal. One way to put it is we went from whining to winning. Think about it like this. Imagine a professional sports team. What separates the teams that win from the ones that lose? Sure, talent and training matter, obviously. But that let's say those are more or less equal across a few teams. What then? I'd argue the biggest factor is attitude. The teams that believe they can win then come to the field prepared to treat every challenge as something they can navigate, outmaneuver, or outright bulldoze. Those are the teams that have a shot at a great season. The ones who come in already defeated, who look at even the small bumps as insurmountable, well those teams may as well stay home. Picture a seasoned successful coach after a team loss. The next game is coming. Does she stand in front of her team and say our opponents are just too good? Or we got the worst schedule imaginable, or we don't have what it takes. Of course not. She respects the facts, sure. But she asks, what do we control? What can we do differently next time? Now shift that frame to political movements. Maybe we don't love the comparison, but it fits. We're not just here to rehearse good intentions. We're trying to win. Win what? A better world. End war, feed people, dignity, justice. If we don't win, all that's left is loss, maybe prettied up with slogans, but still loss. A nice little protest isn't enough. A symbolic victory doesn't house the unhoused, or stop the floods, or keep a woman safe from assault. Victory does. And the truth is the left has had a chronic case of defeatism. Too often we looked at the glass, our movement, and instead of thinking how to fill it, we obsessed over how empty it was. Worse, we imagined leaks where there weren't any. We talked ourselves into impotence. We gave our opponents more power than they actually had. Not enough of us asked how do we attract more people? How do we keep them engaged? How do we change ourselves to be more effective? Instead, we grumbled about what we couldn't change and ignored what we could. Am I overstating it? Maybe a little, but not too much. Whether we were taking talking about class, race, gender, the environment, war, democracy, you name it, our movements didn't have the scale or energy to win lasting reforms, much less remake the whole structure. And yet, how many of us back then spent most of our time diagnosing the problems of society without offering the barest hint of a strategy for change? How many of us unintentionally function as apologists for inaction by harping on the impossibility of success? We laid out everything that was wrong with the media, the state, corporations, but how often did we seriously confront what our movements had to be like to counter that power? What would it take to build something more powerful in response? I'm not talking about delusions of grandeur or chuss puffing slogans. I mean a sober, critical look at where we stood, and then a committed effort to change that. We didn't gain confidence by kidding ourselves, we earned it by facing facts, owning our weaknesses and working like hell to transform them. Extending the sports analogy, a team or a coach that doesn't know what it wants out of a season doesn't just underperform. It flounders, it gets shoved around by luck, timing, and the opposition. It doesn't drive toward anything because it doesn't know what the destination is. A good team, one with any shot at a championship, plans like it means it. If this year isn't it, then next year is. Every day, every drill, every game is built around that arc. Now ask, did the left operate that way? Evil in even individual organizers? Never mind as a whole. Did we collectively or otherwise have a shared roadmap for what the economy should look like, or politics or the family? Did we have a vision for culture, for international relations, for how we deal with the planet itself? And did we match our daily actions, our campaigns, meetings, writings to both the current terrain and that larger vision? The left was excellent at dissecting professional sports. We saw the sexism, racism, and brutal labor discipline, and the obscene commercialism. But maybe we miss something important in the process. Because if there's one thing pro sports do incredibly well, it's compete. And like it or not, we're in a fight too, and that fight is over who gets to shape reality, economically, racially, sexually, ecologically. Sports teams know if you whine, you lose. If you train, prepare, and organize, you might win. Same goes for movements. Set no goals and you'll wind up wherever the winds push you. Set real goals and you have a shot at getting there. I know, it sounds simplistic. It's practically motivational poster material. But I'm saying it anyway because I think it was this supposedly obvious thing, this stubborn belief that we could and should win that made the shadow government function. We weren't showing off, we weren't chasing likes or resume filler, we weren't crying out into our herbal tea. We were doing the damn work. We were building numbers, building structures, building stamina. We were in it to change everything, not just to talk about it. I remember thinking back when Sanders had millions of supporters. This is the moment, launch a shadow government. But maybe it's just as well he didn't. I suspect his version, had it come together, would have looked and felt different. Initially bigger, probably, glossier, better funded, but maybe also more top down, more cautious, less rooted in the everyday grit of organizing, less prepared to challenge the deeper logic of power. That wasn't there yet. And that wasn't Sanders' fault, but it wasn't there. That's the thing. If you don't believe that deep transformation is possible, if all you're after is adjusting the volume on inequality instead of shutting off the whole damn machine, then your version of a shadow government will look like a policy seminar, not a rebellion. And that's not just true for government. It's true for everything we try to build. A new society in miniature or in blueprint, we have it in mind, had to have it inform our immediate actions and choices, had to plant its seeds with every step we took. And all that said, this is Michael Albert, signing off until next time for Revolution Z.