Ep 388 WCF Today and Tomorrow, Final Ending or New Beginning

Episode 388 of RevolutionZ concludes the The Wind Cries Freedom Excerpts as Revolutionary Participatory Society (RPS)  wins state power and immediately insists that the real work is just beginning. This week Senator and then President Malcolm Mays, Governor then and then Vice President Celia Crowley, Lydia Lawrence, Bertrand Jagger, and Bill Hampton explain how Revolutionary Participatory Society approached elections, why they once avoided national races, and what changed when a presidential run became both possible and necessary.

A personal discussion reveals the hazards that swallow so many campaigns: the obsession with vote totals, the addictive pull of praise, the way inner circles filter bad news, and how fundraising quietly rewires what candidates say and what they start to believe. Then the frame flips to treat electoral politics as a tool for grassroots organizing: using campaigns to expand membership, build local chapters, strengthen assemblies, and keep pressure rooted in communities, workplaces, and schools rather than inside backrooms.

The discussion moves from a general strike to a dinner table debate about whether to run. It recounts a pivotal, tumultuous debate night and relives a massive Texas rally that signaled an oncoming landslide. It ends with the tone of “transition” after victory, including a new international posture and a blunt accounting of past harms alongside commitments to solidarity, self management, and peace.

Before and after this episodes's excerpt from the thirtieth and last chapter of The Wind Cries Freedom, the author answers why such an oral history was written, what it hopes to accomplish, fears for what might instead occur, and a request for support to attain the former rather than endure the latter.

Transcript

Welcome And The Final Excerpt

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Hello, my name is Michael Albert, and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is our three hundred and eighty eighth consecutive episode, one per week, and with it we end our presentation of excerpts from the book titled The Wind Cries Freedom, an oral history of the next American Revolution. Before beginning this final excerpt, which constitutes the bulk of this episode, I'd like to offer a few comments about the book as a whole, or more accurately about my hopes and fears for it. The Wind Cries Freedom has eighteen future imagined participants in a revolutionary movement answering questions put to them by Miguel Govera, our imagined future activist and interviewer, then arranged into a sequence of thirty chapters. This episode offers the last of those thirty chapters, in which Senator Malcolm Mays, Celia Crowley, Lydia Lawrence, and Bertrand Jagger together discuss RPS's approach to elections, the decision to run nationally, and some features of the major victory that has two RPS members, Mays and Crowley, win for President and Vice President of the United States. This RPS victory, however, wasn't the culmination of RPS's efforts. It was, or it will be, instead a marker of having attained state power, while the movement, equally and more importantly, attained massive gains throughout neighborhoods and institutions all over the country. Moore, this electoral event wasn't the end point of their revolution, but a kind of jumping off point along the way, opening a new stage. From battling against the past, guided by their desire to build a new future, the project finds itself finally mostly building that new future, albeit while still giving some attention to battling residual elements from the past. That new stage that they are now entering or that they were now entering when this interview was done, they call transition. Who knows? Perhaps down the road, these or other future actors, whether brought into focus and channeled by me or perhaps by you, will also relate to us the lessons of that stage of their struggle. We'll see. But this brief commentary for this episode and before presenting the final chapter answers two questions Why this book and why now? And finally, after presenting the chapter, by way of signing off, I will also note what I hope you will do for the book. So first, why this book? This is not at all complicated. We profoundly need a revolution in the United States, not to mention elsewhere in the world as well. This is not just because fascists who are unhinged and despicable are seeking the opposite of desirable change and threatening to make things dramatically worse for everyone. Indeed, it is more because, even wiping them away, what preceded them, the defining social structures and systems of our society pretrump, even when working as intended and even at their best, are still horribly, horrendously antithetical to human well being and development. Now a book about revolution because we not only need to block efforts of fascists to make things horrendously worse, we need to undertake and carry to conclusion revolutionary efforts to make things vastly better than any of us have ever previously experienced. To have a worthy, effective, and successful revolution, however, will entail a massive outlay of insight and commitment by a large proportion of the population. In light of that belief, this book, honestly, means to try to convey insights and even some inspiration that can bear upon accomplishing massive fundamental change for the better. Many talk about various obstacles, including not just fascism unleashed, but current non participatory democracy as we know it, current corporate economic commercialism as we know it, and capitalist intransigence as we know it, current misogyny, racism, capitalism, imperialism, and ecological insanity. Many point to the power of the state, the dominance of centers of financial power, the pervasiveness of patriarchal norms and habits, the tenacity of racial hierarchy, and much more as defenders of the existing order that seek to maintain their dominance and are willing to repress and subvert whatever threatens it. On the other hand, not so many talk remotely as much about different types of problems impeding change that are embedded in the diverse forms of personal baggage we all carry with us from living within the insane embrace of patriarchal families, schools that channel passivity, work that stifles efficacy, citizenship built on obedience, and the effects of all of the imposed baggage on the horizons of our thoughts and aspirations. So for this book, my idea was to have people like those all around us relay their experiences of becoming radical and then revolutionary. What inspired them? What did they personally feel? What did they do then? How did it unfold? And most of all, what lessons did they learn that might help our own efforts in our own times? So that's why the book. But second, why now? Well, why not now is one answer. Every delay in attaining a new world is more lives lost and tarnished by this world. But another answer is because if not now, then when? Each delay tends to teach that there is no better future. Delay provokes more delay. And a third answer is, if not now, then the fascist trends which I mentioned earlier will likely make the task far more difficult in the future. Indeed, that is the essential purpose of those fascist trends to restructure relations so that dissent and resistance, much less fundamental change, are put off forever. To my eyes, a major obstacle to our winning, and what I actually think may actually be the biggest obstacle is not the power of the state or the mesmerizing capacity of media, but our own doubts and harmful habits that impede hope and instead impose cynicism and fear. And that is why the Wind Cries Freedom not only addresses the technical and social possibility of a vastly better world, a vision, and not only addresses ways to proceed, tactics and strategy, but also addresses interpersonal debates and differences and personal fears, feelings, and finally motivations, aspirations, and inspirations. It wants to make real the possibility, indeed the likelihood, indeed the inevitability of winning if we can transcend our own histories. That is the belief that fueled the choice of an oral history, albeit fictional, instead of yet another impersonal, more technical, more academic account. My hope is that this book doesn't become a kind of academic prop, much less some kind of operating manual, but instead becomes a positive poll, a sort of chime of freedom that opens options and just maybe inspires choices. And if not, then at least inspires critical insights that then are able to do so. My fear for it instead is that it is effectively born dead, not because the substance or even the sentiments of its actors or their views are shown insufficient, but because it doesn't reach its audience. It simply isn't read and assessed. More on that at the end of this episode. In any case, to start the final chapter of this oral history and to open a new stage in its pursuit, Miguel, our interviewer, asks Malcolm, and this is from an interview years before running for president, what have your various campaigns and your time as a senator in Massachusetts taught you about the pitfalls and benefits of elections and even electoral office? Well, setting aside any personal ambition, which we all have to be cautious about, someone who's serious about social transformation enters electoral politics for one or more of three reasons to win and then use the office to make meaningful change. To educate, to use the campaign to reach people and raise consciousness. Third, to pressure other candidates into taking bitter compositions. I think all three reasons are legitimate. When I ran for Senate in Massachusetts, it raised RPS's visibility, it helped legitimize its ideas, and once in office, even though a senator can't single handedly make policy, I could still sponsor legislation, speak out, and support movement efforts in ways that mattered. Miguel asked, but what about the debits? The downsides, yes, they're quite real too, and some are subtle, but they matter. First, it's far too easy to get caught up in the numbers, the vote tally, the fundraising totals, the media coverage. You start with a principled platform and a real desire to educate, to mobilize, to win change. But under the pressure of the campaign, those goals start to slip away. Even good left wing candidates fall into that trap. And here's the kicker. It can happen while you're out there giving speeches about how other candidates have lost their way. You don't even see it creeping in. Second, there's the danger of self aggrandizement. You start believing your own press. You think you're indispensable. You forget that this is about a movement, not a personality. It's a real disease, and yes, Trump's second term was a grotesque version of it. But let's not kid ourselves. This syndrome affects a lot of people in more subtle ways. Then there's the dynamic within the inner circle. Let's say you're a candidate with a team of ten close advisors. If you're feeling the strain, becoming defensive, dismissing bad news, rewarding praise, and punishing dissent, your team starts to adapt. People want to preserve access. They want to stay relevant. And even if they're doing it for sincere reasons, even if they're thinking I need to be in the room to have a positive impact, the effect is the same. The truth gets filtered, the feedback loop gets warped, the campaign starts serving itself rather than the broader movement. It's not always malicious. Sometimes it's about honest fundraising. Elections in this country are expensive. Even good campaigns end up chasing dollars. And even if you're chasing money through small donors, it changes the way you talk. You start writing your fundraising emails for what will pull in the most money, not for what's most truthful or most strategic, and it wears you down. In my view, RPS has handled all this wisely. Maybe not the only way to do it, but a good way. We individually support strong candidates who run on our values. Many of us support campaigns. We join them, we volunteer, and we donate. But the national organization itself, it doesn't endorse, it doesn't raise money, it doesn't enter the electoral arena directly. Instead, it sticks to organizing at the grassroots level, movement building, policy pressure. For example, campaign finance reform. That's a focus. And yes, if an RPS member were to run for president, I'd imagine most of us would get involved in one way or another. But the organization, organizationally it would steer clear. It may seem nominal, but the boundary matters. Miguel asks, what about the problem of focusing on electing one person and admissing that a single person alone is effectively powerless? I think we should certainly be aware that an electoral approach, like any other approach, depends on numbers. To be most effective, you need people. You need movements behind you. But let's not confuse that with the idea that a single victory, say one person elected, is somehow meaningless. It's not. What it means is the more truly committed, generally progressive candidates we elect to office, and the more deeply they are connected to grassroots movements, the better chance we have to win real change. Let's go back to when Bernie Sanders ran for president. Now, imagine if he had actually won the Democratic nomination and then gone on to defeat Trump. Some folks said, and I remember this very clearly, that it wouldn't have made any difference. That's what they said. Now look, I don't think most of those people were denying Sanders' integrity or even his political vision. Some probably were, but most no. Most were making a more nuanced argument, and honestly, it was one that Sanders himself often made. They were saying, sure, he wins the presidency. But the rest of the system, the governors, the Congress, the courts, the police departments, the military command structure, none of them would change overnight. They were still deeply embedded in the status quo. So these critics said Sanders wouldn't be able to accomplish anything fundamental. Now, if they meant, like Bernie always said himself, that to accomplish anything significant he'd need a mass popular movement pushing him every step of the way, well then yes, that's true. That's exactly right. But if Sanders had won, and if that kind of movement had risen up to support him, then yes, he could have accomplished an enormous amount. He could have dramatically improved people's lives in the here and now. He could have put the brakes on the climate catastrophe. He could have galvanized organizing efforts and expanded consciousness and laid the groundwork for more transformative steps. In fact, he could have helped accelerate everything that RPS later came to stand for. You want another example? Look at Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Now it's not a perfect comparison, very different context, but for this particular point it's useful. Chavez won the presidency. He got into Miraflora as the Venezuelan White House. But at the time he had almost no governors on his side, just a handful of mayors, barely any legislators, and no real influence in the police or military command, though the latter liked him. And still he moved mountains. Not everything went right, mistakes were made, outside interference was brutal, but the lesson stands. Winning just one powerful office doesn't mean you're paralyzed. It means you have a lever, and the more support behind the lever, the more it can move. So yes, we should approach electoral politics with a wide scope. Local office, state positions, federal post. That's what we've been doing for three decades now. But when we win something big, even just one major big office, we don't lose our way, we don't get seduced or co-opted, and so holding that office can be very helpful. Miguel asks, Celia, also from an interview years before running in her case for vice president, tell us a bit about running for and becoming governor of California. What did you take from the electoral experience? We had to traverse the state over and over again to get our message out. We talked directly to huge numbers of people. Then our public gatherings, speeches, TV addresses, and the debates reached even more. Throughout the process, we extolled RPS program and urged RPS involvement to our supporters. We consistently indicated not only the programs and policies we would try to rapidly institute, but also where we hoped the changes would lead. The truth is, when we started, I at least didn't anticipate winning. We ran as a way to organize very widely, to perhaps put pressure on whoever would win, and to develop organization for future runs and policy campaigns, as well as for grassroots organizing. We thought that we could use the process to broaden understanding of and support for RPS ideas and aims, and to literally build new chapters and membership to advance movements at every step along the path. We literally swore to one another that we wouldn't compromise any of that to win office. Winning office was only relevant, we told ourselves over and over, if it happened in the flow of our overall effort, not by way of compromising our overall effort. Our definition of winning the election was to do all that we intended without compromise, and then if by some chance we actually got the most votes, terrific. Even with that overt commitment, it wasn't easy to keep in mind and not forget our main agenda. The pressure to deviate grew enormously as support came from all kinds of directions, and that pressure to compromise and play games to win came not just from the media, various pundits, potential donors or endorsers, but from inside the campaign as well. The prospect of victory was like a drug. It often diverted minds from the prospect of actual success. I mean it is a young campaign. You are about to give a speech to a large crowd, or perhaps to members of a constituency or organization. What do you do? Approach one, you describe your actual intentions, beliefs, values, and agenda, making your strongest case for them and then seeking to fulfill them. Approach two, you examine daily polling results to determine what your audience at the next gathering is thinking, and then you tailor your words to try to win that audience over, but with no intention of actually later acting on the newly chosen words. These two approaches typically diverge, and it isn't the case that someone who is pursuing the second is necessarily doing so for self-serving reasons, though in time you do tend to become what you were doing. I think what kept us overwhelmingly on the first approach wasn't just good people having my ear and delivering criticism without fearing that I would dismiss them, but also the mindset that we emphasized from the outset, which was that an election would be hollow or even counterproductive if seeking victory caught us up in traveling an elitist path. And we stuck to our priorities. I was in office only a week when we began vigorously agitating without the slightest hegitation for our full program. And when support came, so did implementation. We didn't at any point think, okay, let's get the important gain short of our full aim by way of this or that compromise that would sacrifice the full aim. No, we said let's get everything we laid out and more by way of popular power, not by backroom compromise. If we did have to compromise at times, and we did, we did it openly, said it was what we were doing and why we had to. I should say though, I think this was far less hard than it might have been due to the scale and commitment of public support we had for the full program, and due to the obvious upward trajectory of that support. Without so much support and its tendency to steadily increase, we would have always been afraid that not compromising would win nothing. Rather than always feeling that minimizing and being open about compromise was the way to win everything. Miguel asks, Lydia, you were RPS shadow government president. Did it give you a feeling for the benefits of holding office? Do you look forward to RPS actually fielding a president in the near future? In office you'll learn quickly that even in a shadow government, the main determinant of the biggest policies and directions is institutional features. Indeed. Even with a dictator, that typically remains largely the case. But with anything even remotely like a democratic sit system, it is certainly true. The structure of the governing bodies is critical, but so too, of course, are the concentrations of power in various other places, mainly corporations, military, churches, unions, and so on. So you learn that short of transforming all institutions, which is, of course, the ultimate goal, you have to have sources of power, pressure, and creative innovation beyond your office, or what you win will be nothing remotely like what you desire to win. So even in the shadow case, right off we could either abide existing relations in our mirror of the US government, just proposing policies and agitating for them, or we could also seek institutional changes in our own version of the government, partly as a model for things to seek in the broader world, and partly so we could do more good in our own work. If I was younger, much younger, and for some unfathomable reason it made sense for me to run for actual president in a campaign, an actual campaign aimed to win, I would certainly do it. There are many on the left who understand that existing institutions, including the government, are bent into shapes that structurally accommodate the rich and powerful, and also incorporate strong aspects of other oppressive relations, like racism, sexism, classism, etc. They take from that insight one correct conclusion and sometimes one incorrect conclusion, at least in my view. The correct one is that we need new institutions. This explains the ongoing and overwhelming growth of support for RPS's vision. The incorrect conclusion, which is now largely overcome, but was perhaps predominant at the outset of RPFs, was that we should have nothing to do with flawed institutions. That was wrong, but back then substantial. It was a little like saying we want a new society for the whole population, but we don't want to relate to the population. We want a new society spanning all the defining institutions, but we don't want to battle within those institutions. We want to criticize existing institutions and rail at them, but only from without, to replace them by building from scratch, but we don't want to engage them from within ever. Railing at them from without is certainly essential, and so is creating alternatives from scratch that can serve as models to raise consciousness and even as seeds of the future. But suppose someone said to radical working people, we want a new economy, so stop operating in this one. You can see, I hope, that that is utterly absurd. First, it means ceding that terrain to those who are not radical. Second, it means giving up one's job. And third, it loses access to all the lessons that can be gleaned by operating within existing institutions. Not only lessons about what is wrong with them, but lessons about what is needed in their place. And finally, most importantly, it also forgoes victories inside those institutions that would make people's lives better now. It often acts as though such victories wouldn't matter, which can become a very callous stance. It may be harder to see, but the government is similar to the economy in all those regards. And there are additional aspects. Corporations are entirely places where nothing nonprofit seeking can be done other than by applying pressure. Government is at least somewhat different. The deck is certainly heavily stacked, and the structural pressures to compromise and become what you don't want to be are enormous. But it is also true that there is some real room to maneuver, and that there are many gains we can win simply by changing minds, much less winning elections or using levers of power to influence outcomes. At any rate, my feeling is that running for office involves very serious and dangerous pitfalls, not at all easy to avoid. But to not try is to forego still larger gains that can be won. And yes, I think we have gotten to the point where our support is so broad and even more important, so deep that we can now win at the highest level. Miguel asks, Bert, you too were an RPS shadow president after serving as shadow vice president with Lydia. Do you see the situation similarly? Very much so. I've always seen it that way. If there's a difference between me and others, maybe it's just this. I carry a slightly deeper sympathy for those comrades who are so allergic to reformism that they shudder at the very whisper of compromise. Some go overboard. They see accepting a reform as selling out. They won't touch institutions with a ten foot pole. And I understand that. Deep down in the marrow of my rebellion, I even feel it too. Who can blame them? The stench of hypocrisy inside those polished halls of power, the lies dressed up in flags and protocols. It's enough to make you want to wash your hands of the whole rotten thing. Enter and you risk losing yourself. The system doesn't just chew people up. It digests them and spits them back out as something else, someone else. But there's a trick. Think of the assembly line. Suppose you're an activist and you take a job there. Why don't you become a cheerleader for wage slavery? Why doesn't the clang of the machines, the boss's glare, the mind nubbing repetition turn you into a defender of the very system that grinds you down? Because your role in that machine is that of the ground down. You suffer it. You don't inflict it. And so if you hold fast to your purpose, you can keep your soul intact. You can organize, whisper truth on lunch breaks, share leaflets, and build something new amid the noise. Now take a different case. Suppose you win an elected office. Or for that matter, suppose you become a manager in a workplace. This time you're not just taking the punches, you're throwing some too. You get perks, a better desk, a say in policy, maybe even applause, and that's where the real danger lies. So here's the trick. Don't ever forget that your seat, your title, your little slice of power is not yours. You must be every day, every minute a traitor in your position, a spy, a fifth columnist. Not an insider looking out, but an outsider operating within, taking orders from the people, not from the palace. Your loyalty must remain tethered to the streets, to the fields, to the neighborhoods. That's the only compass. I think that's what saved us. Even inside the shadow government, clarity of purpose was everything. When I served as VP under Lydia, we were still figuring it all out. Most days we weren't passing motions, we were building the table to put them on. The energy we spent went into making the shadow government real, breathing life into it. It was beautiful, but damn hard. Later, when I stepped into the shadow presidency, yes, I still smile at the phrase, it was different. The bones were now solid, the procedure had rhythm, so we could stop playing defense and start playing jazz. We wrote new melodies, we explored, we fought on purpose, not just for structure. We got the lead we got to lead with vision. And while much of what we did was economic and social, our fingers were also deep in the soil of democracy. We helped tear down the old electoral college like an ancient statue. We planted seeds for direct voting and multi party choice, real choice. Rank it, debate it, elect it. That was a victory, no question. But the still bigger victory was this. People cared again. They believed, they voted with their hearts and their hopes, not because they thought it would fix everything right away, but because it might mean something. Today we're standing on that foundation. We've reached a place where an RPS candidate doesn't just run for president, they win. They take office not with cautious handshakes, but with thunderous support. And they don't walk in alone. They arrive propelled by an army, not of soldiers, but of organizers, teachers, parents, artists, workers. From libraries to legislators, legislatures, RPS voices echo. What began as a whisper in the cracks of empire has become a chorus, and that chorus sings not of conquering, but of becoming. Miguel asks, Malcolm, interviews again a few years before running for president. Do you anticipate an RPS candidate winning the twenty fifty two election? Well, it's still almost four years away, so let's be cautious. We're not fortune tellers. But with that said, yes, I think we're gonna win, and not just squeak by. I think we'll win outright, with over sixty percent of the vote, maybe more. Why do I think that? Because we've already had multiple progressive administrations, not RPS, but progressive, that worked with us, that negotiated in good faith, that aligned with many of our reform demands. And in the areas where they didn't initially agree, they were forced to bend because the scale of popular pressure was just that strong. The point is the population is no longer afraid. They're not just ready, they're eager for something more comprehensive, something deeper. Think back to when New York, California, Minnesota, and yes, even Texas elected RPS governors. Not just progressives, RPS members. They won big, and once in office they didn't play defense. They went to work helping to implement RPS ideas at the state and local levels. And the results spoke for themselves. The momentum built from that, it became unstoppable. And at least from where I sit, it became irreversible. The biggest shift in consciousness, I'd say it began around 2026, really took off by 2028. That's when the working class vote for the far right started to collapse. For years, millions of people, especially white workers, were pushed into voting for reactionaries because of fear, fear of immigrants, fear of minorities, fear of losing control, which they never in fact had. Combine that with a deep and very often justified distrust of the Democratic Party, and what you got was Trumpism. But by the end of the decade, that spell was breaking. People realized their pain wasn't coming from immigrants. It wasn't coming from women or black or trans people. It was coming from a system, profit driven, racist, sexist, extractive, and indifferent to human dignity. By twenty twenty eight, and especially by twenty thirty two, something else changed too. Working class anger turned from being anti liberal to being anti elitist, and specifically even anti coordinatorism. People stopped lumping every professional or liberal into one generic basket and started to see the actual structures that were hoarding opportunity. They saw how education had been rigged. They saw the division of labor in a new way. They wanted more than representation, they wanted transformation. And most importantly, people started to believe it was possible. Not just belief in RPS values, but belief in RPS itself as a vehicle for change. It wasn't just yeah, I agree with those ideas, but what's the point? They can't win. It became those ideas can win, and they're worth winning. The change made a difference. So when we get to twenty fifty two, I think the campaign won't be about proving that the old system failed. That's already understood. And it won't be about whether our candidate is competent or inspiring. That'll be obvious too. The real debate will be this If I vote for a revolutionary, am I voting for hope or for chaos? For a future or for a mess that we can't recover from? And I think finally, the answer most people will give is this revolution is organized. It's thoughtful, and it can win. So yes, we'll take the election. And look, even if we win only the presidency and not both houses of Congress, though I believe we will win those two, it will still be a massive turning point. Because now, instead of having to pressure government to act, we'll have a government that supports the change. Instead of dragging institutions along, we'll change them from within and replace them where needed. We will go from fighting the past to building the future. Imagine a president who wants to support worker self management, not because it's politically equipp convenient, but because it's the goal. Imagine a military conversion, not as a reluctant concession to a protest campaign, but a central pillar of national policy. Imagine the federal government investing not just in infrastructure, but in infrastructure for a new society. Sure, we'll still face obstacles. One big risk is that even a well meaning administration can drift, can start to prioritize control over participation. That's real. But with RPS values deeply rooted across society and communities, workplaces, schools, I think we'll be able to stay grounded. Miguel asks, Malcolm, from a twenty fifty three interview. Do you remember first considering and then finally deciding to run for president? I first thought about it after I won my Senate race, and from time to time after that, the idea would pop back up. For me, being a senator was never about personal prestige. It was a way to serve movements, to amplify their demands, to use the tools of government to back what people organized from below. And I saw the presidency as another version of that, only with more reach. But the moment I it became more than a passing thought? That happened one evening when I was with some close friends, Celia, Bill, Lydia, and Bert. Just the five of us. We were catching up. That didn't happen often. We're all busy people, and we got talking about the twenty fifty two election. I remember it so clearly. I can practically hear the conversation playing back in my head. Miguel responds, please do. We were just talking, enjoying the rare chance to be together. And then Lydia said something like It's really good to be here with all of you, and I hope you won't mind. But Byrne and I were hoping to use this time to discuss something we've been hearing around RPS. Then it got serious. Bertie, that's what I call him, said The three of you are among the highest elected officials from RPS, Senator from Massachusetts, Governor of California, and mayor of New York. So what Lydia and I want to ask is should one of you run for president in twenty fifty two? Bill jumped in first. I've heard the talk too, he said. But is this really the best use of our time? Bert said, Come on, of course it is. Bill rebutted, I'm not so sure. RPS is growing everywhere, from the bottom up. Why not keep building that? Why not keep organizing and when needed, pressure the increasingly progressive, but still non RPS presidents that get elected? Why plunge into a process as entangling and potentially corrupting as the White House? Just imagine what a mess it could become. Running for mayor in New York was hard enough. Governing has been even harder. The federal government, that's another level entirely. And it would pull tons of people away from grassroots work. Then Lydia jumped in to say, but you're using Grace Mansion incredibly well. You're building movement, you're helping win things we all celebrate. You're not corrupted, you're not entangled. Bill replied, Maybe not corrupted, but I'm exhausted. And more than that, I'm not sure what real gain we've made from holding office. Thinking about it, if every RPS person currently in the New York City government were instead organizing in communities, building the new society directly, while sympathetic non RPS progressives handle day to day government, would that be worse? Or would it be a better balance? The demands of keeping the old system running just to keep people from suffering are enormous. The White House would multiply that by a hundred. But Celia wasn't deterred. Yes, it's demanding. Yes, it's risky, of course. But imagine the kind of outreach and energy a serious campaign could spark. If it's done right, that momentum doesn't have to fade. And if we win, think of how much easier it will be to push forward in areas of society still barely touched. Think of police reform, military transformation, education and health care. With a real ally in the White House, someone who actually welcomes pressure instead of resisting it, we could go further faster. Bill wasn't done with his argument. But wouldn't running for president weaken the momentum of council building and organizing? Can we even sustain the level of attention a national campaign demands without losing focus on the grassroots? Then Bert responded with If we field a strong candidate, someone truly rooted in the movement, we could bring in five million committed volunteers. I'm serious. The campaign itself would energize us, not slow us down. We'd get massive grassroots funding, no need for corporate donors, and I think we could win. And that would lift every struggle that's happening now and launch a whole lot more. Once an office, think of the capacity we'd have. Think of the message it would send. That we can do this, that we are doing this. Bill said, Well, it won't be me. I've had my fill with New York. Then Celia looked over and said, Don't look at me either. I'm an actress who became the governor of California. If I ran, it'd feel like another celebrity campaign. That's not what we're about. That's not what RPS needs. And that's when I spoke. Actually, I think the country would be lucky to have you, Celia. Your governorship's been remarkable. I also think a campaign, if we do it right and hold fast to our values, could be transformative. We wouldn't be draining energy from below, we'd be magnifying it. Then Bill said, What if we did win? What about the backlash? What about the threat of violence? I said, If we'd won in say twenty thirty or even twenty forty, I'd have agreed. The risk would have been exceptionally high. But look where we are now. We've got a movement that spans the country. RPS is in neighborhoods, churches, workplaces, and town halls. We've got committed friends in the military, in the police. We've got deep roots, and we're organized. A violent coup? That would fail. We've built too much for too long for anything like that to succeed. Our original hands off policy made sense. But the time has changed. Then I added, Of course we can't decide this on our own, but maybe we should let RPS know we're seriously considering a campaign. And let's put this conversation on hold before we tie ourselves in knots. And right then, Celia surprised everyone. She said, Okay, and I'll think about VP if you'll think about POTUS. That was it. That was when it stopped being idle speculation. That was when it became real. A decision we had to face, something to plan for. Miguel asks, Okay, Malcolm, when did you first think you might actually win? I came to believe we might elect a full on, uncompromising RPS president, and not just win the office, but keep it back in twenty forty five, during the general strike. Like everybody else, I watched city after city grind to a halt. Plants were closed, plants were silent, stores and malls were shuttered. But the streets they were alive, alive with marching workers, teachers, caregivers, students. I saw police officers peel off from their ranks and join the marches that ended in massive rallies at state houses. It was breathtaking. You couldn't witness that kind of collective power. Millions of people grinding the country to a standstill, not out of despair, but hope, not just protesting, but pushing for transformation, and not think we're gonna take the government and put it in service of this blooming movement. It was all around us, in homes, neighborhoods, churches, classrooms, and factories. I was moved, inspired, but I was also humbled. The crowds were beyond anything I'd seen in all my years in public life. It felt like victory. I even thought we could take over the government right then. Miguel says, I believe you were right. We could have surged into government offices across the country, even in Washington. We had the numbers, we had the momentum. But then what? Right. We weren't ready, not yet. We weren't yet equipped to fully staff, let alone restructure every agency. We hadn't built that participatory foundation, had the collective discussion, and planned at the necessary scale. We didn't want to seize government in a unilateral move. We wanted to transform it from the bottom up through mass participation and organized clarity. But the truth is, even if we'd seized power, could we have held it? Could we have withstood elite efforts to crush us? No. We needed more than passion. We needed infrastructure, vision, program, and that had to be built from below, through movements, campaigns, and assemblies. We didn't have enough time to do it by twenty forty eight. But in twenty fifty two, that looked right. That looked optimal. So we kept working, creating new institutions, transforming old ones, winning hearts and minds, building not just the will but the capacity for self government. And eventually I knew we had to run. Miguel asked, so you ran to win. Yes, we ran to win, but with one non negotiable, we would not water down RPS principles for the sake of votes. Not an inch. Miguel asked, When did you begin to think you really would win? Honestly, we were so deep in the work we didn't dwell on it. Every day was about the next town hall, the next rally, the next converse conversation. But for me, I think it solidified during the debate in early October. That night, when lies fell flat and truth broke through with fire, that's when I knew. Miguel asked, Your closing statement was like a lightning bolt of truth for the country. You took the gloves off. Do you remember it all? Of course. But it started with him, with my opponent. Would I have gone that far without his provocation? Hard to say. So maybe in a strange way, we owe him thanks for lighting the fuse. Here's what he said. Senator King, how can you possibly have the audacity to stand before the American people and say they should elect you president? You, a man who anarchistically aims to overthrow our government, a man who socialistically wants to obliterate our property rights, a man who feminazi like threatens to topple society's family fabric. A man who would cravingly reduce our armaments, armed forces, and police to passivity. A man who would make our country pitifully weak. A man who denies religion, attacks individual creativity, promotes soul destroying collectivism, and denigrates our foundational white roots. You are a traitor disguised as a candidate. It will be a pleasure to ship you and your movement's pathetic power envy and psychotic animalistic anger back to the fringe communities that spawned it. I happily cede my remaining time to you. Take as long as you like to reply. Your outrageous words will only deepen the horror our audience already feels at your vile intentions. So yes, I answered. I had to, and I took the gloves off. You have no more to say? No more vague wild assertions? Nothing positive to offer? Okay, I will gladly use your remaining time. You wonder at my wanting to anarchistically overthrow the government. I plead guilty. Unlike you, I don't want to preserve elitist centralizing, mind numbingly antidemocratic, intensely bureaucratic structures against participation by the American people, just to preserve the power of centralizing psychophants like yourself, who unaccount accountably hunger to control the destiny of millions. I prefer popular self management. You decry my socialistically opposing few hands holding productive property, and I again plead guilty. Unlike you, I am not enamored of enriching property holders beyond the wildest dreams of past kings. I do not think being born with a deed in your hand is the highest form of human achievement, or that it is any achievement at all. I reject that people like yourself should own society's rivers, lakes, resources, machinery, and places of production, much less rule over them like tinpot dictators. You ought to be aware, however, that you missed a further target to ridicule. I also oppose a relatively small sector of the population, about a fifth, monopolizing empowering work. I want to share work more equally, so that everyone is prepared by their work to participate in economic and social decisions. Unlike you, I want equitable incomes for all. I want empowering, dignified work for all. I want people able to decide their own working and social lives. I would say it is a wonder that you don't want these gains for all humanity. But your attitude isn't a wonder. It is unmitigated, self-seeking, antisocial greed. You say I want a feminazi like topple the family familial fabric of civilization. Why do you say that? Because I want young and old people to have a say over their own lives? Because I want families and all living units to freely nurture the next generation without imposing on them preordained definition of what boys and girls have to become? Because I want parents and children and extended families to have optimal health care, empowering work, and shared responsibility for their own and for all social life. Because I want women respected and empowered, because I want sexual preference to be whatever free people prefer. Because I reject turning back the gender clock a century in your misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, harassing mode. The human, nurturing family fabric of society has long been under assault. People like you don't see its deep scars, despite your own broken homes and the bedlam so visibly endured by so many all around you. You can't see the truth of our times because your heart is a cash register, and your paranoid eyes perceive only profit potentials and threats. I want to restore and enrich society's fabric. You want to rape and plunder society. I see all families as repositories of love and sources of wise, confident participation. You see most families as sources of cheap, obedient labor. I see society's countless communities as allied and equal centers of creative diversity. You see all but your own community as fringe targets to ridicule, restrain, and repress. You say I would disarm the country, new to the police, and leave us helpless because I reject siphoning society's wealth into useless and pointless weapons that were they used would destroy all humanity. You say I would new to the police police because I want properly paid and empowered justice workers that serve the public not power, and I want our children's and our children's children's human potentials to develop, free from war, pestilence, coercion, and restriction in a world of shared peace and plenty. I'm guilty again. You're absolutely right. I want all that. You call it making our country weak and defenseless. I call it making our country strong and worth defending. You say I deny religion and sublimate the individual to the collective. Why? Because I want all religions, races, ethnicities, and nationalities to be free of fear of imposition and negation from without. And because I want individuals and collectives prepared and in position to self manage their destinies without having to submit to the whims of the rich and domineering elites that you serve. You're right again. I do reject your racism, your sexism, your homophobia. I am guilty as charged. You say that it was a pleasure to have run against me, and that it will be a pleasure to ship me and revolutionary participatory society's pathetic envy and psychotic animalistic anger back to the fringe dwellings that spawned it. Well, I have some news for you. Those fringe dwellings are the soup kitchens, apartment buildings, private homes, schools, hospitals, ball fields, auditoriums, churches, and workplaces of America. Fringe to your gilded billionaire lifestyle? Yes, I suppose so. But we will see soon enough what goes away and what goes forward. Will the American people vote against RPS and their own futures, and less relevantly against Celia and me? Or will they not only elect the two of us, but continue their steadily escalating popular participation in revolutionizing all sides of all of our lives? After your display here tonight, I too feel ready to predict the outcome. I predict that some folks will vote for you due to fearing the make believe demons that you and your media moguls have manufactured. And I predict some will vote for you to defend their elite interests with no concern for society. But I predict most people will see past the confusions and prejudices that have historically allowed the likes of you to win office. You are about as venal as was, say, Donald Trump a quarter century ago. Your ignorant posturing, your bullying, your pathetically hypocritical life, and your self serving views, all admittedly more eloquently expressed than Trump could ever manage, have lost too much of their deceiving power for you to push anything aside, much less to push aside RPS, the most grassroots, democratic, participatory, multifocus movement this country has ever seen. Good luck with that. I wish I could be a gentleman and conclude that it was a pleasure to run against you, but I can't. It has been a bore, because you are an empty vessel of hate. It has been depressing because even in one lonely body, such an amalgamation of narcissistic evil as you embrace is seriously depressing to behold. We will see what the country decides. Will it opt for you and your hate and fear, and for the billionaires who pray that you will prevail to help them keep and even amass still more millions and billions? Or will it opt for me, Celia, and the RPS program for our hopes and thoughts, and for the women and men, boys and girls, movements and activists who work for our campaign to prevail, so we can in turn aid their efforts to build a vastly better future. Time is on our side. Your day is slipsliding away. Good riddance. Miguel asks, all through that the place was on fire. The moderator was wrapped too, and so was my living room, watching it. And the same held for countless millions more all over the country, and I bet the world too. Pandemonium break out. Okay, so really, when did you absolutely knew absolutely know it was over that you and Celia would win? I suppose it would show appropriate modesty to say only when the balance were counted, but that would be a lie. I knew, I knew for certain we were gonna win at the Houston rally just one week after the debate. I mean yes, I thought it was over after the debate, but I was still nervous. Maybe I had gone too far, maybe people would recoil. I didn't know for sure. But then to have a million people, maybe more, come out for us in Texas, in Houston, marching in the streets, waving signs, cheering, not for me or for Celia, but for our program, it was overwhelming. I looked at Celia, she looked at me, and in that moment we both knew this was a landslide in the making. And then came the interviews, the Oval Office, you were there. We talked about the UN, and then we appointed you press secretary. And then you gave your first briefing. That was quite a moment. You remember it? Yes, of course. It was my first briefing as press secretary, and being appointed hit like a jolt. I remember that day and the words exactly. Good morning. As press secretary, I have a lot of ground to cover. So let's settle down and begin. If you will bear with me for a moment, I would like to offer a few words before taking your questions. As you know, yesterday, President Malcolm Mays spoke to the UN General Assembly and the world. His speech was simple, emotional, and blunt. It reflected unfolding events and aspirations here in America. For any of you who may have missed it, in the first part he apologized, in the second part he promised, in the third part he celebrated, and the conclusion he embraced. Miguel asks Okay, Malcolm, it was just a little while ago. What? Early january twenty fifty three. Do you remember it? I'd like to hear it if you would. Of course I remember. I felt a little odd standing at the podium of the UM wearing my RPS hat, but I stood there for the people who sent me, not as an elite, but as an emissary of the movement. I said, Fellow citizens of the world, in the name of my country, I apologize for our military and fiscal role in the international mayhem and injustice from Latin America to Asia and from Europe to Africa. I apologize to Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Guyana, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, the Congo Zaire, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba. I apologize to Chile, Greece, East Timor, Nicaragua, Grenada, El Salvador, Libya, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Yugoslavia, Iran, Venezuela, Somalia, Syria, and Palestine. I apologize for our support for dictators, for our exploitative extractions, for our armed shipments, and for our arms use. I apologize for threats, boycott, and destruction, for massacring Native Americans, for slavery and racism, for sexism and sexual predation, for Hiroshima, Nagasaki and more. Miguel replies, and I remember continuing on with the press, speaking with something between trembling nerves and rising pride. Echoing his voters and the spirit of RPS, President King promised we would together reverse our long and shameful history of exploitation and violence toward others, and in its place we would build a new agenda, grounded in sharing, dignity, and respect. He vowed we would study war no more, and instead channeled the same energy, will, and resources we once devoted to war making and profit seeking into solidarity and mutual aid. He promised and showed a new mindset, compassionate, internationalist, and unflinchingly honest. He celebrated the transformation already underway in our foundational institutions, our polity, our economy and our culture, our kinship relations, and in our relationship to the earth itself. Transformations not cosmetic, but rooted in dismantling hierarchies of wealth and power, and in creating a just, sustainable, and liberatory future. He promised we would learn from and support all those anywhere on earth who have already taken up or who will now take up similar aims in ways they themselves find right. He made clear we are not leading a movement, we are joining one. Yes, and I continued, replied Malcolm, amidst our tremendous sustaining and enriching diversity, we need to embrace our shared universal humanity. We need to celebrate and apply our shared values of human liberation, solidarity, diversity, equity, self management, international peace and environmental balance to all our own countries, each in mutual aid with the rest. We must reject greed and profit seeking. We must reject self aggrandizement and power wheeling. We must embrace our natural home, our planet, to replenish and not despoil it. We must usher in a new era of empathy, a new time of joyous exploration of our collective capacities. As an emissary and servant of the revolutionary people of the United States and in accord with their wishes and learning from their incredible grassroots endeavor in our workplaces and neighborhoods, I embrace all around the world those who will do so, and the UN itself as a valuable tool for the task. And I remember that you, Miguel, continued your tress press conference. Now, if you have questions, yes, Leslie, why don't you begin? And so concludes Malcolm. We began the third phase of our evolution transition to a fully pledged participatory society, which now continues. And that was the end of chapter thirty. But not the book. I misspoke about that earlier, because there was also a very short afterward for Miguel. It went like this. Here ends this oral history, just as its revolution enters into its new phase called transition. Far from comprehensive, the interviews were what spontaneously crossed the minds of the interviewees when I asked my questions. The interviewees answers don't recount all that each interviewee felt, thought, or did during their revolutionary times. Much less do they comprehensively report the whole struggle. The Wind Cries Freedom doesn't report what happened in every workplace, school, home, hospital, and place of worship, nor in every mind. What's missing is the contingent and to a degree accidental part, specific to their time and place. What is present are the themes that I hope will matter in any such undertaking. No doubt much of what is what is missing was in our evolution equally or more important, equally or more instructive than what the interviewees relayed. But I sought to relay what could inspire, what could inform in any comparable revolution. Does what is here lend itself to criticism, to extension, and to refinement? Can thinking about what is here inspire generally applicable insights and lessons for other places and times? All of us who answered questions hope so. But you will decide. Thanks for having given our words a chance. Let freedom ring signed by Miguel Guevara and all the interviewees. And so that is the actual end of the book. And as a coda for this episode, I said at the outset that I would answer the question What do I hope you will do for the Windcries Freedom to help it reach its audience and have its hope for effects, to prod discussion, to inspire choices. The book will be available pretty soon, maybe a week or two, maybe a little more, from various venues, I believe. And there is a website for the book at thewindcries freedom dot org. It isn't yet announced and public, but it already has the cover, a bunch of early testimonials, the table of contents, a couple of early reviews, and a playlist of songs to go with the oral history. So if you want to take an early look, by all means have at it. Once it is available, hardback, paperback, and digital, soon, my hope is that you will revisit it to give it a full read and assess it. And even beyond that, I hope you will give the book some help. Maybe tell others about it, perhaps advocate for it on social media. Maybe send in questions, criticisms, or even a testimonial. And since the point is to assess and pursue the lessons the oral history proposes, perhaps you will even consider reviewing it. If so, you can send it to me for suggestions about who might publish it. And finally, to sign off, here is the most recent testimonial put on the site of twelve that I have received so far. It is from Yanis Verofakus, who testified, quote, for too long the left has been caught in a sterile oscillation between utopian blueprints that ignore power's cunning and pragmatic tinkering that forgets what emancipation is. Means. In this remarkable book, Michael Albert breaks through that deadlock, drawing on a lifetime of organizing and a rare fidelity to both analytical rigor and experimental imagination. He offers not a prophecy but a tool, an oral history from the future that remains possible only if we refuse its foreclosure by today's market fundamentalism. Where neoliberal common sense tells us there is no alternative, Albert dares to narrate one, concretely, conflictually, without erasing the contradictions that any genuine democracy must navigate. As someone who has watched the horrors of actually existing capitalism up close, from the trading floors of Chicago to the debt courts of Athens, I find this book a bracing antidote to cynicism. It reminds us that strategy without vision is merely management, but vision without strategic patience is a narcotic. Read it, argue with it, but do not look away. The future it recalls is one we must still fight to deserve. And all that said, this is Michael Albert, signing off until next time for Revolution Z.