Uh… those are exactly my politics. I think this is just a misunderstanding about a few word definitions. EDIT: Actually, based on your talk of “candidates”, maybe we don’t have the same politics. I don’t know, read what I have to say and judge for yourself.
I just happen to consider building prefigurative movements to be “breaking the system” and “revolution”. They just aren’t necessarily one big moment of rupture. Meeting people’s needs, doing mutual aid, community self defence etc, is weaning them off of dependence on capital and the state, and it is a revolution in the sense that it is a transfer of power away from the dominant system, even if it is slow, even if it is only about giving people food at first.
A sledgehammer breaks the pavement, but so does a root.
We can expect that when we do these projects, if they become successful enough, they will threaten to displace the enemy system entirely, and that will involve a violent reaction. That may entail a moment of rupture, but that’s one step in the middle of it all. Whether something better comes out of it depends on whether the things we’ve built beforehand are strong enough to survive that moment. But don’t kid yourself, we can’t avoid violence entirely, even if it’s only defensive.
Now, the EZLN and Rojava and a bunch of other projects had their moment of rupture, and they were liberatory. Not perfect, certainly, but they are doing incredible things and they don’t have centralised leadership. The way you talk about them being “small cities” when they are large contiguous regions makes you sound ignorant of existing projects and demanding to see something “bigger than 10 million” makes you sound dismissive, like you’re a liberal defending capitalism.
I’m glad you’re not, I’m glad you’re on board with prefiguration, but it is as destructive to the enemy system as it is constructive of the new. When you build the new in the shell of the old, the shell breaks.
Uh… those are exactly my politics. I think this is just a misunderstanding about a few word definitions. EDIT: Actually, based on your talk of “candidates”, maybe we don’t have the same politics. I don’t know, read what I have to say and judge for yourself.
I just happen to consider building prefigurative movements to be “breaking the system” and “revolution”. They just aren’t necessarily one big moment of rupture. Meeting people’s needs, doing mutual aid, community self defence etc, is weaning them off of dependence on capital and the state, and it is a revolution in the sense that it is a transfer of power away from the dominant system, even if it is slow, even if it is only about giving people food at first.
A sledgehammer breaks the pavement, but so does a root.
We can expect that when we do these projects, if they become successful enough, they will threaten to displace the enemy system entirely, and that will involve a violent reaction. That may entail a moment of rupture, but that’s one step in the middle of it all. Whether something better comes out of it depends on whether the things we’ve built beforehand are strong enough to survive that moment. But don’t kid yourself, we can’t avoid violence entirely, even if it’s only defensive.
Now, the EZLN and Rojava and a bunch of other projects had their moment of rupture, and they were liberatory. Not perfect, certainly, but they are doing incredible things and they don’t have centralised leadership. The way you talk about them being “small cities” when they are large contiguous regions makes you sound ignorant of existing projects and demanding to see something “bigger than 10 million” makes you sound dismissive, like you’re a liberal defending capitalism.
I’m glad you’re not, I’m glad you’re on board with prefiguration, but it is as destructive to the enemy system as it is constructive of the new. When you build the new in the shell of the old, the shell breaks.