Organization the Way to Liberation
By Dogmeat
This is in response to an essay titled “ Liberation not Organization” The method I used was to highlight key arguments and respond to them. Their arguments are in quotes.
http://www.greenanarchy.org/index.php?action=viewwritingdetail&writingId=238&returnto=references
The essay begins by creating a distinction between liberation and organization:
“I am not fighting for a world which is run better (more efficiently and more fairly), I am fighting for a world which doesn't need running (one which is radically decentralized).”
It is a false distinction; a Federation can be a ‘radically decentralized’ organization (though historically this has not always been the case, the CNT, for example, was highly bureaucratic).
The Next key argument:
“Only by people controlling their own lives, and all decisions which pertain to them, will people ever be free.”
I would alter this statement to read “Only when people have power over all decisions pertaining to them, to the extent they are effected, will people ever be free”. One can never absolutely control all decisions pertaining to them; it is necessary to compromise with the people around us. Anyone who has ever lived in a house with other people can understand this.
I object to the use of the term “leftist-anarchists” throughout this text as it is not a term any anarchist identifies with, it is petty name calling like lifestylist, or workerist. These terms distract from meaningful debate.
Next:
“We waste too much time trying to form affinity and artificial unity with those with whom there is very little meaningful agreement.”
Here I agree that unity is not a serious goal among people who have very little in common ideologically. That does not mean however that we should not engage them in dialogue or make strategic alliances. Given that most people don’t share our anarchist ideal, we must reach out to them to actually bring about meaningful change. Time to get out of that ghetto.
Next:
“Decentralized autonomous groups, making all of their own decisions, are the key to effectiveness and to staying motivated.”
I agree but I suspect we mean different thing by “decentralized autonomous groups”. Furthermore these ‘groups’ are a form of organization. Affinity groups are a type of organization so you are not really opposed to organization.
Next:
“I am not a foot soldier for a vanguard”
You are not a foot soldier but you are part of a vanguard, whether you like it or not. Not in the Leninist sense of the term, but in the sense of being someone who acts first and inspires others to do the same. You are some one who will set the tone and direction of popular movements.
Next:
“…these junctures MUST be without coercion, manipulation, and domination.”
Look at how all activist groups function, every type of ‘group’ (organization) uses these methods propaganda is a form a manipulation, locking down or throwing a rock is using coercion and domination.
The kind of organization (or as you put it “ projects of resistance”) you want are “temporary and organic, and their continued connection cannot be at the expense of our autonomy.”
Which is why free association is a key part of anarchist theory.
Next:
“Our liberation should not be dependent on a political or economic structure - it should come from our own desires and willingness to fight for another world.”
Our liberation should come from a mass rejection of existing society; the purpose of these structures is to help facilitate this.
Next:
“A leftist-anarchist friend of mine wants to know how we hold people accountable when they continually "flake." To which I respond, learn the patterns of those you work and live with, and know what you can depend on, and what you cannot. If they are continually unreliable, then don't rely on them. It's simple. It all comes down to bringing about a deeper understanding of one another, not some adjudication process to enforce agreements…that is how the state works.”
Once again coercion is NOT universally unjustifiable.
Next:
“Even in regard to abusers, some would like established policies and rigid methods for dealing with people, but each scenario is different, and each victim and community demands a different outcome.”
Each scenario is different and we will deal with each, as it arises, that is no reason to not have established policies, here where it is needed most.
Next:
“Smaller groups are more able to make decisions which are relevant to the individuals involved, while large organizations require tremendous amounts of resources and bureaucracy just to perpetuate themselves. Constant decisions need to be made just to keep them "running," and this will inevitably lead to representation and hierarchy. The further we are from any decision-making process, the more alienated we are from the decisions it makes.”
If a decision is made that affects you, than it is relevant to you. Organizations do not exist to perpetuate them selves the exist to solve a particular problem, large organizations do require delegation of responsibility, but delegates can be held accountable. Since an anarchist organization to refers it’s decisions back down to its rank and file for a vote, you are not excluded from the decision-making process.
7.7.08
Excerpts from The War At Home
Covert Action Against U.S. Activists And What We Can Do About It
- By Brian Glick
Essential Precautions
1. Check out the authenticity of any disturbing letter, rumor, phone call, or other communication before acting on it. Ask the supposed source if he or she is responsible.
2. Keep records of incidents which appear to reflect COINTELPRO-type activity. Evaluate your response and report your experiences to the Movement Response Network and other groups that document repression and resistance around the country.
3. Deal openly and honestly with differences within our movements (race, gender, class, age, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, personality, experience, physical and intellectual capacities. etc.) before the FBI and police can exploit them.
4. Don’t try to expose a suspected agent or informer without solid proof. Purges based on mere suspicion only help the FBI and police create distrust and paranoia. It generally works better to criticize what a disruptive person says and does, without speculating as to why.
5. Support all movement activists who come under government attack. Don’t be put off by political slander, such as recent attempts to smear some militant opponents of government policy as “terrorists”. Organize public opposition to all FBI witchhunts, grand jury subpoenas, political trials, and other forms of government and right-wing harassment.
6. Cultivate relationships with sympathetic journalists who seem willing to investigate and publicize domestic covert operations. Let them know when you are harassed. Since the FBI and police thrive on secrecy, public exposure can undermine their ability to subvert our work.
7. Don’t try to tough it out alone. Don’t let others fret and suffer by themselves. Make sure that activists who are under extreme stress get the help they need (talk with someone, rest, therapy, etc.) It is crucial that we build support networks and take care of one another.
8. Above all, do not let our movements be diverted from their main goals. Our most powerful weapon against political repression is effective organizing around the needs and issues which directly affect people's lives.
Coping with infiltration
1. Be careful to avoid pushing a new or hesitant member, or one facing personal, financial, or legal problems, to take risks beyond what that person is ready to handle, particularly in situations which could result in arrest and prosecution. People in positions of legal or other jeopardy have proven especially vulnerable to recruitment as informers.
2. Deal openly with the form and content of what anyone says and does, whether the person is a suspected agent, has emotional problems, or is simply a sincere but naive or confused person new to the work.
3. Establish a process through which anyone who suspects an infiltrator (or other covert intervention) can express his or her fears without scaring others. Experienced people assigned this responsibility can do a great deal to help a group maintain its morale and focus while, at the same time, consolidating information and deciding how to use it. This plan works best when accompanied by discussion of the danger of paranoia, so that everyone understands the reasons for following the established procedure.
4. Take steps to alert other activists anytime an agent or informer admits their role or you have a concrete and verified basis for certain knowledge. (Make sure you have not been taken in by a snitch jacket.) Act immediately and use every available means, including photographs, aliases, identifying traits, and a description of methods of operations. In the 1960’s, some agents managed, even after their exposure in one community, to move on and repeat their performance in others.
5. Be very cautious in attempting to expose a suspected, but unadmitted, agent or informer. The best approach depends on the nature of your group. A close-knit, self-selecting group of experienced activists, especially one which contemplates illegal activity, should exclude anyone who is not fully trusted by everyone involved. If the stakes are high, don’t be afraid to trust your intuition.
An open, public organization trying to reach out and involve new people faces a very different situation. Here, an attempted exposure caries enormous risks. The suspect may claim to be the victim of discrimination and may be turned against one another and lose the mutual trust and respect which is vital to any successful organization. New members and potential recruits may be scared away. The group’s attention and energy may be so diverted that it is no longer able to move effectively towards its main goals.
Activists who suspect infiltration of a public political organization should evaluate alternatives to attempted exposure. The appropriate response depends on the kind of agent or informer you think you are dealing with.
A suspect who seems to play a passive, or even a constructive role may secretly be undermining a group’s work or passing information to the FBI and police. In this situation, it often is most effective to limit the suspects opportunities without making your suspicions public. Take steps to deny access to organizational funds, financial records, mailing lists, office equipment, planning and security committees, discussions of illegal activity, and meetings that plan criminal defense strategy. Go public if you later catch the person in the act (but not merely with incriminating evidence which could have been planted or forged).
A different approach is required if the suspect is an active disrupter or provocateur. In this case it is most effective to confront the form or content of what the suspect says or does, without making an issue of why he or she says or does it. Start with a discrete talk since the subject could merely be naive or misguided. If harmful behavior persists, you will probably have to take it on in an open group discussion. Plan in advance how to limit the risk of disruption and demoralization. If you need to exclude or expel the suspect, be sure to inform other activists of your decision and reasons.
Psychological Warfare
1. Verify and double check arrangements for housing, transportation, meeting rooms, and so forth. Don’t assume movement organizers are at fault if something goes wrong.
2. Don’t believe everything you hear or read. Check with the supposed source of information before acting on it. Use a neutral third party if necessary. Personal communication among estranged activists, however difficult and painful, could have countered many FBI operations which proved effective in the 1960s.
3. When you discover bogus materials, false media stories, or forged documents, publicly disavow them and expose the true source, in so far as you can.
4. When you hear a negative, confusing, or potentially harmful rumor, don’t pass it on. Instead, discuss it with a trusted friend or with the people in your group who are responsible for dealing with such matters.
5. Don’t gossip about personal tensions, rivalries, and disagreements. This just feeds and amplifies rumors. Moreover, if you gossip where you can be overheard, you may add to the pool of information that the FBI and police use to divide our movements. (Note that the CIA has the technology to read mail without opening it and that telephones, including payphones, can be tapped by a computer programmed to record conversations in which specified words appear.)
6. Be sure to make time in meetings for “personal” as well as “political” issues.
This is the best way to reduce tensions and hostilities and the urge to gossip about them.
7. Warn your parents, friends, and neighbors, and others who may be contacted by government agents. Consider telling them what you are doing before they hear the FBI’s version. Provide them with materials which explain their legal rights and the dangers of talking with the FBI. Offer to connect them with lawyers and support groups.
Harassment through the legal system
1. Don’t talk to the FBI. Don't let them in without a warrant. Keep careful record of what they say and do. Tell others that they came.
2. If an activist does talk, or makes some other honest error, explain the serious harm that could result. Be firm, but do not ostracize a sincere person who slips up. Isolation only weakens a person's ability to resist. It can drive someone out of the movement or even into the hands of the police.
3. If the government agents start to harass people in your area, alert everyone to refuse to cooperate. Warn your friends, neighbors, parents, children, and anyone else who might be contacted. Set up community meetings with people who have resisted similar harassment elsewhere. Contact sympathetic reporters. Consider wanted posters with photos of the agents, or guerilla theater which follows them through the city streets.
4. Community education is important, along with child care and legal, financial, and other support for those who protect the movement by refusing to divulge information. If a respected activist is subpoenaed for obviously political reasons, consider trying to arrange sanctuary in a local church or synagogue.
5. If your group engages in civil disobedience or finds it self under intense police pressure, start a bail fund, train some members to deal with the legal system, and develop an ongoing relationship with sympathetic local lawyers.
6. If you anticipate arrest do not carry address books or any other materials which could help the police or FBI.
7. While the police and FBI are entirely capable of fabricating criminal charges, your non-political law violations make it easier for them to set you up. Be careful with drugs, tax returns, traffic tickets, and so forth. The point is not to get paranoid, but to make a realistic assessment based on your visibility and other relevant circumstances.
8. When an activist has to appear in court, make sure he or she is not alone. The presence of supporters is crucial for morale and can help influence jurors.
9. Don’t neglect jailed activists. Organize visits, correspondence, books, food packages, child care, etc. Keep publicizing their cases.
10. Publicize police and FBI abuses through sympathetic jornalists and your own media (posters, leaflets, and public access cable television, etc.) Don’t let the government and corporate media be the only ones to shape public perceptions of FBI and police attacks on political activists.
Extralegal force and violence
1. Establish security procedures appropriate to your group's level of activity and discuss them thoroughly with everybody involved. Control access to keys, files, letterhead, funds, financial records, mailing lists, etc.
2. Keep duplicates of valuable documents, records, files, computer disks, etc. in a safe place separate from your home or office.
3. Remember that cars are easily broken into (especially trucks) and that trash can easily be rifled and searched.
4. Make a public issue of any form of of crude harassment. Contact your local congress person. Call the media. Demonstrate at your local FBI, police, or right-wing organization’s office. Turn the attack into an opportunity for explaining how domestic covert action threatens fundamental human rights.
5. Keep careful records of break-ins, thefts, bomb threats, raids, brutality, conspicuous surveillance, and other harassment. They will help you discern patterns and to prepare reports and testimony.
6. Share this information and your experiences combating such attacks with the Movement Support Network and other groups which document and analyze repression and resistance country wide.
7. If you experience or anticipate intense harassment, develop contingency plans and an emergency telephone network so you can rapidly mobilize community support and media attention. Consider better locks, window bars, alarm systems, fireproof locked cabinets, etc.
8. Be sure that some members are well trained in first aid. Keep medical supplies up-to-date and know how to contact sympathetic doctors and nurses and get to the nearest hospital.
9. Make sure your group designates and prepares other members to step in if leaders are jailed or otherwise incapacitated. The more each participant is able to think for himself or herself and take responsibility, the greater the group's capacity to cope with the crises.
- By Brian Glick
Essential Precautions
1. Check out the authenticity of any disturbing letter, rumor, phone call, or other communication before acting on it. Ask the supposed source if he or she is responsible.
2. Keep records of incidents which appear to reflect COINTELPRO-type activity. Evaluate your response and report your experiences to the Movement Response Network and other groups that document repression and resistance around the country.
3. Deal openly and honestly with differences within our movements (race, gender, class, age, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, personality, experience, physical and intellectual capacities. etc.) before the FBI and police can exploit them.
4. Don’t try to expose a suspected agent or informer without solid proof. Purges based on mere suspicion only help the FBI and police create distrust and paranoia. It generally works better to criticize what a disruptive person says and does, without speculating as to why.
5. Support all movement activists who come under government attack. Don’t be put off by political slander, such as recent attempts to smear some militant opponents of government policy as “terrorists”. Organize public opposition to all FBI witchhunts, grand jury subpoenas, political trials, and other forms of government and right-wing harassment.
6. Cultivate relationships with sympathetic journalists who seem willing to investigate and publicize domestic covert operations. Let them know when you are harassed. Since the FBI and police thrive on secrecy, public exposure can undermine their ability to subvert our work.
7. Don’t try to tough it out alone. Don’t let others fret and suffer by themselves. Make sure that activists who are under extreme stress get the help they need (talk with someone, rest, therapy, etc.) It is crucial that we build support networks and take care of one another.
8. Above all, do not let our movements be diverted from their main goals. Our most powerful weapon against political repression is effective organizing around the needs and issues which directly affect people's lives.
Coping with infiltration
1. Be careful to avoid pushing a new or hesitant member, or one facing personal, financial, or legal problems, to take risks beyond what that person is ready to handle, particularly in situations which could result in arrest and prosecution. People in positions of legal or other jeopardy have proven especially vulnerable to recruitment as informers.
2. Deal openly with the form and content of what anyone says and does, whether the person is a suspected agent, has emotional problems, or is simply a sincere but naive or confused person new to the work.
3. Establish a process through which anyone who suspects an infiltrator (or other covert intervention) can express his or her fears without scaring others. Experienced people assigned this responsibility can do a great deal to help a group maintain its morale and focus while, at the same time, consolidating information and deciding how to use it. This plan works best when accompanied by discussion of the danger of paranoia, so that everyone understands the reasons for following the established procedure.
4. Take steps to alert other activists anytime an agent or informer admits their role or you have a concrete and verified basis for certain knowledge. (Make sure you have not been taken in by a snitch jacket.) Act immediately and use every available means, including photographs, aliases, identifying traits, and a description of methods of operations. In the 1960’s, some agents managed, even after their exposure in one community, to move on and repeat their performance in others.
5. Be very cautious in attempting to expose a suspected, but unadmitted, agent or informer. The best approach depends on the nature of your group. A close-knit, self-selecting group of experienced activists, especially one which contemplates illegal activity, should exclude anyone who is not fully trusted by everyone involved. If the stakes are high, don’t be afraid to trust your intuition.
An open, public organization trying to reach out and involve new people faces a very different situation. Here, an attempted exposure caries enormous risks. The suspect may claim to be the victim of discrimination and may be turned against one another and lose the mutual trust and respect which is vital to any successful organization. New members and potential recruits may be scared away. The group’s attention and energy may be so diverted that it is no longer able to move effectively towards its main goals.
Activists who suspect infiltration of a public political organization should evaluate alternatives to attempted exposure. The appropriate response depends on the kind of agent or informer you think you are dealing with.
A suspect who seems to play a passive, or even a constructive role may secretly be undermining a group’s work or passing information to the FBI and police. In this situation, it often is most effective to limit the suspects opportunities without making your suspicions public. Take steps to deny access to organizational funds, financial records, mailing lists, office equipment, planning and security committees, discussions of illegal activity, and meetings that plan criminal defense strategy. Go public if you later catch the person in the act (but not merely with incriminating evidence which could have been planted or forged).
A different approach is required if the suspect is an active disrupter or provocateur. In this case it is most effective to confront the form or content of what the suspect says or does, without making an issue of why he or she says or does it. Start with a discrete talk since the subject could merely be naive or misguided. If harmful behavior persists, you will probably have to take it on in an open group discussion. Plan in advance how to limit the risk of disruption and demoralization. If you need to exclude or expel the suspect, be sure to inform other activists of your decision and reasons.
Psychological Warfare
1. Verify and double check arrangements for housing, transportation, meeting rooms, and so forth. Don’t assume movement organizers are at fault if something goes wrong.
2. Don’t believe everything you hear or read. Check with the supposed source of information before acting on it. Use a neutral third party if necessary. Personal communication among estranged activists, however difficult and painful, could have countered many FBI operations which proved effective in the 1960s.
3. When you discover bogus materials, false media stories, or forged documents, publicly disavow them and expose the true source, in so far as you can.
4. When you hear a negative, confusing, or potentially harmful rumor, don’t pass it on. Instead, discuss it with a trusted friend or with the people in your group who are responsible for dealing with such matters.
5. Don’t gossip about personal tensions, rivalries, and disagreements. This just feeds and amplifies rumors. Moreover, if you gossip where you can be overheard, you may add to the pool of information that the FBI and police use to divide our movements. (Note that the CIA has the technology to read mail without opening it and that telephones, including payphones, can be tapped by a computer programmed to record conversations in which specified words appear.)
6. Be sure to make time in meetings for “personal” as well as “political” issues.
This is the best way to reduce tensions and hostilities and the urge to gossip about them.
7. Warn your parents, friends, and neighbors, and others who may be contacted by government agents. Consider telling them what you are doing before they hear the FBI’s version. Provide them with materials which explain their legal rights and the dangers of talking with the FBI. Offer to connect them with lawyers and support groups.
Harassment through the legal system
1. Don’t talk to the FBI. Don't let them in without a warrant. Keep careful record of what they say and do. Tell others that they came.
2. If an activist does talk, or makes some other honest error, explain the serious harm that could result. Be firm, but do not ostracize a sincere person who slips up. Isolation only weakens a person's ability to resist. It can drive someone out of the movement or even into the hands of the police.
3. If the government agents start to harass people in your area, alert everyone to refuse to cooperate. Warn your friends, neighbors, parents, children, and anyone else who might be contacted. Set up community meetings with people who have resisted similar harassment elsewhere. Contact sympathetic reporters. Consider wanted posters with photos of the agents, or guerilla theater which follows them through the city streets.
4. Community education is important, along with child care and legal, financial, and other support for those who protect the movement by refusing to divulge information. If a respected activist is subpoenaed for obviously political reasons, consider trying to arrange sanctuary in a local church or synagogue.
5. If your group engages in civil disobedience or finds it self under intense police pressure, start a bail fund, train some members to deal with the legal system, and develop an ongoing relationship with sympathetic local lawyers.
6. If you anticipate arrest do not carry address books or any other materials which could help the police or FBI.
7. While the police and FBI are entirely capable of fabricating criminal charges, your non-political law violations make it easier for them to set you up. Be careful with drugs, tax returns, traffic tickets, and so forth. The point is not to get paranoid, but to make a realistic assessment based on your visibility and other relevant circumstances.
8. When an activist has to appear in court, make sure he or she is not alone. The presence of supporters is crucial for morale and can help influence jurors.
9. Don’t neglect jailed activists. Organize visits, correspondence, books, food packages, child care, etc. Keep publicizing their cases.
10. Publicize police and FBI abuses through sympathetic jornalists and your own media (posters, leaflets, and public access cable television, etc.) Don’t let the government and corporate media be the only ones to shape public perceptions of FBI and police attacks on political activists.
Extralegal force and violence
1. Establish security procedures appropriate to your group's level of activity and discuss them thoroughly with everybody involved. Control access to keys, files, letterhead, funds, financial records, mailing lists, etc.
2. Keep duplicates of valuable documents, records, files, computer disks, etc. in a safe place separate from your home or office.
3. Remember that cars are easily broken into (especially trucks) and that trash can easily be rifled and searched.
4. Make a public issue of any form of of crude harassment. Contact your local congress person. Call the media. Demonstrate at your local FBI, police, or right-wing organization’s office. Turn the attack into an opportunity for explaining how domestic covert action threatens fundamental human rights.
5. Keep careful records of break-ins, thefts, bomb threats, raids, brutality, conspicuous surveillance, and other harassment. They will help you discern patterns and to prepare reports and testimony.
6. Share this information and your experiences combating such attacks with the Movement Support Network and other groups which document and analyze repression and resistance country wide.
7. If you experience or anticipate intense harassment, develop contingency plans and an emergency telephone network so you can rapidly mobilize community support and media attention. Consider better locks, window bars, alarm systems, fireproof locked cabinets, etc.
8. Be sure that some members are well trained in first aid. Keep medical supplies up-to-date and know how to contact sympathetic doctors and nurses and get to the nearest hospital.
9. Make sure your group designates and prepares other members to step in if leaders are jailed or otherwise incapacitated. The more each participant is able to think for himself or herself and take responsibility, the greater the group's capacity to cope with the crises.
1.7.08
Free Student Union
What is it?
The free student union (FSU) is an organization designed to empower students in a democratic and open way to take control of our education and our lives on the Evergreen State College (TESC) campus. It is made up the students of the TESC. It is open to every member of the student body.
Why a Free Student Union?
The Free Student Union is a tool for collective bargaining, which will communicate the students concerns to the college with less bureaucracy, less delay, and more forcefulness than the current system. It is an open forum for students to voice their concerns and ideas about TESC and it’s policies and an organization to take action in response to those concerns.
How does it work?
The union members will meet in Student Community Forums in order to set union policy. Student Community Forums will be held frequently through out the year so that the union can stay up to date with the changing concerns of students and so that students can be informed about changes at our school. All free Student Union members will have the power to call a Student Community Forum through a simple process of signature collection. The issues the Free Student Union decides to Focus on and they way it does so, will be determined by the Student Community Forum. There are many different actions the Free Student Union can take in interacting with the administration and trying to get student concerns addressed. Meetings with administrators and demonstrations are tools the union can use. So are communicating with off-campus media and working with local organizations to put community pressure on the administration in favor of student interests. Stronger tactics could class walkouts, student strikes, and tuition strikes. The things we do are up to you! In the end, TESC needs us as much as we need it and the Free Student Union can and will use this fact in negotiating with the college. While the Free Student Union will be non-hierarchical (no president, representatives, or other officials), the Student Community Forum will have the power to select people to carry out its decisions. Also, a volunteer group of organizers accountable to the union as a whole will do the administrative work necessary to holding Student Community Forums as well as actively building union membership within the student body.
What makes the FSU different from the Geoduck Union?
The Geoduck Union acts on the principles of representative democracy (much like our own two-party system in the US). And although there are over 20 representatives in the Geoduck Union, attendance of these representatives has been very low, making it difficult for that body to fulfill its mission and ability to represent the entire student body. Because of this, the Geoduck Union is inefficient and ineffective in meeting the needs of student on our campus. The Free Student Union would operate under the principles of participatory and direct democracy. This means decisions would be made would be made directly by those who are affected most of them and on our campus that means us, the students! When we cut out the middle person we empower ourselves to make real and lasting changes that affect our everyday lives. That’s what democracy looks like!
What does the Free Student Union mean for Student Groups?
Short answer: nothing. Long answer: a lot! The Free Student Union is more than just another student group on campus. It’s a resource and a tool for us to make a difference on our campus. In fact, a Free Student Union at our school reinforce the effectiveness of student groups to get things done because we as students would have more influence over decisions made on our campus. The Free Student Union would be there working for and strengthening all students and that means student groups too!
What about time?
The great thing about the Free Student Union is that it doesn’t take much time to do a lot. For many students it’s really hard to get involved in student groups and other activities because of the realities of work, family, and other responsibilities on top of a full academic schedule are just too much. A body like the Free Student Union makes collective bargaining easy, efficient, and democratic. The Free Student Union allows all of us to have a say in what goes on at TESC without devoting all of our time to making the world a better place. We can all be leaders and organizers within this model.
The Free Student Union gives us the power to decide what happens here without the time commitments necessitated by other types of groups. You decide how much time you put in!
Examples of when a Free Student Union would have been Awesome at Evergreen:
Bringing Iraqi student to Evergreen
Dealing with the sexual assault in the fall
The arming campus police
The graffiti on campus
Dead Prez concert
The use of prison labor on campus
Aramark
Clearcutting in Evergreen woods
Faculty Hiring
Tuition
A recent history of student unions
Currently in the US, there are student unions forming in Providence, RI and New York City. Student unions have a much larger presence in countries all over the world, but none are stronger than in Quebec. In 2005 student unions and students all over Quebec went on strike against budget cuts to the Grants and loans program for students. Entire universities were shut down, mass marches ensued and occupations of intersections and buildings occurred. In the end, the demands of the students were met. This is just one example of the power organized students actually hold.
How can I join?
Free Student Union cards re available at pick-up sites around the university. Take a card and sign your name on it. Fill out your contact information and put it in the drop-off box. Also keep your eyes open for a union organizer.
What if I don’t want to join the union but I am interested in it?
Give your email to a union member. The address will be added to a listserv that will keep you updated about union activity but will not make you a part of the union.
Inspired by- Student Syndicalism, by Carl Davidson
http://www.antiauthoritarian.net/sds_wuo/sds_documents/student_syndicalism.html
Transcribers note: I got this pamphlet at the northwest SDS conference, my only criticism is that it is a trade union (of only students) compared to an industrial union (which would include faculty and staff).
The free student union (FSU) is an organization designed to empower students in a democratic and open way to take control of our education and our lives on the Evergreen State College (TESC) campus. It is made up the students of the TESC. It is open to every member of the student body.
Why a Free Student Union?
The Free Student Union is a tool for collective bargaining, which will communicate the students concerns to the college with less bureaucracy, less delay, and more forcefulness than the current system. It is an open forum for students to voice their concerns and ideas about TESC and it’s policies and an organization to take action in response to those concerns.
How does it work?
The union members will meet in Student Community Forums in order to set union policy. Student Community Forums will be held frequently through out the year so that the union can stay up to date with the changing concerns of students and so that students can be informed about changes at our school. All free Student Union members will have the power to call a Student Community Forum through a simple process of signature collection. The issues the Free Student Union decides to Focus on and they way it does so, will be determined by the Student Community Forum. There are many different actions the Free Student Union can take in interacting with the administration and trying to get student concerns addressed. Meetings with administrators and demonstrations are tools the union can use. So are communicating with off-campus media and working with local organizations to put community pressure on the administration in favor of student interests. Stronger tactics could class walkouts, student strikes, and tuition strikes. The things we do are up to you! In the end, TESC needs us as much as we need it and the Free Student Union can and will use this fact in negotiating with the college. While the Free Student Union will be non-hierarchical (no president, representatives, or other officials), the Student Community Forum will have the power to select people to carry out its decisions. Also, a volunteer group of organizers accountable to the union as a whole will do the administrative work necessary to holding Student Community Forums as well as actively building union membership within the student body.
What makes the FSU different from the Geoduck Union?
The Geoduck Union acts on the principles of representative democracy (much like our own two-party system in the US). And although there are over 20 representatives in the Geoduck Union, attendance of these representatives has been very low, making it difficult for that body to fulfill its mission and ability to represent the entire student body. Because of this, the Geoduck Union is inefficient and ineffective in meeting the needs of student on our campus. The Free Student Union would operate under the principles of participatory and direct democracy. This means decisions would be made would be made directly by those who are affected most of them and on our campus that means us, the students! When we cut out the middle person we empower ourselves to make real and lasting changes that affect our everyday lives. That’s what democracy looks like!
What does the Free Student Union mean for Student Groups?
Short answer: nothing. Long answer: a lot! The Free Student Union is more than just another student group on campus. It’s a resource and a tool for us to make a difference on our campus. In fact, a Free Student Union at our school reinforce the effectiveness of student groups to get things done because we as students would have more influence over decisions made on our campus. The Free Student Union would be there working for and strengthening all students and that means student groups too!
What about time?
The great thing about the Free Student Union is that it doesn’t take much time to do a lot. For many students it’s really hard to get involved in student groups and other activities because of the realities of work, family, and other responsibilities on top of a full academic schedule are just too much. A body like the Free Student Union makes collective bargaining easy, efficient, and democratic. The Free Student Union allows all of us to have a say in what goes on at TESC without devoting all of our time to making the world a better place. We can all be leaders and organizers within this model.
The Free Student Union gives us the power to decide what happens here without the time commitments necessitated by other types of groups. You decide how much time you put in!
Examples of when a Free Student Union would have been Awesome at Evergreen:
Bringing Iraqi student to Evergreen
Dealing with the sexual assault in the fall
The arming campus police
The graffiti on campus
Dead Prez concert
The use of prison labor on campus
Aramark
Clearcutting in Evergreen woods
Faculty Hiring
Tuition
A recent history of student unions
Currently in the US, there are student unions forming in Providence, RI and New York City. Student unions have a much larger presence in countries all over the world, but none are stronger than in Quebec. In 2005 student unions and students all over Quebec went on strike against budget cuts to the Grants and loans program for students. Entire universities were shut down, mass marches ensued and occupations of intersections and buildings occurred. In the end, the demands of the students were met. This is just one example of the power organized students actually hold.
How can I join?
Free Student Union cards re available at pick-up sites around the university. Take a card and sign your name on it. Fill out your contact information and put it in the drop-off box. Also keep your eyes open for a union organizer.
What if I don’t want to join the union but I am interested in it?
Give your email to a union member. The address will be added to a listserv that will keep you updated about union activity but will not make you a part of the union.
Inspired by- Student Syndicalism, by Carl Davidson
http://www.antiauthoritarian.net/sds_wuo/sds_documents/student_syndicalism.html
Transcribers note: I got this pamphlet at the northwest SDS conference, my only criticism is that it is a trade union (of only students) compared to an industrial union (which would include faculty and staff).
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