On Fri, 6 Jun 1997, Doug Henwood wrote: > What can I say? The activists I've talked with and reported on don't sound > very much like the ones you describe. A recent confirmation of my analysis > was provided in a good little report on welfare reform by Rachel Timoner > for the Applied Research Center in Oakland. She talked with scores of > activist groups, mainly in Calif but also around the country, and found > them completely unprepared to deal with the end of AFDC: isolated from each > other and the people they supposedly represent, with a palliative rather > than transformative approach to politics. Individuals who work for these > organizations may be seriously radical and well-informed, but the system > they work within frustrates their best intentions. Doug, I think we're talking about different types of organizations. The disease I think you're seeing -- call it liberalism, Alinskyism, whaveter you like -- is more endemic to politics than the location of people's organizing. Organizing the very poor, for example, is extremely complicated. Poor people are highly overworked and have very little time. You usually have to have all your meetings on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, or else right at the end of the workday and keep it short. No long ideological battles on weekdays, I'm afraid. Often they don't have money for the subway and you have to provide it. For all these kinds of reasons, it's a lot easier for staff-run organizations of middle class people to crop up claiming to represent the poor. That's the state of a lot of the welfare-rights movement in this country. Of course there are exceptions (in New York, there's WEP Workers Together, Community Voices Heard, the Fifth Avenue Committee and lots of smaller organizations), but they don't have the political prominence of, say, the Children's Defense Fund. That's just the way class perpetuates its hegemony, even within progressive movements. > Lots of such activist groups tried to organize something called the "Same > Boat Coalition" to fight Mayor Rudy's austerity programs, but they've > barely been able to get out a press release. Tenant organizations are > fighting with each other almost as much as they're fighting schemes to do > away with NYC's rent regulations. The alternative is that these groups have > to develop some common institutional and programmatic structures. I worked with Same Boat at the beginning of its career. It was bullshit. It was composed of staffers from various unions and progressive organziations who all wanted to meet at 9am on Thursdays while they got paid to be there. Needless to say, this is not a recipe for getting working people to your meetings. But they didn't really care because they weren't out to mobilize huge numbers of working people, at least not in any way that might allow them to run the show. They just wanted a group that handed out petitions and built small rallies. Again, it's not because of Same Boat's project of building a fight-the-cuts coalition. It's because of their staff-based politics. As far as the tenant stuff: The disagreements between, say, Met Council on Housing and Housing Solidarity network reflect genuine political differences. Met Council wants to build a staff-based membership organization. HSN wants to build neighborhood-based collectives of tenants. HSN also has this kooky call for a citywide rent strike. You can't expect people to come together if they're not going to work well together. > A few years ago at a meeting sponsored by the North Star Fund, a NYC > philanthrophy for rich radicals, a Latina reproductive rights activist told > me she didn't want to "coalesce" with other groups because it would weaken > her cause. I think she was simply being more honest than most in saying > that. I'd believe it. I just think we're talking about different political circles. You claim to have identified groups working on specific, local issues. That may indeed be true, but I don't think that's what's wrong with the above mentioned organizations. I think you've identified groups that are building through staff instead of recruiting activists. That's what we need to fight against. Cheers, Tavis
