Some Movement Basics

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Let’s combine some of the ground we’ve been covering. I’ll start by going back over the basic framework and chronology of movement-building as I described it last month, adding some commentary. Then I’ll go back over the Food Sovereignty principles and a few others, suggesting how the stages of movement-building may apply to each.

 

First the movement: 

1. Engages in “apolitical” economic relocalization as much as possible. 

This is the basic stuff about strengthening the local economy. Local governments and service organizations themselves often still engage in this at least semi-seriously. More important for our purposes is the newer relocalization movement which is concerned with economic issues as well as the imperatives imposed by energy and environmental issues.

 

Here we find a panoply of actions – farmers’ markets, community gardens, a new interest in personal gardening (this is becoming a movement in itself), reskilling (everything from learning basic fix-it skills to learning whole non-fossil fuel based skill sets), time banks and alternative currencies, alternative transportation schemes, homeschooling, and many others – which don’t necessarily have a direct political content nor are necessarily conducted within the context of a broad political consciousness. At any rate, groups dedicated to these seem prone to want to be a apolitical as possible, in order to broaden their appeal and make their ideas as accessible as possible. This is often sound tactics. 

2. Among committed citizens, also forms a nucleus for political relocalization. Systematic political education goes on among this group. This group must also formulate a politically and spiritually inspiring philosophy and mindset to accompany the toolkit of actions. 

Here’s a parallel action to build this political consciousness. Perhaps some members of the economic relocalization groups start a book club or public speaking club or something. Here these self-selected members may be joined by other politically interested people who weren’t initially as interested in the purely economic relocalization actions. Together these work to formulate a democratic political philosophy and to build a democratic political consciousness. This philosophy and the mode of expressing it through words and actions must combine the critique of kleptocracy with an affirmative vision of how democracy can establish freedom and broad prosperity. The joys of community action, the sense of togetherness it brings, can be part of this. All this dovetails with the economic relocalization actions. 

3. To what ever extent possible, this nucleus becomes involved in local politics. But this may not be an initial priority everywhere. 

A possibility for starters is liaison and coordination with “the authorities” where services are being cut. (As discussed in #5 below, this way of seemingly letting government use us is really a strategic maneuver.) The local movement could take over services with the imprimatur of the government in return for the use of facilities and other non-cash reciprocities. We could organize around specific statutes enshrining democratic principles, for example local food sovereignty law and anti-corporate personhood law. As the public profile and volunteer activism of the movement increases so that the need for paid PR decreases, activists could also run for office within the existing electoral structure and seek to take over local government that way. 

4. To whatever extent government and corporate power hinder the activities of (1), the political activists take any opportunity for broader political education of various producers and perhaps the public. 

This will be one of the major tasks of the political nucleus. It must educate a populace about the ways in which centralized and corporate power, both totally alien to a region, are afflicting and draining that region of its vitality and freedom. This education must also include the broader picture of how the kleptocracy is destroying the real economy of America (or any other country) as a whole. 

5. Wherever necessary and possible, the locally involved political activists take on responsibilities of local and regional government, gradually achieving objective legitimacy. But actual assertion of authority against parasitic “official” structures would have to wait for later. 

While the movement is absolving government of its obligation to provide various social services, it’s also confirming the abdication of legitimacy on the part of government. The political education must spread awareness of this fact. At the same time, through its actions the movement appeals to the public as a parallel quasi-government structure, seeking acclaim and legitimacy that way. Eventually, the movement must be ready for various power showdowns with the “constituted authorities”. As we know, we shall embody the true constitution. 

6. To whatever extent possible, these organizations, at whatever level of development, would come together to consult in a kind of federation. To whatever extent possible, they could coordinate and assist one another. 

We’re already doing this in embryo, even if so far we’re only speaking for ourselves. If we’re already involved in groups, we can at least start by describing what our groups are doing even if we’re not yet able to speak for the group. In my case, my group is still very much in the apolitical stage, and I’m still being circumspect about keeping my online and community volunteering actions separate. But I’m looking for an opportunity to start the political nucleus somewhere. 

7. This structure would then gradually make its presence known to the public, mostly through “apolitical” education about the economy and relocalization, but also political education, wherever it seems that would be fruitful. 

Perhaps for the time being, this “national” network could be more proactive in political expression than many of the individual rhizomes. The ideas developed here could then be adapted to all sorts of local conditions.

 

The online organizing we discussed can function both to help organize the local groups and to develop this network. 

8. Then, once the next, terminal crash comes, and/or the general deterioration into permanent depression accelerates, the movement will be prepared to offer a home, a means of self-help, and a realm of action, to any size mass of people ardent and desperate for a solution. 

The goal is to prepare to receive the refugees from the system. This may always remain a relatively small number, or it may explode into a mass movement. Anything is possible.

 

To continue with my using Food Sovereignty as a primary element of democracy, lets go back over Via Campesina’s Seven Principles, with some suggestions on how the framework described above can further them. The numbers cited in my comments here refer to 1-8 above. 

1. Food: A Basic Human Right. Everyone must have access to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food in sufficient quantity and quality to sustain a healthy life with full human dignity. Each nation should declare that access to food is a constitutional right and guarantee the development of the primary sector to ensure the concrete realization of this fundamental right. 

This is a primary subject for political education – #s 2, 4, 7. 

2. Agrarian Reform. A genuine agrarian reform is necessary which gives landless and farming people – especially women – ownership and control of the land they work and returns territories to indigenous peoples. The right to land must be free of discrimination on the basis of gender, religion, race, social class or ideology; the land belongs to those who work it. 

We can draft a model policy (2, 4, 7). In practice we must call for the redemption of all corporatized land and land which has been condemned to idleness by the parasitic rich. All REO (real-estate owned) bankster land is already the property of the people.

 

There are several possible levels of direct action, from guerilla gardening to organized squatting and adverse possession. These can be justified politically (3, 5) and have local political cover sought for them (like with the local laws linked above).

 

The greatest efflorescence would be our own version of Latin America’s Landless Workers’ Movement. This would need to be part of a broader movement encompassing the unemployed and the homeless. 

3. Protecting Natural Resources. Food Sovereignty entails the sustainable care and use of natural resources, especially land, water, and seeds and livestock breeds. The people who work the land must have the right to practice sustainable management of natural resources and to conserve biodiversity free of restrictive intellectual property rights. This can only be done from a sound economic basis with security of tenure, healthy soils and reduced use of agro-chemicals. 

Here’s another job for the political education (2, 4, 7), with a special emphasis on the environmental and energy necessity for food relocalization (a broader context for looking at #1). 

4. Reorganizing Food Trade. Food is first and foremost a source of nutrition and only secondarily an item of trade. National agricultural policies must prioritize production for domestic consumption and food self-sufficiency. Food imports must not displace local production nor depress prices.

5. Ending the Globalization of Hunger. Food Sovereignty is undermined by multilateral institutions and by speculative capital. The growing control of multinational corporations over agricultural policies has been facilitated by the economic policies of multilateral organizations such as the WTO, World Bank and the IMF. Regulation and taxation of speculative capital and a strictly enforced Code of Conduct for TNCs is therefore needed. 

More for the political education. 

6. Social Peace. Everyone has the right to be free from violence. Food must not be used as a weapon. Increasing levels of poverty and marginalization in the countryside, along with the growing oppression of ethnic minorities and indigenous populations, aggravate situations of injustice and hopelessness. The ongoing displacement, forced urbanization, repression and increasing incidence of racism of smallholder farmers cannot be tolerated. 

The prescription here is the same as that for the second principle. 

7. Democratic control. Smallholder farmers must have direct input into formulating agricultural policies at all levels. The United Nations and related organizations will have to undergo a process of democratization to enable this to become a reality. Everyone has the right to honest, accurate information and open and democratic decision-making. These rights form the basis of good governance, accountability and equal participation in economic, political and social life, free from all forms of discrimination. Rural women, in particular, must be granted direct and active decision-making on food and rural issues. 

This is what we’re striving for with 3 and 5. The education toward it is part of 2, 4, and 7.

 

To mention another example, if we look again at this anti-corporate constitutional agenda: 

* The enshrinement of Food Sovereignty as a basic right. (This would certainly have been the First Amendment if anyone in 1788 could have contemplated a day when the federal government would explicitly deny we have a right to grow and eat the foods of our choice. But even the opponents of the centralized government who demanded the inclusion of a Bill of Rights, as suspicious as they were, never contemplated such an obscene assault on our liberty and dignity.)

* Corporations are not persons and have no constitutional rights. Only humans have rights.

* If corporations are to exist at all, an amendment could explicitly limit them to the purposes and constraints which would have been familiar in the 1780s.

* The Full Faith and Credit clause shall not be construed to include corporate charters. All corporate activity shall be subject to the chartering laws of the state, except as restricted by one or both of the two previous amendments.

The point of these would be to prevent races to the bottom (since e.g. Delaware’s not all that big a market, and outside Delaware a corporation chartered in Delaware would be subject to the provisions of those other states, not those of Delaware)

* The federal government power shall be strictly construed according to the explicit letter of the Articles.

* “Interstate commerce” is only commerce which within a discrete transaction crosses a state line.

* Some way to declare that globalization “treaties”, i.e. contracts of adhesion, are most definitely not “the Law of the Land”, overriding federal, state, and local law.

* Clarify Article 1, section 8, to specify that the government may not alienate the sovereign power to coin Money. That is, the Fed and all private bank money is unconstitutional and to be abolished. 

We see how some of these could start with inertial facts on the ground (1), while political consciousness could be propagated through both the local political nucleus (2, 4) and from the broad network (7), and through the course of local politics (3, 5).

 

So that’s a few more suggestions in the course of working out my thoughts on this. We’ll need to flesh everything in with as many practical examples (already demonstrated/deployed as well as prospective) as possible. We can brainstorm lists of relevant actions, for example, and then arrange these into a possible coherent strategy.

 

That’s it for now. I’m going to be in the woods and off the Internet (and probably quite wet, if these rainy weather reports hold true) till Wednesday afternoon. I’ll respond to comments when I get back.