Recording Surface

We are not interested in any more tedious conferences or assemblies, which draw out hundreds of people, but only for an endless conversation. We are not interested in more ’symbolic protests’, whether walkouts or strikes, insofar as they are pre-announced to end after one or a few days. More meetings and protests will only waste our energies, while the administration continues to implement its plans without hindrance.

This, from the Imaginary Committee at the University of California, interests me not because of its seeming call for the primacy of action (and activism) but for its implicit criticism of democratic and consensus models of movement. The Occupy California blog’s report on the October statewide conference shows clearly the ways in which some groups use deliberative models of agreement and decision-making to centralize and steer nascent political movements.

“The only conceivable power of the conference lay in giving a statewide legitimacy to what would have otherwise been an isolated and radical proposal [for a general strike],” says Aufheben’s analysis. In that case, not only this conference but the convergence model itself is always already a failure and a diversion. It may be true that there is little other real power to the conference, but if it does wield this power of legitimization then its true nature as a force for diluting the struggle and building a false movement is revealed. What the organizers of the conference as well as the Aufheben Collective are seeking is a false state-wide legitimacy for a false state-wide movement.

They seek a unilateral movement that has some sort of central planning: “we will be working to point the movement in that direction [towards a strike].”

Giving into the convergence/conference model, the Imaginary Committee recognizes, already means giving into its politics, “which claims to represent and take authority for the interests of the people of California – in short, which mirrors the bureaucratic, authoritarian, proceduralist form of everything that [it]supposedly resist[s].” The problem with conference/consensus is not that it’s coercive or even that it’s hierarchical but that it parliamentary-democratic. Which is another way of saying that it’s apolitical, as the New School occupiers learned:

The idea of democratically debating every day those who are against the occupation on the establishment, renewal, and expansion of the occupation is absurd - as if there is ever anything but antagonism between us. At every step, the occupation was brought into being in non-compliance with democratic order, an order that was forced on us precisely by those who opposed the occupation itself – because it was too disorganized, it was too illegal, it was too soon…

From the beginning, many of the figureheads and bureaucrats-in-training of the Radical Student Union [RSU] and Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] were against the occupation because it did not fit into their picture of the “long-term struggle.” First, they did not support its immediate establishment and many disagreed with the tactic entirely. During meetings, they spoke endlessly of their self-righteous feelings about why the time was wrong or why it failed to fit into the long-term vision of the “student movement,” causing the postponement of the occupation and sleepless nights for many. Next, after deciding to join us in the cafeteria once they realized things were happening with or without their consent, they were chomping at the bit to quietly end the occupation after the first night - upon the opening of the business day (of all the insults!). Thankfully, the wildly liberal logic underlying this notion was quickly revealed in all its hilarity and we continued on into the next morning.

Later in the evening, many of these same “leaders” sought again and again to issue “official decrees” against the strategic move to control the building’s exit points, which allowed us to determine who entered the occupation, not security and the police. Finally, they orchestrated another “official” vote on the question of whether or not to forcibly open the fire exits allowing the crowds outside in to join us – the official line, they declared, was opposed. “Too risky, we’re just not ready” - it might upset the administration, their negotiators, the cops, even…

To detail this list is not to get petty – it is to be clear about exactly what happened during the occupation and how it was done. The fact is that every highpoint and expansion of the occupation took place despite these attempts at management. […] In any case, the bottom-line is that we do not have to wait for democratic consensus to act; in fact, the occupation happened because we did not wait.

These forces in the United States who insist on abiding by majoritarian democracy principles and seem congenitally opposed to occupation have their counterpart in SWP activists in the U.K. Earlier this year, an occupation of the SOAS in protest of deportations of the school’s migrant workers ended when SWP negotiators, self-appointed leaders, decided the occupation’s goals had been met. But the goals of many of the occupiers had not been met, as many of the workers were still being detained and other important issues were unresolved. But the SWP negotiators decided the occupation had run its course, and it had the power to declare it over because they had the structural power to do so, a power more or less given to it by the school administration:

The drift towards agreeing to [SOAS’s] offer – one that was not voted on at any stage, even on Wednesday morning – was ultimately determined by the priorities and perspective of the SWP and the leading SOAS students involved in the occupation. Collectively they had, of course, been the most prominent figures throughout and had assumed responsibility for conducting negotiations through the elected student union (at least one of whom, Nizzam Uddin, was clearly opposed to the action and had a vested interest in cautious compromise), using a line of communication which [SOAS] had stipulated on Monday afternoon for reasons of delegitimising the broader membership of the occupation, on the (as it turned out, correct) assumption that indirect, fragmented dialogue would work to his advantage.

Evidently, SWP types and their allies in the U.S. are extremely anxious about occupations. So in addition to being antidemocratic, another reason to believe they are a good strategy.

Our Border is a groundbreaking online civic networking tool that brings together experts, professionals, the American public and DHS officials to talk about the Southwest Border. Some of the most critical issues today – immigration, commerce, trade, tourism, national security, public health – are connected to the Southwest Border. This civic social network facilitates a new kind of dialogue about the Southwest Border.

On Our Border you can discuss Southwest border issues in forums, create your own blog, read the latest news about the Southwest border from the Department of Homeland Security, check out and post videos and photos, join a group focused on a specific issue or organization, and connect with other users interested in similar topics, create and organize events and much more.

“Border civic network” has a nice, activist ring to it, doesn’t it?

So here’s my schema for classifying some of the communiques/occupations/actions of the last few months: The Invisible Committee’s The Coming Insurrection is Situationist, the New School Occupation is autonomist, and the Communique from the Absent Future is anarchist. Okay, that’s pretty silly, and reductive of course, since I’m not really sure what any of those mean. But it does at least explain why the first of these is my least favorite.

The common logic of these “movements,” especially the last two, pivots around two points: occupation and the insistence on not demanding. Occupation, as the communiques make clear, isn’t a tactic for reprivileging the territorial or producing a new commons on top of the old. Instead it’s a disruption of the current functioning and a revealing of fault lines — a way to “blast the mindless structure.” Demanding, on the other hand, is just another way of asking for something, of recognizing someone else’s right to ownership. Occupation does the opposite of demanding: it takes, without worrying over how the action will be represented or asking for permission — it “needs no introduction, no visas or carte blanche.”

So, the occupiers aren’t really Situationist, autonomist, or anarchist. They are, to put it in punk rock terms, Teenagers from Mars:

We land in barren fields
On the Arizona plains
The insemination of little girls
In the middle of wet dreams

We are the angel mutants
The streets for us seduction
Our cause unjust and ancient
In this “B” film born invasion

Teenagers from Mars
And we don’t care
Teenagers from Mars
And we don’t care
Teenagers from Mars
And we don’t care

Well, we’ve seen your 3-D movies
In violent abduction
We blast your mindless structure
Inferior connection

We take your weak resistance
Throw it in your face
We need no introduction
For mass annihilation

Teenagers from Mars
And we don’t care
Teenagers from Mars
And we don’t care
Teenagers from Mars
And we don’t care

Well, we need no introduction
No visas or carte blanche
Inhuman reproduction
We’re here for what we want

We want, we need it, we’ll take it
We want, we need it, we’ll take it
We want, we need it, we’ll take it
We want, we need it, we’ll take it, baby

Teenagers from Mars
And we don’t care
Teenagers from Mars
And we don’t care
Teenagers from Mars
And we don’t care

Teenagers from Mars
And we don’t care
Teenagers from Mars
And we don’t care
Teenagers from Mars
And we don’t care

And we don’t care
And we don’t care, we don’t care
We don’t care, and we don’t care
And we don’t care

I’ve uploaded an article I wrote a few months ago on the politics of the 2006 protests in the United States, primarily, after the initial passage of HR 4437, the hardass immigration legislation. It was was not accepted for publication — boo hoo — but reading over it now, I’m not surprised: bad writing and inadequately developed ideas, which befits a piece I basically wrote in a day. But I think I’m interested in reworking it, so any comments or suggestions of outlets that might be interested would be very much appreciated. If you’d rather have a pdf, email me (there’s an address on the right-hand side if you need it) and I’ll happily send you a copy. Again, comments and critiques welcome.