Activism

Undemocratic, A Word Not To Be Taken Lightly

/ James J Jackson Jr

As an active DSA member I hear this word all the time, almost as much as I hear the words “organizing” and “socialism.”  I think active leftists in all organizations can relate to this, but I think the attack of something being “undemocratic” is overused.

Now I am not suggesting in any way we not call out undemocratic behavior, what I am saying is we need to acknowledge that being called “undemocratic” is the heaviest attack you can lay against someone in an organization that is supposed to be democratic.  That is not something to take lightly.

Behavior that is genuinely undemocratic is something that an elected official does not have the authority to do or is an action that goes out of its way to side step democratic procedures.  That does not stop people from throwing the term around when a comrade does something that they simply do not agree with.

Most of the time what is called ‘undemocratic behavior’ is actually just people disagreeing with how something was done, or it is people letting personal differences effect their outlook on what is good for their organization. If we attack every single thing or person we disagree with as ‘undemocratic’ then the word will lose all meaning.  It will be a boy who called wolf situation, the moment we actually have to face the consequences of someone doing something undemocratic we will be ill prepared to handle it.

An action is only undemocratic if it goes out of its way to defy democratic principles, unless it is intentionally sidestepping the consent or consensus of the voting body, the odds are it was not “undemocratic.”

I am not saying hold your tongue when you see genuinely undemocratic behavior, all I am asking is that people remember that in organizations that pride themselves on democracy, it is not a term to be taken lightly.

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Avoid the “Self Care” Trap

/ James J Jackson Jr

Self care is a radical act, never forget that. When you practice self care you are doing so in order to exist in a world that tells you you shouldn’t have any power.

This is why self care was created by radical black femmes in the 60s and 70s. It was an act of rebellion to do what it took to exist in an world trying to extinguish or diminish a person’s existence, and it still is.

This is why we need to make it clear that self care is about self preservation, not indulgence.

Several rich, mostly white people, use the term “self care” as an excuse for spending thousands of dollars on spa treatments or for drink service during nights at the club. I have no problem with indulgence but self care is not just about self indulgence. Calling self indulgence self care is once again a co-opting of the work and culture of non white radicals.

Self care is taking a mental health day. Self care is opening your mail that has been piling up on your desk. It is doing your laundry and organizing your space. That is self care.

It is true that for some, especially those with PTSD or anxiety, a yoga class or a massage is in fact self care, because what might be an indulgent treat for some of us is to them a need for preservation of their sanity.

It is easy to fall into what I call, “The Self Care Trap,” because the truth is humans are always looking for an excuse to indulge. Humans are effort minimizers and euphoria maximizers, especially the privileged and the rich. Any excuse they can use to indulge in yacht trips and day drinking, they will, but rich people aren’t the only ones who have co-opted the term self care.

I have seen several self proclaimed “leftists” use the term self care as excuse for a night of binge drinking or as an excuse to avoid an organizing meeting and get stoned for the billionth time. There is nothing wrong with a drink or a toke, in fact I’d say I’m very self indulgent with those two things myself, but I am not about to pretend my drinking is an act of self preservation.

I am a white, straight, cis male, so my need for self care is far less than that of someone who was queer, non white, and non cis gendered. This is why it is important for us to avoid the “Self Care Trap.” We cannot use a term that is about the self preservation of the oppressed as an excuse for our own self indulgence.

So the next time you go out for drinks or go on vacation, ask yourself, is it self care or self indulgence? If you live in a world that allows you to exist, then you probably aren’t the one who needs self care.

Anti Intellectualism Hurts the Left and Insults the Working Class

/ James J Jackson Jr

I have noticed time and time again at multiple meetings, protests, and other organizational gatherings that there is a haste in several leftists to abandon intellectualism and academics. Either intellectualism is synonymous with whiteness to some of these people or their is this sentiment shared by many leftists that intellectualism is inherently alienating or off putting to the working class.

I reject these notions and I implore my comrades to reject them as well.

I am not unsympathetic to leftists who have a distain for academia and the intellectual jargon that comes with certain avenues of socialist theory, nor am I blind to the exclusion that academics has perpetuated. It is true that academic rhetoric has been used as a tactic for class elevation rather than for the improvement of ones community. To put it blutnly, people under our current capitalist system view education as a method for moving up the class scale. Instead of a degree being a symbol of your knowledge it is often used as a symbol of your class.

There is also a predominance of white supremacy in all, and I repeat all, institutions born under a capitalist system. This includes our schools, universities and even our unions and leftist organizations. As such the intellectualism that is attached to these things has a predominate tendency to enable white supremacy and I am sympathetic to that fact as well.

However the notion I reject is that the working class are incapable of comprehending intellectualism, that in order of our programs to be considered “accessible” they must be dumbed down. This is the notion I reject. One reason I reject this is because distain for academia is a right wing value, and in turn enabling distain for it by the left is a validation of a right wing talking point. Our job as leftists is too disprove the right wing, not validate it. “The poor are to stupid to organize and rise up,” is an inherently capitalist right wing sentiment and when we perpetuate the idea that the working class cannot comprehend intellectual topics or jargon then we are validating this sentiment.

What is even worse is that distain for intellectualism insults the working class. “Intellectual” should not be equated with “inaccessible.” I do think this is where most leftists are coming from when they express annoyance with intellectualism. It is not that they have a distain for intellectualism itself, but rather it is that they want our program and interpretation of socialism to be as easy to understand as possible in order to foster and build a genuine mass movement. I think that is a fair sentiment.

However, too often than not I see friends and comrades equating the idea of making our work “accessible” with dumbing it down. This is reprehensible. I acknowledge that we need a shift in our jargon, and adaptations to our rhetoric need to be made in order for our socialism to be relevant to the working class of the 21st century, but this does not mean we need to insult the working class in the process. To argue that something is inherently “too intellectual” or “too academic” for the working class is to say that the working class are incapable of complex thought and that intellectualism or academia is too good for the working class.

Nothing, I repeat, nothing, is too good for the working class.

It is also nearsighted to reject intellectualism when you are a leftist organizer because it ignores a very large part about the reality of the 21st century working class. The truth is that most members of the working class today do in fact have some degree of post k-12 education. The existence of the student debt bubble is evidence alone that most people who qualify as “working class” are indeed educated to some degree. Therefore the working class of the 21st century is perfectly capable of intellectualism or of comprehending academic rhetoric because most have already gone through the realms of academia.

My comrades who want to make things like our program and jargon more accessible to the working class are in the right to do so, yet it must be remembered that “accessible” does not mean “dumbed down.” I refuse to insult the very people I want to organize by giving them a program that condescends to them.

It is true that intellectualism has been used to intentionally exclude people, especially non white people. Many of our oppressors have used academics and intellectualism to openly exclude non males and non whites from their ranks. In short, they have used their education and jargon as a method of control rather than as a method of liberation. I think this is another place where our anti academic comrades are coming from when they express distain for intellectualism, and I am sympathetic to this outlook as well.

However I also think that to synonymize intellectualism with whiteness erases the numerous non white intellectuals, such as W.E.B Dubois, bell hooks, Angela Davis, and Cornel West, who have graced us with perspective and theory in manners that are both complimentary to the working class’ capablities AND are accessible to those in the working class who have not undergone a secondary education. We cannot counter erasure with more erasure!

Socialist programs and rhetoric in the 21st century need to adapt, and to adapt they need to be made accessible to the masses. However “accessible” does not have to equal “anti intellectual.” I said it once in this piece and I will say it time and time again until I am dead, nothing is too good for the working class!

Activist, a poem

/ James J Jackson Jr

Philosophy is dead.

May theory reign supreme.

For we don’t reflect,

We plan,

We vote,

and we care.

We are your neighbors, your daughters and sons,

We are nothing to fear,

Yet we are everything you hate.

We are hear and we are loud.

We are and will be hear

until this work is done.

November 8 2016, or, Yet Another Requiem for the American Nightmare…

/ James J Jackson Jr

The requiem for the American Dream 

  Played on all houses 

  On all streets

On November 8th, 2016.

A day, a night, an opening of eyes,

  A squeegee of the mind.

November 8th, 2016.

Evil did not win that day,

  Despite what the meekly ignorant might think,

  It merely made itself an open target.

Evil, there is no other word for these useless bullies,

These living road blocks of progressive evolution,

These clap ridden pieces of wasted human ejaculat. 

Don’t preach to me about anyone’s “inner pain”

Or “inner fears.”

That cry baby nonsense is causing the rest of us Plenty of pain.  

We can all plainly see it.

But let’s give Hitler the Sudatenland again,

What is the worst that will happen?

Conservative, coward, there is a reason both start with C.

Like CUNT! Does to.

Liberal, Loser, lost, 

L is not a strong letter either.

Moderate?  Might as well start with C,

Because it just means coward to.

Or does it mean moron?

November 8th, 2016.

Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner,

These men are dead, but their tedious personality remains.

Dr. King was a criminal,

A socialist,

A lover of sex,

Not your personal mascot for a do nothing,

Spineless philosophy.

Don’t preach Dr. King, if you don’t have the guys to wear the cuffs to.

Dr King was no one’s mascot.

God, who doesn’t love that son of a bitch though?

Now, what happens on our left hands?

The fingers don’t want to work together,

That is how most people end up right handed.

But most people are fucking stupid as well.

November 8th, 2016.  

Do not celebrate your fascist vindication.

I repeat to you coward,

DO NOT!

White women actually voted for a rapist, 

And people wonder why this white boy here

Is so quick to distance himself from his own neoliberal class.

I won’t steal your culture,

Never intentionally at least,

But I do want to dance with you,

All of you.

White is not alright, its not wrong either.

But the same must be said of yellow, black, red, and all those shades of brown.

Color is meaningless unless you’re an idiot.

We aren’t talking about pictures, but people.

Gender is a state of mind.

And it is all just to help you jerk off.

November 8th, 2016.

If you think it is over after just one day,

You need to get off your fat ass and look out the window.

Evil has never been subjective, 

So fuck Nietzsche, God was never dead.

You can’t kill what was never there,

But you also can’t kill an idea.

Remember that fascists,

You cannot kill an idea.
For better or worse, these are the truest words in English.
You can not kill an idea.

The iron curtain fell,

But communism never went away did it?

Freedom did not die November 8th, 2016.

But it did have a damn strong heart attack.
Silence is surrender now.

And surrender when unneccary is pathetic.
18% of America is idiotic,

But 46% are just evil.
Pathetic and ignorant

That is the 2016 voter and non.

To equate any public servant,

To a rapist,

That is unforgivable.

I never liked that 18%

But that 46% will never be forgiven.
I’d rather someone vote for the number 3

Than not vote at all.

I do not deny

elections are usually spectacles of masturbation.

but this one was different,

this was the election where we told the world where we stood on rape.

First Steubenville,

among so many silent others,

now this.
If your acts of rape are now vindicated,

I will forever dispose of the words

“peace & nonviolence” from my vocabulary.

I will fight you,

humiliate you

and destroy you.

That to me would be mercy.
If your violence is now vindicated,

guess what,

evil always runs like a little bitch when confronted.
If you are afraid, I understand,

at least as best I can,

however, fear is how you lose.
That 18% have fear, fear is hate,

hate is suffering,

all of ours.

So get over your selfish prejudice.

For your fear vindicates them further.

Fear is the mark you have lost,

so you nazi pieces of shit, praising a hack TV star,

keep the living punchlines coming you dumb shits.

I look forward to ruining your already pathetic lives.

Do I propose war?

Violence?

Death?

Destruction?

No, I propose education, and a good educator

makes examples of useless or hopeless students.

November 8th, 2016.

A day where the trivial died, 

and what was important came to light.

“My body my choice!”

Her body, Her Choice!

Say it loud, say it clear,

Immigrants are welcome here.

Hear that, or do I need to SHOUT!

over your dumb fuck screams.
I guess so, so how do like this one you worthless swines,

NOT MY PRESIDENT!
Is that how you felt when you saw the white house go black

and the nation never come back? >:-)
To be honest throwing those three words into your face,

it was more restorative than oral sex.
Not my president,

Do you hear me white boys and girls?

Do you hear me women-hating women?

Do you hear me you worthless rapists, sexists, bullies, and antisemites?
He is not my president!

Your Microdick, coke head, Orange toned nazi brat of a “leader,”

is not and will never be my president.
He will never be president of immigrants,

and in a country of immigrants,

good fucking luck with that one.
Now to those who stand by,

who do nothing,

who legitimize this,

or try to show this 18% they are our equals, I say 

Go Fuck Yourself.

Fuck off and die with the rape voters you love so much,

White Rapists are humans,

everyone else is just a headline.

If you cannont accept racism is real,

you are the most racist of all.

If you think sexism is a non issue,

congratulations you are a sexist bastard.

And If I need to actually explain this still

to anyone who is not a child,

well to put it simply, I am not.

I can explain things for you,

but I can’t understand things for you.

I don’t owe someone who is not my equal

an explination for shit.

Stupid people are never your equal, dont treat them like they are.

It’s not my fault,

YOU, yes, YOU

ignored all those damn liberal teachers

who wanted to help you so bad.
November 8th, 2016.

It was not a day evil won.

It was the day the fighters,

the lovers, the honest, the thinkers, and the dreamers

came forward.

It was the day they all stopped arguing.
If you are still argung,

drop dead so you can get out of our way.

Racism, sexism, and hate is so real,

to be surpised is racism and sexism and hate.

Novemeber 8th, 2016.

The day I learned who was a friend,

who was a coward,

who as an ally,

and who was an idiot.
In a way we should be grateful,

no more excuses can be made to legitimize denial anymore.

It is better to know, and now we know all too much.

Those who be woke, finally know what they need to know.
DO NOT misunderstand,

there is no positive side to that “victory”

No silver lining exists where white hoods block out the light.

Nor where a rapist or fraud walks.
Rapist? Fraud? Pompous? Stupid? Spoiled?

Who better than to represnt the American Right?
In the 70s we were a nation of 

used car salesmen with pigs of wives.

Now we are a country of rapists,

frauds, 

and their insecurity 

is more important than Women’s pussies or black lives.
November 8th, 2016.

Not a day of victory,

Not a day of infamy,

Not just another day,

but not a day to be forgotten either.

November 8th, 2016.

The day reality struck.