I’ve said before that Stan Goff is in the must-read category. I have disagreements with much of what he says, some very strong disagreements indeed, but I invariably get something out of reading him, it’s more than a little, and what I don’t agree with I have to deal with in any case.
Goff, being a serious fellow, has written a piece that has some serious content. In it, he suggests some strategic directions for the next few years. I like a lot of things about it and there is a lot in it.
His suggestions are:
I’ve said before that Stan Goff is in the must-read category. I have disagreements with much of what he says, some very strong disagreements indeed, but I invariably get something out of reading him, it’s more than a little, and what I don’t agree with I have to deal with in any case.
Goff, being a serious fellow, has written a piece that has some serious content. In it, he suggests some strategic directions for the next few years. I like a lot of things about it and there is a lot in it.
His suggestions are:
-A focus on public education in the immediate term
-An attack on the democratic party culminating in its destruction
-A rejection of economistic arguments (backed by some very interesting analysis that I’m not sure I agree with) for ending the war in Iraq
-A set of key issues to focus on
-Three stages – delegitimation, disobedience, and disruption, including guidelines for each, with the criteria for full disruption being the ability to count on 25% of the population’s support
Read it. It’s good. I agree about the public education. I agree about the attack on the dems. I agree about the rejection of economistic arguments – in particular Goff says the line about ‘money for the US, not for militarism’ is bound to fail because of the politics of fear and because of its moral weakness. If the cause is just then it’s not about money. If the cause is unjust then the amounts shouldn’t matter. The cause is unjust, so why cede that most important ground and then try to quibble over amounts? But Stan goes farther and argues that the whole idea of ‘money’ doesn’t mean much except in the context of US military power – there wouldn’t be the ‘money’ because money is the suspension of disbelief, and ultimately people believe in US military supremacy:
Money is neither a static nor a material value, but one that is ultimately symbolic of power, and its claiming-capacity fluctuates based on the realities and perceptions of power, as well as in response to speculative insults.
US monetary supremacy in the world, upon which our imperial privileges rest, is directly dependent on our ability and willingness to wage war. Without that ability and willingness, the same dollars we are talking about will not likely be adequate for any of those alternative purposes under capitalist governance, because they would quickly become worthless.
It’s interesting – that’s not how I think of money. I think power is a determinant, but ultimately I think of money as a claim on resources. Power backs up that claim, to be sure, but the amount of money is proportional to the amount of resources, not the amount of power backing the claim. I don’t want to split hairs, but the point is that the tremendous wealth of the US is based not so much on its power as on its ability to take a huge share of the world’s resources (are we in a circular argument here? maybe…) – though even if the US wasn’t taking the world’s resources it would still have tremendous resources of its own…
I’m not sure I agree with Stan’s list of key issues, but he freely admits they are suggestions to open up the discussion and at any rate everyone’s list of key issues will be different.
And last, I like his 3D idea, as well as his criteria for disruption, his thoughts on disobedience, and so on. When I read ‘Full Spectrum Disorder’ I found myself wishing he would apply his interesting and eclectic experience and ideas to strategic questions because I thought he overemphasized tactical ones, even in his military analysis. Here I got my wish. There’s not enough of this kind of thing, and Stan clearly intended to open a debate. So read it and let’s have some.
Hi Justin,
I thought Goff’s
Hi Justin,
I thought Goff’s article was really good too… so, any ideas on the public education front? Goff says that we need to break out of methods of information and protest that have become routine:
“Whether it’s protest, negotiation, boycott or voter revolt (the latter two of which we rarely, if ever, use), watching black advocacy is like watching re-runs of Sanford and Son; you know what’s about to come next–and what the line is going to be when Redd Foxx grabs his chest “Okay, this is the part where they march in.” “Now, they’re about to holler and scream, and give long speeches, watch ’em.” “Here is the part where they put the community mothers up to cry, sigh, ain’t it sad?” “Now this is the part where they march out singing ‘We Shall Overcome,’ then they’ll go home and be quiet until the next time we get caught violating them or their interests. But the response will be the same.”
So, with the need still being to undertake ‘public education’ and delegitimize “politicians who are making action decisions right now”, let’s get practical. Any thoughts on better strategies that we could use to do this?
I am very sceptical that my writing things on the internet constitutes ‘public education’, for example. Do you have experience from other spaces or methods that have been more effective?
Pranjal,
please elaborate on
Pranjal,
please elaborate on this
“I am very sceptical that my writing things on the internet constitutes ‘public education’, for example.”
Why not?
Justin,
I also find Goff’s
Justin,
I also find Goff’s analysis of the economics od empire dubious. I don’t think it is a minor point if public education is one of our goals. Goff seems to say that the needs of the populace, not just elites, are tied up with the empire.
That’s obviously false. Look at countries without an empire (Norawy, Canada, etc..). Look at Cuba – a target of the empire!
As for sources of US power the military is obviously key. Another facator was suggested by Peter Gowan in “The Global Gambal”. He suggested that it is the size (and deregulated nature) of US capital markets (not just the size of the US economy) that make it such an attractive place for speculator’s all over the world.
I wish he would have provided more stats to back this up, but I found it interesting. It suggests to me that imposing sensible regulation/ taxation on captial markets in the US would also undermine US imperialism. Needless to say such polices would also benefit US citizens directly.
Maybe I’m overstating. To be
Maybe I’m overstating. To be more specific, I don’t think it’s the most effective kind of public education. Briefly, I think it’s limited to people who have access to the internet, which has immediate class implications. And there could be a similar tendency as Goff describes for it to become routine, for people to read something, even agree with it, but then forget about it…
I suppose I’d like to learn more. I’d like hear other, possibly more effective ways of ‘public education’ that people have experience with… or learn how they’ve used this medium more effectively.
I have personal experience
I have personal experience with educational programs put on by my union. That has huge untapped potential, as do unions generally. Problem is to develop it fully requires more education of union members – kind of a catch 22 problem.
I se what you mean about the limitations of the internet, but i am really glad we now have it.
I think that the main issue
I think that the main issue with public education (which is possibly what folks are getting at) is to do it in a context where people can work together to do something. The internet has that possibility, but also has far more potential for distraction. Workplace-, neighbourhood-, community- based education seem to have more potential in this way.
Reading Monbiot’s ZNET
Reading Monbiot’s ZNET commentary this morning (also at http://www.monbiot.com), I think he makes a really good point about the cost of the iraq war: if we take, for a moment, what US / UK says at face value (ie proceed on their assumptions) that the war is for the good of iraqis, then the opportunity cost of the amount spent on Iraq (at least $140 billion across US/UK) is phenomenal.
Think of what that money could have done in Africa and South Asia in terms of poverty (and preventable diseases).
I agree that the justness of a war does not depend on money but I still think the above analysis is powerful.
First off, thanks again.
First off, thanks again. When I ask to open a discussion and then people actually write comments, and thoughtful ones, you have no idea how good that is for morale. Now on to substance.
Pranjal asked a question that ended up drawing good suggestions from Joe and Dru. The question was this: “I am very sceptical that my writing things on the internet constitutes ‘public education’, for example. Do you have experience from other spaces or methods that have been more effective?”
Pranjal, I couldn’t agree more (even though Joe as usual prodded us into thinking a little harder about what we mean). For more than a few months now I’ve been thinking about films. Of varying lengths, distributed over the internet itself, whether by selling DVDs on a site like ZNet or offering the films for download. But more importantly locally produced films about local issues for local audiences and eventually produced by people themselves. If you think about it the technology has never been cheaper – in Canada, a thousand bucks for a camera, another couple thousand for the editing equipment. It wasn’t always the case! And certainly we have enough resources to start doing this, even if it means saving our salaries working at other jobs. I’ve seen just how powerful this can be in Venezuela and on a much smaller scale with my own non-politico friends: lots of whom simply won’t read even a short article on the internet, much less a book, but who will devour films, think about them, talk about them, etc. The same goes for internet radio and so on. There’s more room now to exploit these media than there ever were, and it’s key that we move in those directions while the space does exist.
I also agree with Dru that for anyone to want to be ‘educated’ there has to be some relevance. I’ve said this before in this comments section in the context of Palestine solidarity – so many of us have very sophisticated knowledge of history, events, conflicts, even movements in other countries, but lack elementary knowledge of the context in which we could actually put our knowledge to work (our own). I see this as an acute problem in Canada, for example, where most of us know more about the US than we do about Canada, where we like to make statements about the US and kind of say by induction that the same is true about Canada. It usually is, but there is a lot of room to maneuver that we have that Americans don’t that gets lost in that analogizing. Or so it seems to me.
Fraser, I think Stan’s point is that you can’t make that kind of calculation because the money values in the hypothetical non-Iraq war world are different from the money values in the real world. It’s an interesting point Stan is making but, like Joe says, I don’t think it’s quite right. When we argue that we are all beneficiaries of empire we are kind of tying ourselves in a knot. The real task is to show how much better it would be – morally, ecologically, in terms of quality of life – without the empire. That is something like what Monbiot is trying to do at any rate and I don’t have a problem with the way he does it. The problem is in the US democratic-party type opposition to the war, it’s a strictly economistic argument, and divorced from the moral arguments it is easily dismissed.
I liked the article.
I
I liked the article.
I particularly appreciated Goff’s focus on domestic violence, his thoughts on guns and attempts to draw links between the situation in the US and abroad. Similarly his call for an attack on the Democratic Party makes sense.
As I’m based in the UK I’m not really in a position to judge the likely success or otherwise of these ideas in the context of the US. I do think many of them apply over here as much as they do in the States. Just substitute Labour for Democrat, for instance.
If nothing else I think a serious, honest assessment of the tactics we adopt is vital for anyone interested in social change. This seems like a good start.
I enjoyed that article,
I enjoyed that article, whether I agreed with it or not, there should be much, much more stuff on this track. I’m happy that these comments help your morale, Justin, frankly, I think that in the absence of these “roadmaps” (of the antiimperialist and socialist variety), the only thing that may be left of the left’s morale is visceral indignation against oppresion, and thats about it.
I have the same issue, I think, with Pranjal. I find it exceedingly hard to write anything anymore, because my sole concern with writing has always been to sway opinion on the Palestine issue, first. I’m not convinced that it does that, because the audiences that I can access generally agree that the Israeli occupation, colinialism etc has to stop, and anything that I write doesnt add on to that. There is, as Justin very importantly points out, something of a saturation in out analysis of what is “fucked up” about Palestine, Iraq, etc, and little sophistication about what is to be done about it here.