Occupy Iowa City held a rally and march as part of Occupy May 1st and the national Day of Action / General Strike. This was given as a speech there by Wild Rose Collective member R. Spourgìtis.

On May 1^st, 1886, workers across the US went on strike for the 8 hour day. In Haymarket Square in Chicago, a massacre took place. In the years that followed, May 1^st became known as International Workers Day in commemoration of these events, and most nations of the world now celebrate their Labor Day on or around May Day.

Generally in the US on May Day, it is common for unions, pro-labor and workers groups to hold rallies, picnics and similar events. More recently, May Day has been significant for undocumented immigrant organizing, notably in 2006 with the Great American Boycott.

This year we gather for this rally in unity with others around the country to demonstrate in support of workplace and community rights. The past year has seen a tremendous amount of organizing the world over. From the Arab Spring to the pro-union demonstrations in Madison, WI; from European anti-austerity demonstrations to Occupy Wall St and the global Occupy movement, people have been on the move in response to the recession and its budget cuts brought on by capitalism.

And Occupy tapped into something that resonated with people the world over, but especially in the US, in many ways long dormant for broad-based social movements. Unlike the Tea Party formations of right-wingers, which it has often been likened to, Occupy encampments spread like wildfire across the country and were, and still are, supported by a broad cross-section of the population. Without cable news sponsorship to prop it up, and corporate dollars to Astroturf it, in a matter of weeks Occupy far eclipsed the mishmash of socially conservative and economically Darwinian politics known as the tea party.

In many places, like Chicago and Oakland, the local Occupy went above and beyond the calls for corporate tax increases and better financial regulatory oversight, and fought housing evictions and budget cuts with direct action. In a challenge to the rote and stale methods of top-down, non-profit organization led movement work of recent decades, Occupy’s insistence on direct democracy in decision making and action outside of electoral politics has invigorated and reinvigorated new and old activists alike.

But has it been enough? What have we won? Recent political debates and legislative machinations on both national and state levels seem to show that on the contrary, we are losing ground. A century’s worth of socially progressive labor, reproductive and racial justice reforms are being rolled back at an unprecedented rate. The American poor and working classes are losing what was won through generations of struggle.

Some numbers: In 2011 a record amount of anti-abortion legislation was introduced, resulting in 92 provisions restricting access to abortions in 24 states.[1] Last year also saw an attempt to completely defund Title X, which allows poor and working class women to have free or reduced cost access to reproductive health services. All of these efforts aim to severely restrict women’s access to health services and safe, legal medical procedures. These also disproportionately affect women of color and poor white women, clearly making this a race and class issue as well.

But 2011 was also a record year for anti-immigrant legislation. Five states (Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, and Utah) passed anti-immigrant bills modeled after Arizona’s 2010 law, SB 1070. In all, 164 anti-immigration laws were passed by state legislatures in 2010 and 2011.[2] Additionally, the Obama administration has already deported more immigrants than any previous administration in history, tearing families and communities apart and criminalizing whole populations.

Anti-union legislation is also on a runaway train of right-wing, corporate, oligarchic interests. 2011 saw the weakening or banning of public sector unions in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana. This year, Indiana became the 23^rd “Right-to-Work” state, and Georgia only weeks ago passed an anti-protest/anti-union bill, and the AZ state legislature is currently considering one. These efforts are aimed at reducing wages and benefits for all workers in the race to the bottom for bigger profits on the backs of workers.

At the same time, the defunding of state departments of labor has weakened already paltry recourse for workers who are unemployed, laid off, or abused by employers. Huge layoffs of public sector workers have been implemented in most states and many localities, all while corporate tax breaks and subsidies are left in place or even increased. These layoffs at state and local levels have been shown to disproportionately affect African-American and Latino workers.[3]

More and more people are working multiple jobs, sometimes up to 60-80 hrs a week, with no overtime and benefits, just to make ends meet, and those are some of us lucky enough to have jobs. For others, direly needed food and rental assistance, mental health services, domestic abuse services, disability funding, college tuition aid, and on and on, are all being reduced severely or even eliminated, all while more and more people require them.

In our own state, despite a more than $500 million surplus for this fiscal year, the reinstalled governor-for-life Terry Branstad[4] has continued the deep budget cuts initially introduced by Democratic governor Chet Culver in 2009.[5] In many cases, like higher education, eldercare oversight and disability services, making even further cuts. Huge tax breaks and subsidies for Iowa’s largest corporations continue, and both sides of the aisle are agreeing to cuts in commercial and industrial property taxes which further erode the state’s income, another way of depriving public funds from needed services to line the coffers of the wealthiest.[6]

As of 2009, the poorest families in the state paid the greatest portion of their income toward state and local taxes, at 11 percent, after federal offsets. Meanwhile, the top 1 percent of Iowa income-earners, who make an average of $989,200, paid just 6 percent.[7]

While the profits of the wealthy continue to increase, our wages continue to stagnate or even fall and the cost of living grows ever higher. The needs of rural communities and the urban poor, college students, the disabled, the unemployed and retirees are all on the chopping block with talk of ”balanced budgets,” never mind the 48% of the total federal budget going to military spending.

On the social front, despite the talk of a “post-racial America,” police and vigilante murders of young African-American men and teens are an all too common experience. Likewise, intimidation, violence against and murder of trans and queer people have also increased in recent years.

Much of the country was mobilized for the Million Hoodie Marches over the tragic murder of Trayvon Martin. But how many people know of the other 20 young, unarmed African-Americans killed by police so far this year?[8] Names like Ervin Jefferson, Ramarley Graham, and Wendell Allen are much less known, and to date no charges have been filed against officers in these instances. Locally, some of us might remember the killing of John Deng in 2009, a Sudanese man killed by a plainclothes sheriff’s deputy in highly suspicious circumstances with a closed investigation and likewise, no charges against the murderer.[9]

These atrocious murders are not inconsistent with our courts and prison system, which incarcerates more people than anywhere else in the world, and includes 1 in 3 black males being imprisoned at some point in their life, resulting in the life-long status of a felony record. Additionally, there is ample documentation of heavy policing of black and Latino communities, discrimination in hiring, housing and loans across the country, defunded school systems exacerbated by privatization schemes like charter schools and no child left behind policies – all of this indicates an undeniable picture of systemic and systematic racial oppression in our society.

While there have been certain gains around discrimination and same-sex marriage in some states, people of Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Transgender and Queer identities continue to be recipients of hate-based violence and murder. Reports of anti-GLBT hate violence increased by 13% from 2009 to 2010. Anti-GLBT murders increased 23% from 2009 to 2010, the second highest amount in a decade. GLBT people of color and transgender women are disproportionately murdered: in 2010, people of color comprised 70% of all GLBT murder victims, and 44% of GLBT murder victims were transgender women. [10]

Bullying in schools and colleges in recent years has given rise to the prevalence of suicides of several young people of GLBT identities, and only days ago gay teenager Kenneth Weishuhn of Primghar, IA took his life.

And truly, these brief examples only begin to describe the injustices we live under today.

What does this litany of social ills and oppression, all these seemingly single-issue causes have in common? Why bring all this out on May Day? Because these myriad forms of oppression and exploitation are in fact connected – they intersect with and reinforce one another. Racial divisions and religious beliefs have long been used by the ruling class to divide the working class, and these divisions persist and continue to be exploited to mask our commonalities. In order for us to move forward and effect meaningful social change, in our workplaces, schools and neighborhoods, and to defend the gains made by those who came before us, we need feminist and anti-racist movements, we need movements challenging economic and class divisions, and challenging environmental degradation and environmental racism. We need these social movements which see the commonalities between these struggles and which actively and mutually oppose attacks on organized labor, communities of color, undocumented workers, LGBT communities and individuals, indigenous communities, reproductive freedoms, on the environment, and so much more.

The way is pointed forward with groups like Anti-eviction Campaigns in Chicago, Detroit and Boston, and other places; solidarity networks and workers centers challenging stolen wages and similar abuses through direct action; tenants’ organizations in apartments; Copwatch groups that document policing in neighborhoods; and closer to home, the ongoing fight against cuts at University of Northern Iowa by students and teachers there.

There is a myth in our country, that through the benevolence of politicians and policy-makers who saw the plight of hard-working Americans, we were granted the social benefits we have, such as unemployment insurance, the 40-hour work week and the minimum wage, or indeed, the end to segregation and the winning of women’s right to choose. This myth would seek to erase from our history the generations of struggle by American workers and the oppressed which wrought these victories from the wealthy and powerful, and the worldwide movements that threatened the capitalist system itself which won reforms and changes. Nothing less than this same struggle will bring about the change needed today.

1. http://www.guttmacher.org/media/inthenews/2012/01/05/endofyear.html
2. http://newamericamedia.org/2012/04/a-trend-toward-anti-immigrant-anti-choice-laws.php
3. http://urbanhabitat.org/18-1/ali
4. Republican Terry Brandstad was governor of Iowa from 1983 – 1999, serving four consecutive terms. He was elected in 2010 to a fifth term. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Brandstad
5. http://www.radioiowa.com/2009/10/08/governor-orders-10-percent-cut-in-state-budget/
6. http://thegazette.com/2012/04/09/branstad-hopeful-for-iowa-property-tax-relief-this-year/
7. http://cciaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Cost-of-Cuts-Iowa-FINAL.pdf
8. http://www.ushrnetwork.org/trayvonracialjusticepetition
9. http://blackagendareport.com/content/true-crime-white-privilege-and-police-killing-obama-mad-college-town or http://thegazette.com/tag/john-deng/ for differing takes
10. http://www.avp.org/publications.htm

It would seem the division is clear. There is the “1%,” and there is the “99%.”

We know what, and a lot of time we even know who this “1%” is, although for some reason no one seems to be talking about it. Instead, we tend to speak to the inverse—the “99%”. It is a created concept really, an imagined unity that says somewhat clearly: “those who have been fucked by the 1%.”

We might do well to call the 1% what they are—the ruling class. Today’s ruling class are capitalists gone wild, heralding capitalism to its logical neo-liberal conclusion. Yes, the 1% has all of the money, they also have all control of the supposedly democratic system which we are all, whether we like it or not, a part.

We might also do well to call the division what it is—a class war.

We say war for a reason. It implies that there is a battle, necessary confrontation. It also implies that one must choose sides. One of the things the 99% as a concept has done is draw the symbolic and newspaper worthy battle-lines. On their side they have pretty much the entire media-stream, a shit-ton of money, various laws, politicians, and bureaucrats to protect them. When that isn’t enough, they have gated communities, private security teams (in some cases whole armies), municipal police forces, and if the shit really hits the fan, the US military to protect them. Despite losing our homes, our rents rising, our longer hours, our unemployment, our minimum wage, our non-existent futures, our depression and anxieties, and our melting planet—we still have our anger, our minds, our bodies, our collectivity.

But let’s take a step back. When we draw lines in the sand, between the ruling class and the “99%,” what else do we imply by lumping so many people together? We know that the 99% is a constructed concept of unity, imagined, seemingly out of thin air, around September 2011 to articulate the fragile alliance between those on the losing side of the escalating global financial crisis.

But in practice this alliance or stated unity seems to only pertain to those who self-identify with, or are involved in, the Occupy movement. It is a mistake to include everyone who is not a millionaire into such a concept—the 99%. In short, with the uncritical proliferation of the 99% as a vague unifier of massive quantities of people—differing in gender, race, class, etc, as well as political affiliations or sensibilities—we need to look closer at the implications of such terminology, but more importantly what it creates in reality.

Concepts can constitute reality and call it into being. They have the power to communicate a basis for felt, but not yet described, experiences when they resonate with our everyday lives. This can be a powerful force—consider the words spoken by Stokely Carmichael in the wake of the shooting of civil rights activist James Meredith in June, 1966: “This is the twenty-seventh time I have been arrested and I ain’t going to jail no more! The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin’ us is to take over. What we gonna start sayin’ now is Black Power!” In one breath, years of struggle and articulation of experience—from MLK and SNCC to the term’s more immediate inspiration, the militancy of Malcolm X—are spoken in clear, precise, and slogan-worthy words. Suddenly a growing tendency of black militancy is translated in two simple words, and makes immediate sense regardless of whether or not one had ever heard Malcolm X speak, but felt his message in their every day experience. In that moment “Black Power” created a possibility, a space, for the emergence of a fiery mass consciousness that rejected the white supremacy and racist ideologies that proliferated everywhere. One need not be a scholar of African American history or political science, one didn’t need to have read MLK, Marcus Garvey, or Malcolm X to understand the words, it was self-evident, felt, and entirely clear.

The concept “the 99%” functions similarly, but resonates with quite a different group of people and its antagonisms are much more vague. Millions of people who are in debt, have lost their jobs, houses, and life savings understand the 99% perfectly well with little or no need for an explanation of the inner workings of financial capitalism (e.g. “Wall St.”). Both the symbolic and pragmatic function of the term makes sense—if 1% of people have all the money, 99% of people are getting fucked. Like the abstraction of Wall Street as a stand-in for the immaterial accumulation of capital, as well as the would-be residence of the 1%, the 99% stands in symbolically for all those subject to the whims of Wall St. The vulgarity and violence of the ruling class is articulated in clear, slogan-friendly dialectical terms—1% v. 99%

But on the ground (that is, outside of the spectacular battles of the media) another question becomes pressing: When we say 99%, whom do we mean, exactly? Looking closer reveals rather quickly it doesn’t work especially well to simply lump everyone together, at least, as it has been used so far within Occupy.

Take for example the way the concept of the 99% is often used within the movement to validate fairly specific liberal middle-class politics taken as a priori, which in turn ironically cancels out other politics within the 99% in the name of fear of scaring any potential occupiers, or worse, the elusive “community” or “public” with voices of anger, antagonism, or radical politics.

“Be nice to the police, they are part of the 99%, too.”

“Police need a raise! Police need a raise! Police need a raise!”
[Chanting protestors are hauled off in handcuffs.]

Of course, this generous form of unity contradicts others’ inclusion in the supposedly blanket 99%—people of color, prisoners, undocumented immigrants, queer and transfolk come to mind, as people who face or fear police violence on a daily basis. It is not just about the cops though, and I don’t want to over-emphasize a hatred toward the police that we anarchists can slip into (there are plenty of legitimate critiques of the police, but that isn’t the point I’m trying to make here). The point is that this example of “be nice to the police” is indicative of a larger tendency within the movement of the way that the 99% concept / term is used as propaganda externally, as well as internally to suggest directions for the movement to go and what tactics we should use to get there. It condescendingly and often ignorantly assumes an affinity between white middle-class folks who, perhaps, have lost their moderate to high paying jobs, or students who are crippled by debt, with poor and oppressed peoples who have struggled and fought for generations against a systemic racism and classism. Scroll through the “we are the 99%” tumblr, and you’ll see a hell of a lot more “I played by all of the rules,” implying “why did I get screwed?” than you’ll see “half of my family is in prison,” “my boss frequently steals wages from workers,” or “as an undocumented immigrant I work sub-minimum wage.” There is a sea of difference between “I tried to pull myself up by my bootstraps and the straps broke,” compared to “I never got a pair of fucking shoes!”

We shouldn’t fetishize the “most oppressed” though either. The point is that we need to have a better understanding of the rhetoric we use, and its relationship to real world effects in terms of who participates, but as importantly, how we as ‘Occupiers’ understand ourselves as a unified group, a would-be class, at the very least related group in common struggle. Like the middle-class folks who neglect to recognize how their liberalism and political assumptions can affect particular oppressed peoples as participants in Occupy, a militant and narrow-minded commitment to only the “most oppressed” (often times excluding oneself, flirting with a kind of awkwardly vanguardist role) can similarly result in a failure to recognize certain groups of people (students, for example, as a legitimate part of the working class who are enslaved by debt) and the pervasive and diverse ways in which capitalism has affected various peoples.

I not only think it is possible but that it is essential to begin to understand contemporary class politics as they emerge in all of their messy complexities within a grassroots movement that identifies the ruling class as the enemy. Some Marxist theorists call it ‘class-composition,’ referring to a complicated ever changing structuring of class both as it relates to political affinities and labor realities, but also and equally as important—their potentials in assembling or conjoining in struggle. As I understand it, class-composition works toward a re-conceptualization of class such that the social and the political spheres that were formerly thought to be necessarily distinct can be reconciled. But more importantly, to compose implies to create—that is, to articulate our similarities as well as our differences, without a need to refer to representative politics, and to understand how those affinities between different types of people, as well as singularities specific to the individual, offer potential to struggle on multiple terrains. When we build sincere affinities, which will require much more listening than has happened thus far, that are based on deep understandings of the various ways capitalism and oppression affect and manipulate different people, we more deeply understand how our actions have consequences on others within the supposed 99%, and we better understand how to struggle collectively while maintaining our respective politics, identities, etc. We will also see in the processes of composing our affinities toward one another—understanding and embracing our differences, rejecting our internalized oppressive behavior—a deepening of our bonds and an intensified commitment to each other as well as to our respective struggles. In this sense, quality over quantity might prove important, and might again reveal that not all of the 99% are our friends.

This, it seems to me, is what Occupy is all about in its attempt to pull a thread between so many differing types of people that make up the 99% while also resisting, so far at least, representative politics. But, generally speaking, it seems Occupy has neglected to do any work to articulate the both subtle and great differences as well as fragile alliances, instead conveniently harkening back on the reductive 99% unifier, muddling and canceling out many people. There are ways in which students, for example, can be militant about being exploited as workers, and having a critique of debt, without throwing out a nuanced understanding of our other racial, intellectual, geographic, hetero, gendered or other kinds of privileges. But this requires a re-imagining of what it means to be a part of the oppressed, it requires checking one’s privilege without relinquishing individual agency, and finally it requires a persistent linkage between various groups balanced with an understanding that capitalism distributes violence, economic inequality, and other forms of oppression unevenly and thus not everyone’s experiences (or politics) are the same.

This, in my estimation has been the primary problem with the [lack of] class analysis within Occupy, and of the concept of the 99%. Thus far it has not gotten us closer to understanding our differences in relationship to our shared forms of exploitation, either as workers or the subjects to the violence of financial capitalism. There are several stories of transphobic, racist, classist, patriarchal activities within GAs and various encampments. These stories signal that Occupy has so far struggled to listen, to be self-critical, but most importantly to deepen an understanding of all of the lingering -isms amongst ourselves. It also signals a realistic difficulty of learning again how to speak to one another, how to reject our own internalized systems of oppression, how to relate, how to join one another in the streets and re-learn how to speak, and perhaps most importantly how to listen. But if we are going to insist upon generalized language of inclusivity we must also ask in an honest way: Who gets to be part of such a group? Or better, who isn’t showing up, and why?

_____
_____

In the spirit of this essay I should note that I am definitely not the first to bring up these problems or analyses; I’ve learned from many brilliant people. Below are a few links that have made an impression on me and helped to sharpen my politics; surely there are many other great voices to be heard.

Colorlines continually posts good articles putting race on the table in relationship to Occupy. See their posts here.

W.I.T.C.H. (Women and Trans* Conspiracy from Hell) produced a scathing and productive critique of Occupy coming from a queer / anarchist perspective. It was here that I first read a good critique of “99%.” Can be downloaded here.

Transgendered artist / activist Micha Cardenas describes her frustration to find that OccupyLA has kept sexual assault that has occurred at camp from public discussion, and thus not adequately dealt with, for fear of ‘damaging the movement.’ Can be read here.

Til Always,
H. Schultze
January 2012

“I don’t think I’m cut out to be an employee.”

It was a bitter joke.  My friend had just finished venting about one of her two jobs.  She was typing to me just after getting bossed around on the smallest details of her job at a small nonprofit.  After that, she had an evening as a temp to look forward to, grading middle-school standardized tests.  She had said that working so much was starting to mess with her head.  She hadn’t played music in too long.  Too much of her life went to satisfying somebody else.

I had to laugh at the idea there was something wrong with her.  I typed back, “Yeah, me neither.”  I work at a low-level healthcare job.  In some ways it’s worse than my friend’s jobs, and in some ways it’s better.  She sits at a desk.  I scrub disgusting things off the floor.  Her jobs require a degree.  I dropped out of college.  She gets paid more.  I haven’t always been paid on time.  On the other hand, I get to see positive results of the work I do.  The work itself is more rewarding.  That counts for a lot more than you might think.

But the work and the job are two different things.  The other day I had to stay late after an overnight shift, correcting paperwork.  I spent more than two hours signing and dating every little error.  Every time I wrote in the wrong pen color.  Every time I crossed out a word with an “X” instead of a single horizontal line.  I felt like one of those middle school students, jumping through a hoop for a stranger very far away.  Then I went home, took a short nap, and went right back to work that afternoon.

You might say that we’re wrong to object to boring or demeaning jobs.  That these are just “first world problems.”  In a way you’d be right.  I have enough food to eat, and a place to live.  I’m better off than workers in most of the world.  Hell, I’m better off than a lot of people in Iowa City.  Why complain about working too much, if we’re lucky to have work at all?

But I think that’s the wrong question to ask.  It’s right to be angry about inequalities between workers.  While I was dealing with red tape, a lot of people in Iowa were being denied basic rights like bathroom breaks.  Still, I don’t think setting larger and smaller injustices against each other is the right way forward.  Some better questions to ask are:  How did things get this way?  And what can we do about it?

Our jobs didn’t end up like this by accident.  The more simple and repetitive a grader’s job gets, the more money an “education” company saves on training and wages.  Then there’s that much more money left over for the owners.  The less nursing education a healthcare job needs, the less the “nonprofit” needs to spend on training and wages.  Then they have that much more money to spend on the director’s company car.  Children should be taught, and people with medical needs should be taken care of.  But those real needs aren’t what make our jobs boring, isolating, or pointless.

Our work is like this because it’s good for business.  We didn’t end up with a school system where the students don’t even meet the graders because it was good for them.  We didn’t end up with a healthcare system where so much money and time is put into paperwork because it’s good for the people getting care.  It just keeps the funding coming.  No matter who you work for, or what work you do, it’s going to be set up based on what’s good for business, on what keeps the money flowing around.  Not based on what’s good for people.

So I don’t think we should put these different injustices against each other.  The boredom that a worker entering data faces and the abuse that a worker processing turkeys faces both come from the same place.  We all should face the injustices in our own lives.  By learning to fight for ourselves, we’ll be getting ready to fight alongside others.

When we get bossed around, we’re right to be angry.  When we’re made to do the same boring task over and over again, we’re right to be unsatisfied.  Our lives don’t have to be like this.

Nobody is cut out to be an employee.

This document from our new member packet explains the type of group that Wild Rose Collective is, and gives some  background on the ideas.

What is a specific anarchist group?
The term ‘specific anarchist group’ could be defined as a formal anarchist organization that seeks unity in their theory, outlook, tactics and action. It strives to be heavily involved in larger social movements, pushing their militancy and advocating their independence from co-opting forces, such as the state, capital and the authoritarian/reformist left. Continue reading →