Kasama Podcast: “Breaking With Crusty Leftism”
Posted by Mike E on July 1, 2009
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This new podcast discussion explores the problems of isolation and conservative routine among radical folks and organizations. The views expressed here are (as you might expect) not any official expression by the Kasama Project itself — but part of an ongoing conversation about how to make a real, living revolutionary movement today.
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Luis V introduces and explains our plans for this podcast series >>
Introducing Our Kasama Podcasts
As the Kasama Project continues to develop new means to communicate with people and put out our message to a wider audience, I am proud to announce the release of this new Kasama podcast.
The opinions expressed in our podcasts do not reflect any official position of the Kasama Project — but is part of the ongoing conversation and political work helping to prepare for revolution.
The Kasama Project hopes to tap into the new media and internet technologies for revolutionary purposes. We have some big hopes for our podcast experiments — as a vehicle for advancing revolutionary discourse, bringing to light mass upheavals of people, and promoting the work of activists, musicians, artists, and theorists that advocate our cause of liberation.
We expect to experience many bumps in this attempt. We may try concepts that don’t work, and it may take time for us to build a base of listeners, but I strongly believe that if we want to make revolutionary advances in this country, we must be on the cutting edge, not only with technology, but also with a high plane of discussion, spirited debate, and exposure of both the crimes of the capitalist system and the excitement of a worldwide march to socialism.
As we continue to develop this part of our project, we will need comrades to engage in our discussions, host episodes and moderate discussions, assist with editing, suggest topics, and help promote the free podcast subscription among people. We need those of us with particular expertise on the revolutions of South Asia, economics, religion, culture, and more to step forward and lend your knowledge to our audio discussions.
If you don’t have a mic, get one. If you have “stage fright”, practice. If you are engaged in a particular struggle, whether it be against foreclosures, against wars and torture, or against tuition hikes, we want to hear about it. Let’s really hit the ground running y’all; let’s make the Kasama Project podcast the hottest thing on the block!
Serve the people, fight the power, y que viva la revolucion!
Luis V.
Zack said
The motherfucker on the phone has nothing to offer. Ignore his ass.
Mike E said
ZAck: how many people will understand you are talking about yourself?
chegitz guevara said
It would be nice to be able to download them, rather than have to listen to them on the web.
selucha said
Chegitz, click on the podcast icon and that will subscribe you, provided you have iTunes or WMP or something on your computer.
garyt said
chegitz, plug the rss into itunes or songbird and it should download it for you
garyt said
“breaking with crusty leftism” makes me think you’re trying to break with, well, crusty anarchists. maybe that slang is just used here in my parts.. but then the content is actually the opposite in ways.
chegitz guevara said
Now I feel old.
Zack said
Mike: I was hoping very few until somebody ruined it.
zerohour said
[Moderator's note:] This post and all subsequent comments responding to it have been moved to Kasama Threads
selucha said
Andre, thanks for your thoughts. These are meant to provoke discussion and debate, so I’m hoping that people will listen to it and then comment on it in the post. Regarding your point on security, I don’t really see anything wrong with throwing out a random number and not mentioning an organization… I wasn’t actually referring to any group in particular, so there’s really no damage done. There are like 100 communist and socialist parties in the US, I don’t think me saying “parties that have like 40 members acting like the vanguard” is going to be of much help to the state.
And Zerohour, I actually commented on that video last night, saying pretty much the same thing as you. He’s not quite as depressing to listen to as he usually is, but he is just NASTY toward people… It’s a very “if you don’t want to come then fuck you!” kind of attitude, ehhhh.
DW said
After subscribing on iTunes, loading the new episode, and syncing to iPod, iTunes told me it was not playable on my iPod. I was able to resolve this by right-clicking on the episode in iTunes and selecting “create AAC version,” waiting, then loading the newly-created AAC version from the iTunes “music” folder in place of the one from the “Podcasts” folder.
It would be helpful if future episodes could be formatted correctly (AAC version?) for immediate use in iTunes. Regardless, I look forward to hearing this.
nando said
I greatly appreciate the appearance of this Kasama podcast, and the ambition of its topic.
Its form is listenable, and the discussion feels relaxed and lively — since it obviously was, a real discussion around Iris’ organized set of points that gave it a core.
And i think it makes its point: that the habits of small sects need to be broken with. Specifically the ingroupy language, the raw desperation of their recruitment, the hyped self-promotion of the marginal-as-vanguard, and so on.
I also walked away thinking about some things:
1) If it is true that we can lay aside stereotypical and dated Marxist phrases (petty bourgeois, dictatorship of the proletariat, the masses, etc.) — how do we express those ideas and concepts in a way that is contemporary? Dictatorship of the proletariat is a particularly good example — since as a concept it is so important to retain, and yet it is so hard to present as “fresh” in its old formulaic form. So how DO we speak of the need for a revolutionary sweep through society — that breaks up and disperses and overthrows the structures defending the old system? How do we discuss the controversies around “all-round dictatorship of the proletariat” where (under socialism) the sphere of revolutionary influence and change expands into all kinds of arenas, intellectual realms and social processes?
In other words, how do we rejuvenate our LANGUAGE, without abandoning necessary core ideas?
2) What IS the relationship between connecting with people in ways they understand and “bringing ideas from without.” The discussants raised the importance of respecting and engaging issues that are on the minds of pepole broadly (ecology, animal rights, support for Obama etc. are some examples given) — and (eventually in the discussion) the correct point is also made that this can’t be done by tailing people, or ONLY taking up what people ALREADY understand.
So yes, there is a basic point that Maoists call “Mass line” — and that our movement needs to learn to apply in a new and deeper way. But what exactly is it?
It isn’t just respect for the people, and engagement with what they are currently preoccupied with…. it also necessarily requires ways of struggling with the people, with mistaken ideas or quack solutions or illusions that have gotten a hearing or gotten embraced. And it does require bringing in ideas (socialism, communism, mass line, planned economy, internationalism, socialist sustainability, and much more) that are only going to be part of the political landscape if we (and other conscious forces) creatively make them a pole of that discussion (through much work and struggle).
Certainly we need a culture of listening and respect for the people — and a culture of speaking plainly in language people can understand — but that recognision is a discussion of style and of some starting principles.
Then we immediately confront the next larger questions of WHAT exactly to put at the heart of our work, and HOW to pursue it.
And, in this “anti-crusty” podcast conversation, there is the further point that there is no single monolithic “people” who come to insights, consciousness and activism the same way — there are many roads and “pores” from which revolutionary consciousness arises. And how to we connect with people emerging in those ways, and where do we discuss the specifics of the common work that we will be pursuing together?
3) It is fine (and funny) to target the “crustiness of the left” — which is real and debilitating.
However I was a bit uneasy by the insistence (at the beginning of the podcast) that the starting point of any new politics is the recognision of impotence.
On one level, yes, this is a time to give up on some self-delusional grandiosity and hype. (“How can you be the vanguard of a group that doesn’t know you exist?”) But really we can overdo assumptions about marginality and impotence — is it really so one sided and bleak?
In my opinion the MAIN problem on the left is not grandiosity and hype — but a defeated lowering of sights. The MAIN problem is a defacto despair over ever making revolution or reaching people with revolutionary ideas. And so I’d rather not wallow in discussion of impotence and weakness — when it is possible to balance the picture with discussions of potential and openings.
Aren’t there positive factors, including internationally and in the beginning work of regroupment? Aren’t they worth mentioning, and promoting?
Also while the surviving post-60s left is certainly crusty (and eccentric) — and while it is a problem — it is not really so simple that we can just “flip a switch” in our methods (be less dogmatic, sectarian, uptight, uncreative etc.) and then (suddenly?) the pieces will fall into place. In some ways the left became crusty because of difficulty finding traction — not the other way around.
So while we should certainly scrutinize the customs and habits that are self-isolating, there is also serious work in seeking out a foothold.
Often in anarchist politics there is a subject but not an object. In other words, activists express their politics — as a self-expresion (a black block, an artistic expression or mural, a performance event, a protest) — but are nearly as concerned with the impact on audiences and the organization of a serious social counter-force to the system. In other words, politics is the creative expression of self, or of the cohesion of a relatively small subcultural group and “space” — but not the growing network of organized and unifying revolutionary streams that can act on a truly social scale — on the main stages of politics and life.
I agree we should be much more creative that the usual “left” we see around us. We should have room for dancing, and spectacle, and art, graffiti, etc. But….
But, we need to take up these tactics in the framework of a real analysis of “what is the object of our work?” Who are we trying to reach and organize? How will we “harvest” the impact of our work? Where are the faultlines that lead to radical formations? How does this strategically shape our expressions, spectacles, actions, — our whole style. And that is much harder, really, than the politics of radical self-expression.
Mike E said
garyt:
Nah.
First “crusty anarchists” are often quite rigid, formalist and entrenched. They are not really able to reach outside their “subcultural bubbles” to actually talk to people. So many of Iris’s critiques (that she aims a “crustiness”) apply to the crusty @’s too.
Or you could look at it like this: We could just take the “crusty punks” as an analogy…. and point out that some people have politics that are crusty in ways that are (unfortunately) quite analogous to the notoriously crusty hygiene of our favorite street punks and rovers.
:D
Garyt said
Thanks for the response mike. I agree with your first point. but i feel like a lot of what iris was talking about is actually striving to be more like crusty anarchists in practice, without saying it in the podcast. which is why i found the title to be so ironic.
like the prank mentality, the graffiti, the public art/spectacles, even the breaking with the lingo and newspaper tradition. things that they’ve always been doing while communists/socialists have been on the sidelines with their papers/flyers.
As well as her mentioning caring more about the environment, animal rights, things often considered identity politics in communist circles.. again, all crust punk anarchist things to be into(again, ironic title).
Zack said
My understand of the “crusty” usage had nothing to do with the crust-punk culture and was more just a word used to describe the tired old sectarian/dogmatic left.
DW said
A few quick comments:
1. This conversation-style podcast was a big step up from the 2 previous Kasama podcasts, both of which centered around reading text. Much more engaging. I also liked the music breaks.
2. I hope a wide variety of the kasama website participants can ultimately appear as guests on this podcast. The wider the pool, the bigger the contrast to the in-group, “cult of experts” and cult of personality approaches.
3. A technical point: where possible, having guests in-studio creates significantly better audio than guests appearing over phone lines. Where phone is necessary, land line is better than cell.
4. The conversation begs for interjections from the audience. I’d like to suggest an investment in a cheap voicemail service so people can record comments for broadcast. (For an example of how this is used in a podcast (including follow-up calls to folks who leave messages), check out Dan Savage’s “Savage Love” podcast).
Keep up the good work!
Adrienne said
This was a really great podcast! Good work everybody. I thought it was a very interesting and amusing conversation to listen to. I was in such accord with Iris’ five points I just kept nodding in agreement. Wouldn’t have minded hearing a bit more music after the end of the discussion though…
I also had a thought while listening to this podcast: the idea of combining a bunch of the creative and edgy stuff that you were all discussing and making an event (or a series of events) out of them. Kasama events — that all kinds of people would really want to go to. A way to combine things like music, art, dancing, poetry, food, AND deliver all kinds of political information — under one roof for an evening.
These kind of events/parties already take place all the time, all over the U.S. In fact, maybe some Kasama comrades are already on e-mail lists that invite them to various underground-style parties and events?
I myself go to things like this fairly often due to the fact that I’m friendly with quite a few people involved the Art Car scene here in the SF Bay Area. The majority of these people are artists (and also many are anarchists/leftists) who are really into welding and working metal (The Crucible in West Oakland has been feeding the flame -pun intended!- of art welders in the bay area for years). They’re also into working glass, fiberglass, wood, clay, making light/flame sculptures, found object art, reclaimed metal pieces — you name it. They organize most of these events (and also larger festivals) based around their art/passion/obsession for decorating, sculpting and artistically altering their cars (not to mention, themselves). It’s a way to get artists and their cars together in one place at the same time so everyone can see them. They talk shop, eat (everybody brings food and drink to share), listen to bands and dance (donated gigs naturally — but with the fun of getting to play for a large crowd), make spontaneous art (always a collective project of some sort set up), meet new people, and have a great time with fellow art car creators and admirers.
The last of these events I went to at the end of April was held in an enormous empty warehouse in West Oakland that used to be a Ford assembly plant. Nice because everyone got to park their art cars along the perimeter inside the space. The gathering was a little different this time, a little more poignant than usual, because it was a memorial for one of the artists who had passed away. Kind of a celebration of everything Tom had loved in life. There were sculptures set up everywhere. One was a huge metal sculpture that Tom himself had made that had a foot pedal, and when you stepped on it a big tongue of flame shot out of the top of it — very beautiful. There was a free bar, people wandering around handing out ice cream sandwiches, a big snack table, three bands played (my husband’s surf-punk band was one of them), and in between the music, a bunch of folks went up on stage to tell stories or anecdotes, while a few others read poems they had written. Despite the sadness of losing a friend, it seemed like almost everyone there managed to get on the floor at some point to shake a tail feather.
Anyway, to get back to the main idea I’m trying to convey, usually these kind of events are held in warehouse spaces that people live/work in and are willing to donate for a night, or for larger events, empty buildings in warehouse districts can often be rented out for a single night — a sum which can be recouped by collecting a dollar from everyone at the door. Sometimes even abandoned spaces are used, although I wouldn’t want to recommend it since this runs a much greater risk of cops coming to bust up the event.
So, that’s what I started thinking about after listening to the podcast, and wondered if Iris, Luis, Zack, and/or other core members of Kasama would see any potential in that sort of thing? After all, inviting people to an event would be one way to grab their attention without a lot of heavy-handed recruitment tactics, or trying to wave newspapers and pamphlets in their faces; and it could be a way to show a large number of people another side of socialism and socialists — as well as provide them (us!) with a good time.
selucha said
Doooooood, Adrienne, I didn’t know you were here in the Yay Area!!!
I was actually working with Jose M. on organizing some kind of barbecue event out here this summer where we could consider a lot of these ideas, maybe you’d like to help? :-D
josetheredfox said
adrienne and selucha, if you all wanna organize something in the bay, hit me up as i would love to get involved. i play in a couple of bands and set up shows here also.
peace to the villages, war to the palaces, jose
ps: i loved the podcasts and i’m writing something that i will submit later on. i specially want to get into this whole discussion about “the spectacle” which my band Baader Brains has addressed many times in our music/performances… mainly, how, what can be/is at times radical spectacles, have now been re-appropriated by the other side: hipsters and corporate zombie fucks. nothing new here.
pps: mike, your comment about crusty punx is funny but recognize that some of us kids were politized by “crust” bands like Crass, Amebix, etc etc. check yourself or check them out.
Adrienne said
Selucha:
Hey, I’d be happy to! Although it may depend on when you were thinking of having it since I’ve got a few things happening this summer with dates that have been locked in for awhile now. FYI, I’ve got a decent sized backyard, and can marinate and skewer a mean shishkabob. Btw, what part of the Bay Area are you and Jose located in?
Jose:
That’s awesome Jose. What instrument do you play, and what kind of music? Do either of your bands have myspace links? Here’s a link to The TomorrowMen. Himself is the one playing lead guitar, and no, Mycroft Eloi is not his real name. :^) Don’t worry that I’ll be offended if you don’t happen to like the music. While I really love instrumental surf, I realize that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
Jonathan McCormack said
Hey, great podcast. I agree we ought to engage in issues. Personally, I think we ought to actively create the conditions for revolution. One of the most vital conditions is strong unions, and that will never happen in America without passing the Employee Free Choice Act.
I also like the idea of prankster propaganda – it’s so powerful and so underused. After all, the 1968 French uprising can largely be traced to the Situationist’s and Guy Debord. Of course they lacked discipline, theory, and a program, so it’s important to combine both.
I’m totally down for PANTLESS PROTESTS!
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
-Winston Churchill
Bill said
This is my first post here so I’ll provide a brief introduction before I comment on the podcast. I’m an autodidact named Bill, I’m 31 and currently live in Oregon, but grew up very poor (and yes I know I’m speaking to mostly those who understand that terminology) in East Tennessee. I’m rather a newbie at all this compared to most of you I suppose. I only really began deeply studying these matters in response to Hugo Chavez’s famous UN speech. Before that I’d spent the several years prior deeply studying the things you’d expect someone who’d transitioned from Southern Baptist to atheist activist to have studied. By the time I really began studying political topics in depth I’d already learned how to analyze things scientifically fairly well. So of the things related to communism that I hadn’t already came up with on my own, mostly as a result of my experiences of growing up very poor, those things didn’t take very long for me to grasp. So I sort of backed into communism. I’d say most communists who grew up as poor as me in the USA found communism through other people, but I took a different route and still to this day have zero communist friends and have only saw and spoke to one communist in my life (I traveled 200 miles and spoke for less than 2 hours) that I know of.
I’ve very recently given up all hope on the RCP again, baring miracle or relapse into psychosis, for the final time. I’d given up on them a couple of times before, but kept getting sucked back in because of the despair of the situation. I was so much screwed in the head that on this last go I thought I’d just support them no matter how cultish, or foremost businesslike they are because they are the ones with the most money who’re putting forth views I agree with. I wrote a blog that I felt nicely repackaged MLM, and still almost no one read it, leaving me to think that the only meaningful thing I can do is to support those who have enough money to attract people’s attention in this environment. The saying is true, poor people can’t afford “free speech” and as someone who deeply cares I feel compelled to do as much as I can at all times and this led me to the psychosis that I just snapped out of I hope for forever.
Just a thought to throw out there, if Kasama had as much money as the RCP does, how long before it became the “premier” Maoist group here in the USA?
In the podcast a discussion that touched upon the effectiveness of newspapers took place. It wasn’t discussed however that a major reason newspapers are superior to websites still to our cause is that most of the people who need to hear our message most can’t afford the Internet and/or time and electricity it takes to engage sites like Kasma. I think the issue of how money is used to purchase beliefs, ergo actions in this environment should be discussed in relation to how we’re going to organize and build a base. Those groups with more money, more ways to make money (newspapers etc..) will use that to continue to have the ability to mold the opinions of what is socialism/communism amongst those who seek answers from the “source.”
Okay, I’m a 6’1” 220 lb vegan communist, and comparing me to an anarchist is fighting words. I love all poor people except anarchists, whom I’ve vowed to tolerate to the best of my ability. Why would one think that because someone sees the unnecessary act of eating dead animals as morally bankrupt and understands that it’s harmful to humanity, that it would effect their understanding of the nature of the system and what needs to be done etc.. at all? This is not the first time I’ve heard communists equate veganism/animal rights to anarchism, I’m a strict vegan, but if I had to eat meat it’d be an anarchist like one Mike E speaks of in comment 13 : )
The topic of the language we use was discussed. I’ve found this to be very interesting myself, and I made a blog where I repackaged MLM using terms that I thought people could much easier relate to. Blog post titles included: The public opinion-molding machine, relationships of exploitation, and criminalization of exploitation. This experiment was a total failure as those who didn’t recognize what I was putting forth as communism still came at me with the same nonsense you hear after spending the time to explain to them terms like proletariat, etc.. I think that it’d be a tremendous help if we could repackage MLM in a way that would get people to engage the substance of what we put forth rather than the public opinion-molding machine version of what we’re about.
Ugh, she said not to worry about recruitment. Of course we need worry very heavily about recruitment, it is after all the goal that we have to have a society of properly oriented people. I think I understand what was meant, is that we shouldn’t reek of desperation when seeking converts. Of course we should be desperate for converts, I suppose that’s precisely why we shouldn’t show it too much. The speakers touched on what was meant, but I still would’ve chose different language there myself. A major hurdle we have is getting up to a certain threshold of supporters that brings us away from the margins in ways that no other way can.
Regarding the topic of cultural performances tied to a group, I’ve heard one that I would definitely recommend from the USA. To make it very clear, I do not in any way endorse the group that is involved in this, but 99.8% of the performance is devoid of any mention of them and/or other unscientific nonsense and …yeah you should check it out. It starts with just music, but it’s not it‘s unique:
http://www.archive.org/download/TravisWilkersonProvingGroundatLittleJoy/01ProvingGroundatLittleJoy.mp3
Also, I’m sure you all know of the cultural troupes in Nepal. There are videos of them on youtube.
Well I’d comment further, but I’ve typed a small book’s worth of text here already. Thanks for putting on the podcast and I look forward to future ones.
Mike E said
bill, thanks for writing such a rich and multi-sided post.
I agree that we have to find the language that connects to people, and yet still have our communist views clear in ways that spark controversy and even, for some, shock. It is not a matter of burying our politics, but, on the contrary, making it MORE available, more clear, more engaged in the larger discussions of society.
I understood Iris to be arguing that communists shouldn’t be dismissive of vegitatarianism — but should first understand the connection some people see between meat consumption and human exploitation. Several folks at Kasama see their vegetarianism as connected to their political principles — and that is an issue I look forward to exploring (here on the site) in much greater depth.
I hope you keep posting (both here and on kasama threads).