1 00:00:04,760 --> 00:00:07,160 Speaker 1: You were out of town when the last cop left Seattle. 2 00:00:07,680 --> 00:00:11,160 Speaker 1: It had been unseasonably cool that week, the seventy degrees 3 00:00:11,200 --> 00:00:13,360 Speaker 1: of old and not thee you had come to dread 4 00:00:13,400 --> 00:00:16,360 Speaker 1: every summer. But you had already promised you'd visit your 5 00:00:16,400 --> 00:00:19,079 Speaker 1: family in Montana, and so when the riots started in 6 00:00:19,160 --> 00:00:22,079 Speaker 1: the National Guard open fire into the crowd, you watched 7 00:00:22,079 --> 00:00:25,079 Speaker 1: it on Twitter from your couch like everyone else. The 8 00:00:25,160 --> 00:00:28,600 Speaker 1: Second Battle of Seattle, they were calling it. You wondered 9 00:00:28,640 --> 00:00:31,440 Speaker 1: briefly what the first one was. They've been fighting in 10 00:00:31,520 --> 00:00:35,040 Speaker 1: Portland too, some kind of massacre in Oakland, and no 11 00:00:35,080 --> 00:00:37,240 Speaker 1: one was quite sure what was happening in that Appa Valley. 12 00:00:37,720 --> 00:00:41,159 Speaker 1: Couldn't be anything good, you thought, But it was Seattle. 13 00:00:41,240 --> 00:00:44,280 Speaker 1: Everyone was talking about. The mayor fled the city and 14 00:00:44,320 --> 00:00:46,840 Speaker 1: the helicopter when it became clear the police were losing. 15 00:00:47,720 --> 00:00:51,400 Speaker 1: After that, the cops had simply broken retreated across the Cascades. 16 00:00:52,200 --> 00:00:54,480 Speaker 1: No one knew who was running the city now, and you, 17 00:00:54,560 --> 00:00:56,000 Speaker 1: share as hell didn't want to be the one to 18 00:00:56,040 --> 00:00:59,880 Speaker 1: find out. But after two weeks, you've burned through a 19 00:01:00,160 --> 00:01:03,320 Speaker 1: vacation day in every favor you'd ever accumulated at the hospital, 20 00:01:04,360 --> 00:01:07,800 Speaker 1: and besides the rent was due, no one was sure 21 00:01:07,800 --> 00:01:10,240 Speaker 1: if the postal service was even still functioning, and with 22 00:01:10,280 --> 00:01:13,280 Speaker 1: the eviction moratorium lifted, you weren't going to risk getting 23 00:01:13,280 --> 00:01:15,680 Speaker 1: evicted because you weren't there to hand your landlord a check. 24 00:01:16,959 --> 00:01:21,119 Speaker 1: So with ray resignation, you pile into your battered car 25 00:01:21,160 --> 00:01:25,240 Speaker 1: and head towards snow Qualmy Pass. What surprised you most 26 00:01:25,280 --> 00:01:28,120 Speaker 1: when you hit Seattle was the art you've been expecting. 27 00:01:28,160 --> 00:01:31,399 Speaker 1: Burnt out buildings and streets filled with burning cars, and 28 00:01:31,440 --> 00:01:33,800 Speaker 1: there were some A few streets were still blocked by 29 00:01:33,880 --> 00:01:38,000 Speaker 1: what looked like improvised barricades, but every surface of every building, 30 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:41,360 Speaker 1: it seemed, had some kind of mirror on it. Someone, 31 00:01:41,560 --> 00:01:44,080 Speaker 1: and no one seemed to be quite sure who had 32 00:01:44,080 --> 00:01:46,640 Speaker 1: first come up with the idea, had blocked off an 33 00:01:46,760 --> 00:01:49,640 Speaker 1: entire street up near Capitol Hill, and people were painstakingly 34 00:01:49,760 --> 00:01:53,080 Speaker 1: painting portraits of every protester killed in the fighting and 35 00:01:53,160 --> 00:01:57,560 Speaker 1: Seattle on it. As you walk past, they were discussing 36 00:01:57,600 --> 00:02:00,760 Speaker 1: doing the same for the dead in Oakland. The second 37 00:02:00,800 --> 00:02:03,840 Speaker 1: surprise came when you tried to pay your rent. A 38 00:02:03,880 --> 00:02:06,480 Speaker 1: woman you'd never seen before was sitting at the office's 39 00:02:06,480 --> 00:02:09,280 Speaker 1: reception desk. When you tried to handle your check. She 40 00:02:09,440 --> 00:02:11,920 Speaker 1: laughed and handed it back to you, explaining that after 41 00:02:11,919 --> 00:02:14,359 Speaker 1: the cops fled, the local tenants union had taken over 42 00:02:14,400 --> 00:02:16,320 Speaker 1: most of the apartments in the city and placed them 43 00:02:16,320 --> 00:02:19,840 Speaker 1: in something it called a community land trust. You didn't 44 00:02:19,880 --> 00:02:21,880 Speaker 1: quite get the details, but no one was going to 45 00:02:21,919 --> 00:02:25,440 Speaker 1: evict you, so you decided to just take the win. Besides, 46 00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:28,000 Speaker 1: your friend had convinced you to do some child care 47 00:02:28,040 --> 00:02:30,040 Speaker 1: for the tenants union in college, and they always seemed 48 00:02:30,040 --> 00:02:32,080 Speaker 1: like a decent sword, so it didn't seem to be 49 00:02:32,080 --> 00:02:37,480 Speaker 1: any immediate cause for concern. The hospital was another matter entirely. 50 00:02:38,200 --> 00:02:40,040 Speaker 1: From what you could gather, there had been some kind 51 00:02:40,040 --> 00:02:43,040 Speaker 1: of labor dispute between the chaos. Management seemed to have 52 00:02:43,080 --> 00:02:45,800 Speaker 1: fired a group of nurses for giving injured protesters shelter 53 00:02:45,880 --> 00:02:49,760 Speaker 1: from the police. Your word had already been understaff due 54 00:02:49,760 --> 00:02:53,840 Speaker 1: to COVID and budget cuts. Now the situation was intolerable. 55 00:02:54,680 --> 00:02:57,640 Speaker 1: Where still many of the senior administrators had fled the 56 00:02:57,639 --> 00:03:00,120 Speaker 1: city with the police, no one seemed to know who 57 00:03:00,200 --> 00:03:03,120 Speaker 1: was in charge, Supplies were starting to run low, and 58 00:03:03,160 --> 00:03:06,560 Speaker 1: with so many administrators missing in the insurance situation completely 59 00:03:06,600 --> 00:03:09,440 Speaker 1: up in the air on account of nobody being entirely 60 00:03:09,480 --> 00:03:11,880 Speaker 1: sure if Seattle was even still part of the United States. 61 00:03:12,520 --> 00:03:14,480 Speaker 1: It wasn't clear if anyone was going to get paid. 62 00:03:15,440 --> 00:03:17,360 Speaker 1: So when a co worker pulled you aside and asked 63 00:03:17,360 --> 00:03:21,920 Speaker 1: if you'd be interested in doing something about the management problem, 64 00:03:22,080 --> 00:03:24,440 Speaker 1: you figured, what the hell, Maybe it was time for 65 00:03:24,480 --> 00:03:28,079 Speaker 1: a change. It wasn't like it could possibly make anything worse. 66 00:03:29,760 --> 00:03:32,440 Speaker 1: The fired nurses, it turned out, had started to set 67 00:03:32,520 --> 00:03:34,840 Speaker 1: up a community health center with the help of the 68 00:03:34,840 --> 00:03:38,560 Speaker 1: local neighborhood council. But some of the nurses still working 69 00:03:38,560 --> 00:03:41,839 Speaker 1: at the hospital had another idea. Why not just turn 70 00:03:41,880 --> 00:03:45,360 Speaker 1: the hospital into the community health center. After all, the 71 00:03:45,400 --> 00:03:47,920 Speaker 1: hospital already had more equipment than any new center could 72 00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:51,640 Speaker 1: possibly assemble. All they needed was some help from the community, 73 00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:54,320 Speaker 1: and the whole thing could be run by a council 74 00:03:54,320 --> 00:03:59,240 Speaker 1: of the hospital workers. Insurance companies be damned. Besides, if 75 00:03:59,240 --> 00:04:02,000 Speaker 1: all the hospitals started pulling their resources together, they might 76 00:04:02,080 --> 00:04:05,880 Speaker 1: be able to solve some of the shortages. At the 77 00:04:05,920 --> 00:04:09,040 Speaker 1: mention of solving the supply shortages, even the more skeptical 78 00:04:09,080 --> 00:04:12,160 Speaker 1: workers started to come around. By the next morning, the 79 00:04:12,200 --> 00:04:16,600 Speaker 1: Seattle Hospital Workers Council was marching on the hospital. The 80 00:04:16,680 --> 00:04:20,400 Speaker 1: remaining management found out somehow and tried one final lockout 81 00:04:20,400 --> 00:04:23,040 Speaker 1: to hold on to their property. But as you saw 82 00:04:23,160 --> 00:04:26,560 Speaker 1: yet another column of protesters joining the crowd surrounding the hospital, 83 00:04:26,600 --> 00:04:35,040 Speaker 1: you knew this wasn't their city any longer. On April eighteen, 84 00:04:35,320 --> 00:04:38,680 Speaker 1: two thousand, one, military police in the Cabiliar region of 85 00:04:38,720 --> 00:04:43,400 Speaker 1: Algeria shot an eighteen year old high school students. Almost immediately, 86 00:04:43,640 --> 00:04:46,560 Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of people took to the street, chanting, 87 00:04:46,720 --> 00:04:49,000 Speaker 1: you can't kill us, we are already dead at the 88 00:04:49,040 --> 00:04:52,240 Speaker 1: lines of policemen assembled to attack them. The police would 89 00:04:52,320 --> 00:04:55,080 Speaker 1: kill over a hundred people and severely wound five thousand 90 00:04:55,080 --> 00:04:57,080 Speaker 1: more in the months long battle for control of the 91 00:04:57,120 --> 00:05:02,800 Speaker 1: streets that followed, but protesters burned police stations, government offices, courts, 92 00:05:03,080 --> 00:05:06,120 Speaker 1: and the offices of Islamic fundamentalist parties. Until the government 93 00:05:06,160 --> 00:05:09,400 Speaker 1: agreed to give ethnic minority groups language and cultural rights. 94 00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:13,120 Speaker 1: The hated military police were driven from the region entirely, 95 00:05:13,800 --> 00:05:17,000 Speaker 1: and so few regular police stations survived the uprising. At 96 00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:20,200 Speaker 1: the regular police likewise ceased to function across broad swaths 97 00:05:20,240 --> 00:05:23,680 Speaker 1: of Kabilia. They were replaced on a local village level 98 00:05:23,680 --> 00:05:27,200 Speaker 1: by self organized security committees, which would assemble on the 99 00:05:27,279 --> 00:05:31,799 Speaker 1: rare occasion trouble emerged. Contrary to the expectations of the state, 100 00:05:32,080 --> 00:05:37,240 Speaker 1: crime plummeted, but the Algerian government otherwise continued to function 101 00:05:37,279 --> 00:05:40,359 Speaker 1: as usual for over a decade until the local government 102 00:05:40,400 --> 00:05:43,640 Speaker 1: and a small region cover Baca, attempted the regular local elections. 103 00:05:45,440 --> 00:05:48,120 Speaker 1: After banning the most popular political party in the region, 104 00:05:48,400 --> 00:05:53,520 Speaker 1: they installed an unpopular coalition governments. The people of Brabaca 105 00:05:53,640 --> 00:05:56,440 Speaker 1: responded by storming the city hall, season control of it 106 00:05:56,680 --> 00:05:59,479 Speaker 1: and setting up a democratic General Assembly inside the newly 107 00:05:59,560 --> 00:06:02,839 Speaker 1: dubbed House of the People to replace the existing government. 108 00:06:03,920 --> 00:06:06,960 Speaker 1: This was dual power in its original sense, a council 109 00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:11,160 Speaker 1: of the people facing off against an increasingly illegitimate parliamentary 110 00:06:11,200 --> 00:06:14,240 Speaker 1: representative in a struggle for control over the fate of 111 00:06:14,279 --> 00:06:18,040 Speaker 1: a new society. If you google dual power, you are 112 00:06:18,120 --> 00:06:21,479 Speaker 1: likely to encounter a pamphlet written by Vladimir Lenin entitled 113 00:06:21,560 --> 00:06:25,320 Speaker 1: The Dual Power, describing the conundrum of the situation following 114 00:06:25,360 --> 00:06:29,600 Speaker 1: the First Russian Revolution in February of nineteen seventeen, after 115 00:06:29,640 --> 00:06:32,920 Speaker 1: the overthrow of the Czar, political power was split between 116 00:06:32,960 --> 00:06:36,960 Speaker 1: two competing bodies. On the one side, a new provisional 117 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:41,080 Speaker 1: government of liberal and social democratic politicians holdovers from the 118 00:06:41,080 --> 00:06:44,279 Speaker 1: old Duma from the previous regime. On the other side, 119 00:06:44,480 --> 00:06:50,000 Speaker 1: revolutionary social forces rallying around assemblies popular power called soviets, 120 00:06:50,240 --> 00:06:53,320 Speaker 1: which were councils of delegates sent by directly democratic factory, 121 00:06:53,440 --> 00:06:57,240 Speaker 1: soldiers and sailors committees. Lenin solve this as a situation 122 00:06:57,279 --> 00:07:00,200 Speaker 1: to be overcome by the seizure of state power by 123 00:07:00,200 --> 00:07:04,120 Speaker 1: a socialist party. For Lenin and his Bolsheviks, dual power 124 00:07:04,200 --> 00:07:06,360 Speaker 1: was a problem because, after the Czarist state ceased to 125 00:07:06,400 --> 00:07:08,960 Speaker 1: exist in the middle of the World War, the new 126 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:12,200 Speaker 1: provisional government failed to fill the vacuum left in its 127 00:07:12,200 --> 00:07:15,920 Speaker 1: wake by its collapse. To Lenin, the solution was obvious, 128 00:07:16,400 --> 00:07:20,480 Speaker 1: fill that vacuum with Lenin. For the peasants, soldiers, and workers, 129 00:07:20,520 --> 00:07:24,200 Speaker 1: who made up the majority of Russia's population, however, dual 130 00:07:24,240 --> 00:07:27,440 Speaker 1: power was their first fleeting taste of freedom and autonomous 131 00:07:27,440 --> 00:07:31,800 Speaker 1: control over their lives. Lenon used the Soviets to seize power, 132 00:07:32,160 --> 00:07:35,120 Speaker 1: but almost immediately began to turn on these democratic assemblies 133 00:07:35,120 --> 00:07:38,800 Speaker 1: of popular autonomy. Over the course of the Russian Civil War, 134 00:07:39,360 --> 00:07:42,600 Speaker 1: Lennon and the Bolsheviks strip power away from the workers, peasants, 135 00:07:42,600 --> 00:07:46,720 Speaker 1: and soldiers, sometimes by bureaucratic fiat, often at the point 136 00:07:46,760 --> 00:07:49,400 Speaker 1: of a bayonet, until the Soviet had been stripped of 137 00:07:49,440 --> 00:07:52,640 Speaker 1: all meeting in the very state named after their democratic 138 00:07:52,680 --> 00:07:57,000 Speaker 1: form and became synonymous with dictatorship. Dual power today draws 139 00:07:57,000 --> 00:08:00,360 Speaker 1: from the potential of that post revolutionary crisis from the 140 00:08:00,400 --> 00:08:02,960 Speaker 1: bottom up direct democracy that was so threatening to the 141 00:08:03,000 --> 00:08:06,920 Speaker 1: social order that Bolshevik revolutionaries and Czari's police buys alike 142 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:20,000 Speaker 1: conspired to wipe them from the historical record. Just as 143 00:08:20,040 --> 00:08:22,360 Speaker 1: Russia was haunted by the memory of the French classes, 144 00:08:22,960 --> 00:08:25,560 Speaker 1: so is America today haunted by a memory of dual 145 00:08:25,600 --> 00:08:29,040 Speaker 1: power that, against all Ladge refuses to die. We are, 146 00:08:29,200 --> 00:08:32,240 Speaker 1: after all, still ruled by a greedy, bloodthirsty, and out 147 00:08:32,240 --> 00:08:34,000 Speaker 1: of touch elite who have chosen to march us to 148 00:08:34,040 --> 00:08:36,280 Speaker 1: our deaths by the hundreds of thousands by forcing us 149 00:08:36,280 --> 00:08:39,920 Speaker 1: back to work during a plague. But the Russian Revolution 150 00:08:40,040 --> 00:08:42,640 Speaker 1: is as far away from us today as Napoleon and 151 00:08:42,679 --> 00:08:45,560 Speaker 1: his brass cannons were from the Russian revolutionaries and their 152 00:08:45,600 --> 00:08:49,839 Speaker 1: machine guns. Times have changed. There is no Bolshevik party 153 00:08:49,880 --> 00:08:52,520 Speaker 1: waiting in the wings to seize power as the state crumbles. 154 00:08:53,200 --> 00:08:55,200 Speaker 1: The vacuum of the state leaves in its wake as 155 00:08:55,240 --> 00:08:58,560 Speaker 1: its power deteriorates, be filled by any number of organizations, 156 00:08:58,880 --> 00:09:01,000 Speaker 1: most even more hostile to the working class and the 157 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:03,960 Speaker 1: Bolsheviks had been. It could be war lords with the 158 00:09:03,960 --> 00:09:06,880 Speaker 1: personal allegiance of the remains of the military. It could 159 00:09:06,920 --> 00:09:11,160 Speaker 1: be organized crime. It could be religious fundamentalist militias. Most likely, 160 00:09:11,160 --> 00:09:13,480 Speaker 1: it will be an uneasy combination of all of the above. 161 00:09:14,840 --> 00:09:18,920 Speaker 1: Or it could be you. It could be your family, 162 00:09:19,200 --> 00:09:22,800 Speaker 1: your friends, your neighbors, your co workers, the person you 163 00:09:22,800 --> 00:09:24,719 Speaker 1: waved to every morning at the bus stop when you're 164 00:09:24,760 --> 00:09:27,560 Speaker 1: on your way to work. The past to that world, 165 00:09:28,080 --> 00:09:30,880 Speaker 1: the world run not by capitalists in their cops or 166 00:09:30,960 --> 00:09:34,200 Speaker 1: by war lords in their armies, but by autonomous communities 167 00:09:34,280 --> 00:09:37,240 Speaker 1: free to decide for themselves what to produce and how 168 00:09:37,240 --> 00:09:39,480 Speaker 1: to best use their resources to care for each other. 169 00:09:40,120 --> 00:09:43,680 Speaker 1: Is dual power in the twenty first century. At its core, 170 00:09:44,040 --> 00:09:46,840 Speaker 1: dual power is about creating a counterpower against the state. 171 00:09:47,679 --> 00:09:51,120 Speaker 1: During the Russian Revolution, this counterpower was formed essentially by 172 00:09:51,160 --> 00:09:55,000 Speaker 1: historical accidents, as two governing bodies emerged from the course 173 00:09:55,000 --> 00:09:58,920 Speaker 1: of the Fibrrian Revolution. But modern dual power does not 174 00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:01,800 Speaker 1: arise from the whims the course of revolution or from 175 00:10:01,840 --> 00:10:04,600 Speaker 1: an innate instinct of the working class. It is something 176 00:10:04,640 --> 00:10:08,000 Speaker 1: we've built together by creating organizations that resist the power 177 00:10:08,080 --> 00:10:12,440 Speaker 1: of the structures of violence, capitalism, racism, homophobia, and the 178 00:10:12,480 --> 00:10:16,920 Speaker 1: state name a few that control this world. Dual power 179 00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:21,400 Speaker 1: organizations can take many forms, from tennis unions, the debtors councils, 180 00:10:21,720 --> 00:10:26,240 Speaker 1: childcare cooperatives, to land occupations, workers councils, to rank and 181 00:10:26,280 --> 00:10:30,800 Speaker 1: file labor unions, mutual aid networks to community self defense organizations. 182 00:10:32,679 --> 00:10:36,199 Speaker 1: These organizations seek to build autonomy from and against capitalism. 183 00:10:36,200 --> 00:10:38,880 Speaker 1: In the state alone, there are no match for the 184 00:10:38,880 --> 00:10:41,640 Speaker 1: state's wor all power to inflict violence and corporate control 185 00:10:41,679 --> 00:10:45,679 Speaker 1: over our resources. But by joining together to form federations 186 00:10:45,720 --> 00:10:49,320 Speaker 1: and pooling their resources and expertise to coordinate their efforts, 187 00:10:49,520 --> 00:10:51,920 Speaker 1: they can become a powerful enough force to challenge the 188 00:10:51,960 --> 00:10:56,920 Speaker 1: state both directly and indirectly. These dual power organizations are 189 00:10:56,960 --> 00:11:00,400 Speaker 1: designed to be the state's successor. As the industrial workers 190 00:11:00,440 --> 00:11:03,000 Speaker 1: of the world famously put it, they form the structure 191 00:11:03,040 --> 00:11:04,959 Speaker 1: of the new society and the shell of the old. 192 00:11:05,960 --> 00:11:08,240 Speaker 1: In order to fulfill that task, they take the shape 193 00:11:08,240 --> 00:11:11,000 Speaker 1: of new society. They need to create academics, called this 194 00:11:11,120 --> 00:11:16,199 Speaker 1: prefigurative politics, organizing that employs the values and organizational structures 195 00:11:16,200 --> 00:11:18,760 Speaker 1: that they seek to create in the world. As we 196 00:11:18,800 --> 00:11:21,360 Speaker 1: will discuss in the next episode, there are right wing 197 00:11:21,440 --> 00:11:25,680 Speaker 1: forms of both dual power and profigative politics, but for 198 00:11:25,800 --> 00:11:29,200 Speaker 1: most of the people who employ it, prefigurative politics means 199 00:11:29,240 --> 00:11:35,400 Speaker 1: creating direct democratic institutions without bosses, managers, bureaucrats, or party apparatus. 200 00:11:36,640 --> 00:11:39,120 Speaker 1: The means of creating the new world are thus the 201 00:11:39,160 --> 00:11:44,920 Speaker 1: same as the ends. Dual power organizations serve multiple purposes. 202 00:11:45,559 --> 00:11:47,719 Speaker 1: Their long term goal is to replace the state and 203 00:11:47,800 --> 00:11:51,880 Speaker 1: the corporation with free and autonomous forms of organization. One's 204 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:55,120 Speaker 1: organized and powerful enough to protect themselves and manage the 205 00:11:55,120 --> 00:11:58,640 Speaker 1: logistical challenges of a new world with previous forms of 206 00:11:58,720 --> 00:12:03,080 Speaker 1: organization and power no longer exists. But even reaching a 207 00:12:03,120 --> 00:12:06,720 Speaker 1: point where this is remotely plausible requires not just the 208 00:12:06,760 --> 00:12:11,000 Speaker 1: painstaking construction of counterpower and organization out of a fragmented 209 00:12:11,040 --> 00:12:15,360 Speaker 1: American population. It requires a profound cultural transformation and how 210 00:12:15,360 --> 00:12:20,400 Speaker 1: we make decisions. As the anthropologist David Graeber put it, 211 00:12:20,400 --> 00:12:22,320 Speaker 1: it is assumed in many parts of the world that 212 00:12:22,400 --> 00:12:25,359 Speaker 1: democracy is a group of people facing a certain problem 213 00:12:25,400 --> 00:12:27,360 Speaker 1: who come together to solve it in a way where 214 00:12:27,360 --> 00:12:30,640 Speaker 1: everyone has an equals say. It's true that most Americans 215 00:12:30,679 --> 00:12:33,760 Speaker 1: think of themselves as living in a democratic country. When 216 00:12:33,960 --> 00:12:36,480 Speaker 1: was the last time that any Americans actually sat down 217 00:12:36,480 --> 00:12:39,120 Speaker 1: and came to a collective decision? Maybe if they were 218 00:12:39,200 --> 00:12:44,680 Speaker 1: ordering pizza, but basically never. Dual power organizations thus also 219 00:12:44,800 --> 00:12:49,040 Speaker 1: service schools for democracy where people can learn, experiment with, create, 220 00:12:49,240 --> 00:12:52,439 Speaker 1: and spread their own forms of democracy and collective decision making. 221 00:12:53,640 --> 00:12:57,800 Speaker 1: When these spaces of democratic experimentation are functioning properly, their 222 00:12:57,880 --> 00:13:00,760 Speaker 1: very organizational structure serves as a kind of recruitment tool. 223 00:13:01,240 --> 00:13:04,200 Speaker 1: This was the original theory behind Occupy Wall Street, that 224 00:13:04,320 --> 00:13:07,680 Speaker 1: democracy and the experience of autonomy were contagious and would 225 00:13:07,679 --> 00:13:10,800 Speaker 1: spread rapidly as more and more curious people experienced it 226 00:13:10,920 --> 00:13:14,199 Speaker 1: for themselves. That experience, in turn, would create a new 227 00:13:14,240 --> 00:13:17,320 Speaker 1: generation of people trained in democratic practices who could go 228 00:13:17,400 --> 00:13:21,640 Speaker 1: forth and transform the world. Obviously, this didn't quite happen. 229 00:13:22,160 --> 00:13:25,400 Speaker 1: Occupies model of democracy was limited in many ways, not 230 00:13:25,520 --> 00:13:27,640 Speaker 1: the least of which was that it required a public, 231 00:13:27,679 --> 00:13:30,520 Speaker 1: physical meeting space that could be closed down by police violence. 232 00:13:31,200 --> 00:13:35,000 Speaker 1: But the initial premise worked. Occupy itself, of course, had 233 00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:38,040 Speaker 1: been inspired by the mass democratic assemblies in Spain, in 234 00:13:38,080 --> 00:13:41,800 Speaker 1: Greece in two thousand eleven, and the direct democratic coops 235 00:13:41,840 --> 00:13:45,000 Speaker 1: and factory occupations that engulfed Argentina for the better part 236 00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:58,480 Speaker 1: of the two thousand's. At the most basic, short term level, however, 237 00:13:59,080 --> 00:14:03,720 Speaker 1: dual power organizations are designed in people's needs. The cornerstone 238 00:14:03,720 --> 00:14:06,680 Speaker 1: of this effort is mutual aid. Probably the most famous 239 00:14:06,679 --> 00:14:08,880 Speaker 1: example of such a project was the Black Panther Party 240 00:14:08,960 --> 00:14:13,840 Speaker 1: survival programs. Former Black Panther Janina Irvin describes them in detail. 241 00:14:14,480 --> 00:14:17,360 Speaker 1: The Black Panther Party survival programs were, in fact an 242 00:14:17,400 --> 00:14:20,320 Speaker 1: example of an effort, a successful effort, while it lasted 243 00:14:20,360 --> 00:14:23,120 Speaker 1: to create dual power in the United States. The Black 244 00:14:23,120 --> 00:14:26,760 Speaker 1: Panther Party had a school, had free food programs. One 245 00:14:26,840 --> 00:14:30,040 Speaker 1: of its most respected survival programs was a breakfast for children, 246 00:14:30,680 --> 00:14:33,280 Speaker 1: which was overall a response to hunger and poverty in 247 00:14:33,320 --> 00:14:38,080 Speaker 1: the country, particularly among poor, low income Black people. We 248 00:14:38,160 --> 00:14:41,440 Speaker 1: had free medical clinics in Winston Salem, North Carolina. We 249 00:14:41,440 --> 00:14:44,360 Speaker 1: had free ambulances, free past control, free shoes. We had 250 00:14:44,400 --> 00:14:47,960 Speaker 1: free bussing to prison programs, legal aid programs to help 251 00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:50,320 Speaker 1: people get attorneys who needed them. And we had a 252 00:14:50,320 --> 00:14:53,080 Speaker 1: program that was called the Safe Program Seniors Against a 253 00:14:53,080 --> 00:14:57,040 Speaker 1: Fearful Environment, in which we provided free transportation and escort 254 00:14:57,080 --> 00:14:59,520 Speaker 1: service the senior citizens who needed to get out and 255 00:14:59,560 --> 00:15:02,360 Speaker 1: take or of their errands their business. They were often 256 00:15:02,400 --> 00:15:05,720 Speaker 1: being attacked, so this was a hour protection for them. 257 00:15:05,760 --> 00:15:07,920 Speaker 1: The Panthers were able to grow their influence by keeping 258 00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:12,600 Speaker 1: their communities safe, healthy, cared for, and increasingly autonomous for 259 00:15:12,680 --> 00:15:15,920 Speaker 1: the state. But most importantly, they were able to keep 260 00:15:15,920 --> 00:15:20,000 Speaker 1: people alive. As Black Panthers co founder hughe P. Newton 261 00:15:20,040 --> 00:15:24,000 Speaker 1: famously said, these survival programs satisfy the deep needs of 262 00:15:24,040 --> 00:15:27,000 Speaker 1: the community, but they are not solutions to our problem. 263 00:15:27,040 --> 00:15:29,880 Speaker 1: That is why we call them survival programs, meeting survival 264 00:15:29,920 --> 00:15:35,920 Speaker 1: pending revolution. The existence of the survival programs themselves reflect 265 00:15:35,960 --> 00:15:39,640 Speaker 1: the necessity of keeping people alive, especially people who the 266 00:15:39,640 --> 00:15:42,120 Speaker 1: state would rather kill or leave to die for building 267 00:15:42,120 --> 00:15:46,920 Speaker 1: any kind of power. These programs are also necessarily insufficient. 268 00:15:47,440 --> 00:15:51,880 Speaker 1: No mutual aid program, no autonomous project, no liberator territory 269 00:15:52,040 --> 00:15:55,840 Speaker 1: can provide for the entire community. While the corporation's capitalists 270 00:15:55,840 --> 00:15:59,800 Speaker 1: and states maintain their stranglehold over the resources and production 271 00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:03,880 Speaker 1: capacity at the working class collectively created over centuries of 272 00:16:03,880 --> 00:16:09,600 Speaker 1: grueling labor and struggle. Dual power, more than just survival, 273 00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:12,360 Speaker 1: is about building the counter power to take it back. 274 00:16:14,320 --> 00:16:17,480 Speaker 1: Building powers withdraws the line between what is and isn't 275 00:16:17,560 --> 00:16:20,720 Speaker 1: dual power. Growing food for you and your friends, make 276 00:16:20,760 --> 00:16:23,720 Speaker 1: cut down on bills, and make some killer pesto, but 277 00:16:23,760 --> 00:16:28,280 Speaker 1: it's not necessarily challenging the capitalist system. Autonomy for its 278 00:16:28,280 --> 00:16:32,280 Speaker 1: own sake is not necessarily dual power if it doesn't 279 00:16:32,320 --> 00:16:36,480 Speaker 1: actively aid and struggle or better organize the community. That 280 00:16:36,600 --> 00:16:40,479 Speaker 1: from the perspective of building counter power, that autonomy is meaningless. 281 00:16:41,560 --> 00:16:44,000 Speaker 1: Making food for striking workers to allow them to stay 282 00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:49,120 Speaker 1: on strike longer is building dual power. We're simply producing 283 00:16:49,160 --> 00:16:52,640 Speaker 1: it for general consumption is not. While dual power organizations 284 00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:56,040 Speaker 1: necessarily serve the needs of the community, they must also 285 00:16:56,080 --> 00:16:58,440 Speaker 1: be able to pivot and attack the state in capital 286 00:16:58,520 --> 00:17:01,200 Speaker 1: and provide solidarity and beach fual aid to those in 287 00:17:01,240 --> 00:17:04,960 Speaker 1: their community who are already in struggle, or they simply aren' 288 00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:09,520 Speaker 1: dual power organizations at all. The simplest solution to this problem, 289 00:17:09,520 --> 00:17:12,359 Speaker 1: of course, is to organize around a specific side of resistance. 290 00:17:12,840 --> 00:17:15,720 Speaker 1: Organizations that build up the capacity to fight can everge 291 00:17:15,720 --> 00:17:19,800 Speaker 1: from almost anywhere. The Symbiosis Research Collective described how dual 292 00:17:19,840 --> 00:17:23,440 Speaker 1: power organizations emerge from Palestinian prison organizing bring the First 293 00:17:23,480 --> 00:17:26,400 Speaker 1: into Fata and uprising against the Israeli governments in late 294 00:17:26,480 --> 00:17:30,880 Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. Most discussion of the First into Fata focuses 295 00:17:30,920 --> 00:17:34,080 Speaker 1: on the role of mass protests in making Palestinian society 296 00:17:34,160 --> 00:17:38,679 Speaker 1: ungovernable for the Israeli occupying forces. Less discussed is the 297 00:17:38,760 --> 00:17:42,800 Speaker 1: role of community organizations of mutual aid and confederated participatory 298 00:17:42,840 --> 00:17:47,240 Speaker 1: democracy and making such mass protests possible. Organizing from within 299 00:17:47,280 --> 00:17:51,480 Speaker 1: the political system was a political incubator of the Palestinian 300 00:17:51,520 --> 00:17:54,480 Speaker 1: resistance movement and offers a micro cosmic example of the 301 00:17:54,520 --> 00:17:57,600 Speaker 1: development of dual power in the much larger prison of 302 00:17:57,680 --> 00:18:02,600 Speaker 1: the occupation with hunger strikes, political prisoners eventually won concessions 303 00:18:02,600 --> 00:18:06,200 Speaker 1: for their own self administration within the prisons. They assembled 304 00:18:06,200 --> 00:18:10,800 Speaker 1: structures of political organization and representation, forced prison authorities to 305 00:18:10,840 --> 00:18:15,359 Speaker 1: recognize their representatives, and developed a division of labor around hygiene, 306 00:18:15,480 --> 00:18:20,480 Speaker 1: education and other daily tasks. Palestinian prisoners described this arrangement 307 00:18:20,600 --> 00:18:24,000 Speaker 1: as internal organization, similar to the concept of dual power. 308 00:18:24,640 --> 00:18:28,080 Speaker 1: Even the least free of circumstances. These prisoners carved out 309 00:18:28,080 --> 00:18:32,120 Speaker 1: space for self governments and created the preconditions to revolutionary struggle. 310 00:18:32,880 --> 00:18:36,280 Speaker 1: Prisoners taught and studied everything from Palestinian history to Marxist 311 00:18:36,359 --> 00:18:40,440 Speaker 1: political economy, often from eight to fourteen hours per day. 312 00:18:41,040 --> 00:18:44,520 Speaker 1: As freshly educated and trained political activists were released back 313 00:18:44,520 --> 00:18:49,320 Speaker 1: into society, the resistance movement was galvanized. Illiterate teenage boys 314 00:18:49,400 --> 00:18:52,120 Speaker 1: arrested for throwing stones re entered the fray months later 315 00:18:52,200 --> 00:18:56,920 Speaker 1: as committed, competent organizers who had studied movement building, strategic resistance, 316 00:18:56,920 --> 00:19:01,639 Speaker 1: and dialectical materialism. Meanwhile, the organizing context outside of the 317 00:19:01,640 --> 00:19:07,160 Speaker 1: prison transformed dramatically. Saleh Abou laban of Palestinian political prisoner 318 00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:11,440 Speaker 1: from nineteen seventy until nine, stated, when I entered the prison, 319 00:19:11,480 --> 00:19:15,480 Speaker 1: there wasn't a national movement. There were only underground cells 320 00:19:15,520 --> 00:19:18,600 Speaker 1: that performed clandestine lee. When I got out, I found 321 00:19:18,600 --> 00:19:22,959 Speaker 1: a world full of organizers, committees, and community institutions. Central 322 00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:25,879 Speaker 1: to this new world of community organizing was the Palestinian 323 00:19:25,960 --> 00:19:29,280 Speaker 1: labor movement. Unions were formed out of workers places of 324 00:19:29,320 --> 00:19:32,520 Speaker 1: residents rather than workplaces, because migrant labor was prevalent in 325 00:19:32,560 --> 00:19:37,160 Speaker 1: Palestinian unionism within Israel had been criminalized. Unions then formed 326 00:19:37,160 --> 00:19:41,679 Speaker 1: strong alliances with local organizations in the national movement with 327 00:19:41,800 --> 00:19:45,600 Speaker 1: rapid growth in the early nineteen eighties. Labor unions found 328 00:19:45,600 --> 00:19:48,800 Speaker 1: it necessary to centralize and democratize their structures to become 329 00:19:48,840 --> 00:19:53,280 Speaker 1: more resilient as Israeli repression intensified against union leaders and organizers. 330 00:19:54,040 --> 00:19:57,280 Speaker 1: These local unions were networked together through the Palestinian Communist 331 00:19:57,359 --> 00:20:00,320 Speaker 1: Party and the Workers Unity Block, creating a web of 332 00:20:00,400 --> 00:20:03,479 Speaker 1: labor organizers and community groups that linked their class struggle 333 00:20:03,560 --> 00:20:07,919 Speaker 1: to the larger projects of national liberation. This wave of resistance, 334 00:20:08,320 --> 00:20:11,320 Speaker 1: carried out largely outside the purview of the major Palestinian 335 00:20:11,359 --> 00:20:14,640 Speaker 1: political parties, showed that even communities and the most dire 336 00:20:14,720 --> 00:20:19,240 Speaker 1: circumstances can assemble astounding levels of organization and resistance, as 337 00:20:19,359 --> 00:20:21,840 Speaker 1: was also true in the United States. Although today the 338 00:20:21,920 --> 00:20:26,119 Speaker 1: memory of these prison radicals is largely forgotten, Palestinian organizing 339 00:20:26,119 --> 00:20:29,200 Speaker 1: emerged from the sites of deepest depression in their society. 340 00:20:30,080 --> 00:20:32,480 Speaker 1: But this kind and level of organization is not just 341 00:20:32,560 --> 00:20:35,760 Speaker 1: the property of the left, and in Part two we'll 342 00:20:35,760 --> 00:20:37,520 Speaker 1: see what happens when the right gets hold of it. 343 00:20:41,119 --> 00:20:43,480 Speaker 1: It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. 344 00:20:43,720 --> 00:20:46,400 Speaker 1: For more podcast on cool zone Media, visit our website 345 00:20:46,400 --> 00:20:48,560 Speaker 1: cool zone media dot com, or check us out on 346 00:20:48,600 --> 00:20:51,119 Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 347 00:20:51,160 --> 00:20:53,960 Speaker 1: listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could 348 00:20:53,960 --> 00:20:56,960 Speaker 1: happen here, updated monthly at cool zone Media dot com 349 00:20:57,000 --> 00:20:58,920 Speaker 1: slash sources. Thanks for listening.