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Better Luck Next Time!

My campaign [for City Council in 1999] received over 48,000 votes, 1/3 of those cast. Plus a lot of name recognition. Next try, I expect to build on 1999 and win a seat.

--Curt Firestone, Seattle

The Politics of RU-486

Thanks to national organizations such as Zero Population Growth (ZPG), RU-486 will soon be legally available in this country. RU-486 gives women the right to freely decide the number of children they will have. Since U.S. unplanned pregnancy rates are still near 50%, this should help reduce this number. By being able to better plan how many children they want to have and space them, better access to this prescription drug will help women, children and families across the country.

Living in a boomtown which is experiencing substantial growth, it often occurs to me that we need to take pro-active steps in order to ward off becoming another Los Angeles. I'm not the only person who worries about this comparison becoming real as we watch our traffic congestion worsen and indicators like days when we can see Mount Rainier and the Olympics clearly lessening each year.

Every environmental problem I can think of has, at its core, human population growth. Last year we surpassed the six billion humans mark and every day we're pushing closer to seven billion. I believe we'll reach that number in the next ten years unless something radical happens.

Making RU-486 and surgical abortion more easily accessible, increasing the availability of the morning after pill (Preven, Plan-B--Wal-Mart WAKE UP!), improving sex education classes for the young, making it mandatory for insurance companies to cover prescription contraceptive methods, and increasing U.S.-funded international family planning assistance are just a few of the "must haves," if we ever hope to live on a planet not crushed by the weight of humanity.

Just the other day I read that over 11,000 species are thought to be on the brink of extinction this year alone. We, supposedly the most intelligent species, should be ashamed of ourselves that we let superstition, outdated or misinterpreted religious beliefs and outright stupidity guide us into overburdening this wonderful planet with people. U.S.'ers are even more resource-dependent than any other group of humans on the planet, so any effort we can make to lessen our numbers will have an even greater benefit for society by decreasing the amount of fuel, water and other resources we use up at a (currently) alarming rate.

The people who fought the battle to bring RU-486 to market in this country should be commended by every intelligent and forward-thinking person in the U.S. It is a milestone for women, men, and children of this generation and all future ones. I'm sure if the butterflies, dolphins, monkeys, ants and other species could applaud, they'd be doing so. They need for us to take even bolder steps as soon as possible to make this a planet that provides a healthy environment for all species. Any and all steps we can take to lessen our numbers are good first steps.

--Albert Kaufman, Boardmember, Zero Population Growth, Seattle Chapter

Listen Activist!

Your publication is esteemed highly by many activists in Seattle, and I hope that you can take the time and space for this letter, in hopes that folks that are working toward a more libertarian, socialistic, or at least, a less brutal society will take the following into consideration.

I do not want to get into the personal or specific nuts and bolts of what is wrong with activism in Seattle. Anyone with a brain and a critical eye is aware of the various things and incidents that keep progressive change stuck in the activist ghetto (i.e. no change at all); we have a reputation for this outside of Seattle in spite of WTO. Instead I would like to focus on things that we ought to improve on, perhaps a code of conduct for the movement in general. This is not a call for unity or that we all just get along (little doggies). It's a call for common sense and basic respect:

Thank people for showing up and contributing to events. Much of what passes for thanks is the self congratulatory statements of the sponsoring group (or leaders), effectively co-opting the work of the many individuals that did their part. The result of this is alienation of people from the work, and from activism in general. Especially acknowledge people when they make a contribution without even being asked.

Using another organization's meeting for recruitment into your own organization is not a cool thing to do. If you show up to a meeting, be prepared to work on the issue at hand, or at the very least, toward improvements of methods and tactics. Not making a contribution, and instead diverting energy away (especially through disruptive tactics) to your outside issue is called "opportunism". This tactic will derail any cause within three meetings, and will leave initially energetic activists burned out and disappointed--and powerless. Hijacking the mike at a public event to lobby incessantly for your pet project or ideology annoys those who came to support what the event was actually organized to promote.

Claiming intellectual property rights on an issue, and preventing others from either making a contribution or acting independently on their own to address similar concerns, is exclusive, elitist, and counterproductive. This is usually followed by attempting to speak for all of those that are affected by the issue as if they were involved. This smacks of vanguardism. If two groups cannot work together, there is no reason why they cannot work separately toward the same goals. This does not mean that said groups should each hold events at the same time, something that happens way too often, forcing people to take sides by having to choose one or the other.

Activists should organize their communities, not each other! Anyone that attends rallies in this town most likely can predict who will show up; the same hundred people and their friends. It's great to get together, but let's not fool ourselves. If each activist took all of the energy that went into trying to organize or co-opt one another, and applied that to their workplaces, neighborhoods, and interest groups-- we would have a truly broad-based and diverse movement. The only time I have ever felt any degree of success is when I have helped non-activists organize something. I define non-activist as a person who wants to improve his or her material well-being without the ideological or sectarian baggage, and who is not in the "scene." That's about 99.9% of the population.

Listen to criticism. Listen to criticism from your friends, acquaintances and those not represented on your committee or board. Criticism comes from those that have a genuine desire to see different methods, and often comes in a negative tone, because those voicing the concerns most often have been slighted; look past the harsh words and take the meat and make an effort to improve. Listen to criticisms from your opposition and enemies. They are the ones that will be most apt to point out your flaws, and in many cases, the most accurate. Above all, listen to criticism from those not steeped or indoctrinated into your ideology. So many I have seen who ignore criticism for the sake of "doing something" or vague notions of "unity"; action without critique is the road to totalitarianism.

The police are not our friends. Snitching on fellow activists to the cops because you disapprove of their tactics or attitudes is agentry, pure and simple. We have a responsibility to expose people who will turn to state violence to suppress their own definition of "violence." We do have an obligation to speak up amongst each other when someone's tactics are in disagreement with our own. But we should never turn someone over to the police because we disagree with them or their methods.

Activism is not missionary or charity work. We are not out to convert people to our brand of enlightenment (or cynicism). We should do what we do to give people tools to organize and participate in their own liberation. Come into a community only after being invited and/or establishing a relationship from the most egalitarian elements of that community. That constituency will tell you whether or not you are full of shit, and what you need to do to help. Imposing a method or agenda is merely an extension and replication of what we all live under.

Sectarian sniping is destructive. This is not to be confused with legitimate criticism. Sectarian sniping includes, but is not limited to: haranguing someone because of their meat diet, holding public group discussions denouncing other organizations for the purpose of promoting your own; denouncing other groups in the corporate media (big and small), black-jacking, red-baiting, and general smack talking. Criticize based on methodology, not on your own theology. Address beefs and concerns directly, not behind peoples' backs.

Recognize the right of affected people to determine the course of their lives. This includes self defense by any means necessary, as well as the desire to passively resist. This includes the right to one's culture, politics, wealth, and self-organization.

Be as democratic as your rhetoric demands. There is nothing worse than to get involved in a group or organization that decries the destruction of democratic institutions, while promoting their own brand of centralist hierarchy. In general it goes like this--the more a group promotes vague concepts like "unity," "consensus," and "inclusiveness," the less likely they are any of these in fact, and the hierarchy is usually informal and clique based. Observing methods are the real tests. Many cannot articulate this situation, but most people sense it, and run far away--as they well should.

These are not proclamations, orders, or mandates. They are keys, I think, to building something that might actually come close to what the post-WTO activist rhetoric espouses--if we chose to consider them and apply them.

One more thing. NEVER CROSS A PICKETLINE.

--John Persak, Seattle