Activist Check List Go! Part 2

The Imputed and the Unsaid
Are mutually dependant
One as important as the Other
To practice and believe in only one
Leaves the One and then the Two in Thrall
Strong, in a way, from its constant activity to support

The unsupportable
But still a hostage, a slave, to the phantom structure

It is important to reclaim and to define words that we use within the struggle. Words are the battleground, really, as any legislator, propagandist, or, perhaps less incendiary-etymologists, will tell you. The battle is for their definition, whether it is changing the Affordable Healthcare Act to Obamacare, The-Right-To-Work Law (look it up),  Reagan’s “Strapping young buck”. I want to share with you some words, here and in coming posts, that must be understood and protected-for the battle for the community is the battle to be had. The community, at least for now, is necessary to operate a social contract, without a tipping point of consent (whether bought, coerced, bribed, or forced), the rulers cannot rule. I think an important illustration of this, in particular to words, is a study I read in Physical Review E. that states that 10 percent is the tipping point to general opinion, though, this 10 percent, make no mistake, has to be a committed 10 percent. Definitions are the variables/symbols of how we understand and exist in reality, there is a reason why it is so fought over (especially in the Public Education sector). Let us move forward here in defining a few terms.

Reform:

The act of a reform model is the action, belief, that accepts (whether overtly or subtly) the dominant lens. Its form of resistance is in creating a space that reduces the harm of the dominant system. These are typically human services departments, non-profits, or even voting etc. This is not a negative critique. In almost all the societies I have ever had to study or live in (which is not much as I am a poor scholar) I have witnessed the need for a reform model, in fact, my argument is that activists must engage in both of these models, and the choice is whether they center the Reform aspect or the Revolutionary aspect. The reason, even the most radical activist, has to support reform models is that Revolutionary models take a longer time, and in my own life I am not okay answering those I would serve to, “wait for the revolution”; destructive suffering can only harm and remove those who would otherwise align with humane revolutionary practices and should be, even from just a strategic lens, be, at least, ameliorated through reform practices.

Revolution:

Revolutionary practices are actions, beliefs, that are in direct opposition with the dominant systems catalysts. Its form of resistance is radical because of this opposition and work. It is important to note that some of the practices of a dominant system may still be in practices when the revolutionary model becomes the norm, I state this because what often gets mistaken for revolution is changing the proverbial deck chairs of the Titanic-the practices- and also, often, believing that you can’t use any deck chairs once you have switched ships. There will be means of communication (let’s say email) that are still a mode of communication in an revolutionary paradigm, there will still be systems, there will still be technology, so to say, what changes are to what these Tools serve. These tools are not, by themselves, a value, they are value neutral, how they are used and what they are used for are the determinants of its virtue or not. Revolutionary practices are focused on the determinants of the value/virtue of the system.

Choosing:

I would identify myself a revolutionary/radical driven person but have spent lots of my life in a reform model. I can say that the reason being is that the Time I have been in was not ripe to blossom the revolutionary practice. This does not mean I did not work on it, I did, long hours studying, reading, trying to write, and also bringing this understanding within a reform model. I also stood with many people in their acts of radical defiance, from people experiencing homelessness, to resistance against globalization from the lens of it being to serve the wealthiest (I believe that globalization is a necessary outcome of the development of the human species but it does not have to look like it does now). But there was not enough populous momentum to push through these measures in whatever means there was. I believe there is now and is why this writing is becoming more public, it is a small avenue of mine to materialized this aspect of my own revolutionary practices (I have others too, such as the founding of the movement to creating a Worker’s Cooperative).

It is also important for those that might believe they have to ‘choose’ to know that any good that I have been able to accomplish in the school(s) I have had the blessing to support, has been because of a radical lens. The thought that the fundamental nature of being is Ineffable, that this demands humility and confidence, in the face of the responsibility to serve limitlessly is radical in the juxtaposition of dominant cultural systems (specifically the public school system). This lens I brought allowed me to practice to the limits of a reform model and to push against the walls of the dominant system. In this way I was able to outline the nature of the threat of dominance and then to do ‘out of work’ work that was targeted at changing these catalytic principles and practices, in fact, one will in an authentic reform model see where it must then include a radical revolutionary model. Dominating systems will always oppress, we can only reform so far within its halls, the one’s that are left out are those that the system will not serve and, frankly, cannot with its structure as it is. Only a revolutionary model can include them.

Only human lead reform models have kept oppressive systems from being, in total, oppressive, and only revolutionary models will be able to keep these oppressive systems in agonistic positions rather than the creative protagonists.

Overreaction and Tyranny

“Overreaction is reasonable in the face of plausible tyranny”

There has never been an action that has not remained
Its seeds are the color in which the tapestry of the very universe is painted
Do not let them tell you that which you are and do fall into the void
For this is the serpent’s trick, to annihilate you, forever and always
Though such a thing cannot be done, it can be believed
Believe it not Dearest, for when we glance into the limitless night, and the stars shine like a silver sheet-there art thou, and so it is with all things, and so accept such Truth and walk forth brazenly
In remembrance of what must be done

In every life there comes a point in which we must face the existential question. What this means, to most, is “what does it mean to exist?”, “what does it mean to exist as me?” or something like this. That this happens individually, whether in some great, cataclysmic way, or quietly though no less deep, is irrelevant. That one takes upon themselves some mantle of self-determination is not the necessary outcome, to be sure, one can also acquiesce (though this requires their perpetual self-determination to deny it) to norms and this is probably the more true, if in regards to the most common.

Societies have to do this as well. Though, again, this affirmation of norms must be a constant by individuals, and enough individuals to give the imagery of a mass rather than a collection of affirmations of individuals. The reason it must be constant is the underlying Truth that all things are perpetually dynamic and the imagery of permanence is false both in the literal observations, let us say a Mountain, and in the social observations of ‘norms’. What overlay this dynamism is the social contract. It has to have the acquiescence, in the sense of a populace who believes in the Norms, or forced collusion (socially, economically, justice, and pure naked violence) in a populace that could resist, these can also go hand in hand with there being various constituents to every society.

There comes a time in the age of a Society where it must confront this existential question overtly. We are in one of those times. The power of dominance wishes, in one degree, to keep us asleep and those are the cries of, “You are overreacting,” “Women already have rights protected.”, “You’re just mad because…” These may come from our friends, or people we know, but if we examine their own lives there is typically a strong vested interested in keeping norms as they are. That these norms are not always interests in the sense that they will be ‘benefitted’ in a material way is true. The benefit, of, let's say, white women who voted for Mr. Trump (53% in fact) is that, in part, they do not have to align with what dominant society has deemed as ‘bad’ to put it simply; the people of color, the gays, the poor (even though they may be poor-the deep shame that this society puts on poverty is a crippling thing). They do not have to examine their own privilege and marginalization, and by denying their own marginalization, though it occurs blatantly, they can ignore their own privilege and subsequent responsibility. For that is what the Existential Question demands, really, is to understand “From which I come From” and then, “To what am I responsible”. If the answer is that “I come from that which is imputed/given” then the answer the the second is, “I am responsible in re-affirming the dominant norm”. If you suffer from marginalization then you have to be able to couch these imputed, dominant systems as a ‘permanent’ structure and that endurance becomes a badge of honor (this is different, but similar, to the apathy of despair practiced by marginalized communities spoken of in the post The Activists Checklist), but is worn in the remembrance of enduring a dominant system by your own choice, not the badge worn for the resilience born in confrontation with the systems of annihilation.

In the face of the overt systems of annihilation, those that would destroy that which is humane, the basis for that which we measure our humanity, be they commandments to love our neighbor, or realizations of the ineffable nature of Self and Other that then arises the responsibility for opposing that which opposes this realization of ineffability, there can be no overreaction. The overt nature of oppression, be it slavery or genocide, be it the beginnings to the direction of these things, be they decisions where our human mind can determine plausible destinations that rhyme with these atrocities, we must absolutely push to the furthest measure of our abilities. For, we must know, Tyranny does not sleep, and when it moves from its subversive, covert, dog-whistle methods into the hissing hydra, it is no time to forget or to rest, for it will not.