Dual Power Part 2

to a central government in Seattle. It was formed as a sort of coordinating council between the various organizations and workers councils that had emerged or simply emerged from the woodworks in the wake of the collapse of the police.

Two things have become clear very quickly. One, there was need for some kind of coordinating committee between the different bodies to The only people who had any idea what was going on in their portion of the city or in their workplace were the members of the local council, which meant there was no way in hell any kind of central apparatus could dictate to them what actually needed to be done. They're just wasn't a way to move

the information around the solution had been decentralization. Let the councils do their work, let them work out who they needed to talk to, but make sure there was some kind of daily council that people could show up to. Were the various groups we do report backs and what they were doing and what they needed. The structure was messy, but it mostly worked, and at least someone had had the idea to make sure if the delegate to the e m A rotated so one person wasn't stuck spending

after life showing up every day. The problem really was the same problem you've been dealing with for months now. Even with the pooling of resources and people donating their last precious American dollars to paying people to import more supplies, the blockade was taking its toll. Nobody wanted to try to force their way through the blockades and the cascades. There's been some attempts to get in touch with groups in Portland, but the control map was so ugly there

was no real chance of getting any assistance. Besides, the real problem was the port. When the cops had fled, the ships should simply stopped coming. They routed further south, many of them to Oakland, or so you'd heard. The logistics lines were collapsing faster than anyone could piece them back together. What the long term consequences would be no one knew, but something was going to have to change. The calls to start engaging in piracy were only half oaks. Now.

A week later, an answer of sorts arrived. It wasn't precisely what anyone had been expecting. You'd heard about negotiations between workers councils, shipping companies, and a couple of governments to try to prevent a bloodbath the docks with the porter to Seattle already at a commission, no one could afford another stoppage. You hadn't really been sure what to make of it, but the representatives were here now. What they proposed in front of the largest assembly you'd ever

seen was a kind of under the table deal. In essence, the port workers would go back to work in both Oakland and Seattle in exchange for seeding part of Oakland itself to a newly formed federation. No one was sure how any of this was actually supposed to work, but it was the first chance you'd seen in months to start solving the supply problem. That didn't mean everyone else

would agree to it. Democracy is still democracy, after all, But maybe, just maybe, with a toe hold in Oaklands, the Council's would start to spread, and that so called government in California was looking shakier every day. Who knew, maybe next time you wouldn't be negotiating at all. In March or two thousand four, American occupation forces in Iraq attempted to shut down the newspaper of a Shiite cleric named Matada el Solder. The Americans had expected Sodder to

simply fold under the weight of the coalition's pressure. Instead, they triggered mass protest that quickly turned into an armed uprising. This was a new force at a Rock. The American occupation Force, who've been expecting to be fighting al Quaeda and maybe the rump of the remaining Baptists, were stunned to suddenly be facing a working class uprising among a rock a population. This new body Army, as it began to call itself, was extremely well organized and were initially

able to route coalition forces. So what was this body army that had so thoroughly rewritten the rules of Rock? Shortly after the US to posted on musse in two thousand and three Booktato Sauder, the son of another famous Rocky shi At religious figure. Both Sauders had been famous for this support and care for the poor. So when Sauder returned to a Rock, he began to build a political base among the Rocks working class, particularly in Solder City,

a working class suburb of Baghdad. He used his organization to redistribute wealth, providing form of welfare states in an almost completely shattered country, but are In his allies also began to set up a network of freak clinics for pregnant and nursing mothers. They used these clinics, which were enormously popular, to build a base of support. It is, after all, extremely difficult, no matter what your ideological or political agreements with the group, to attack them when they're

running free clinics for pregnant mothers. They protected these clinics with militias, which allowed them to transform the community organizations and good will that they had gained from the clinic into the military power necessary for self governance and eventually for resistance against the American occupation. Strategy proved enormously successful. Mattato Sauder is still today one of the most important political figures in Iraq despite sustained coalition and occupation force

attempts to stamp them out. But for all their working class support, the Solderists were by no means leftists. In late twenty nineteen, massive anti asterity, anti imperialists, and anti sectarian protests erupted in Iraq as a reaction to the murderous incompetence of the Iraqi government, who, among other crimes, managed to poison a hundred and eighteen thousand people in Bosra through the mismanagement and subsequent contamination of the water supply.

Also are initially backed the protest, but turned on them in early at which point soteristm militias begin to carry out a brutal campaign of repression against the protest camps that culminated in outrent massacres of protesters. These massacres became semi regular features of soterist mass mobilizations, and alongside state and paramilitary disappearances of activists, the attacks essentially crushed the uprising.

The violent homophobia and sexism of the soderust may see met odds with their anti imperialism and concern for the poor, but right wing organizations have often adapted specific policies, positions, and organizational structures from the left, and in this case the Soderius mobilizations have been extremely effective. Indeed, writing organizations are often more effective at utilizing dual power tactics and organizations and leftist movements. This is partly because of a

fundamental asymmetry between the right and the left. Right wing organizations can almost always pend on financial support from wealthy political backers, who, when push comes to shove, can simply create a movement with pure money, as the Cokes did to create the Tea Party. Leftists the ravings of right wing conspiracy theorists, notwithstanding, have no such backers. This funding and support can go a long way towards explaining the

successive groups like Hezblah. It is certainly true that without Iranian support, Hezbollah would not be the movement that it is today, but a great deal of their success is simply attributable to the tactics themselves. This does not escaped the notice of the U. S. Army Joint Special Operations Universities. Major James Love wrote a monograph entitled hes Bellah Social

Services a Source of Power. In it, he writes the most important branch of the Hezbillah organization is a social service section, which can be demonstrated by the allocation of an estimated fifty of hesbla's two thousand seven budget service efforts. It is through the work of the Social Service Section that all party activities are possible. Hesbalah's Social Service Section

was designed to influence all aspects of Lebinezia society. The original intent of providing needed services to an oppressed people appears to have been manipulated by Hesbillah as a vehicle to bolster its ranks, provide a humanitarian shield to the organization, increased influence within the Lebanese government, and combat at Shia

arrival on Ball. The Social Service Section serves as an equal arm within the organization and is used as much as the military and political wing in terms of leverage. Hesbilah's Deputy Secretary General describes the purpose and intent of the Social Service Section and the following passage. Hesbalah paid

particular attention to social work. Not one aspect of aiding the poor was neglected, as the party work towards achieving joint social responsibility, answering their urgent needs, and introducing beneficial programs such work was policy considered party duty and concentrated effort towards raising funds and making available social service resources served.

Towards achieving these goals, the party worked the best of its capacities, cooperating with official institutions to his bond societal needs. Has Blah's provided medical aid, reconstruction assistance, education programs, and particularly programs that take care of patrons and widows, which have served to solidify their base. These organizations were critical to has Belah's meteoric rise from a political nonentity to

arguably the most powerful factuated side of Lebanese politics. Has Bela's state within a state, as it's become known, it's capable of even resisting the Israeli Army. Major Love's frustration with the inability of the American Army to either deny has Blah's own aid efforts or replicate them in a way that could strengthen American power are testaments the effectiveness of such a technique and the dangers they posed to

the American imperial and state project. One of his Love's major concerns is that American aid program ms are simply caught up in red tape. They're unable to respond as fast as community led efforts, which means that those efforts will get off the ground faster, get to the scene faster, and thus route the political benefits. When the state is unwilling or unable to provide services, especially in the wake of disasters, it leaves a power vacuum for organizations to exploit.

May not have heard of the RSS before. It's a paramilitary group affiliated with India's ruling party, the b j P, counts among its members India's Prime Minister Modi. It's also probably the world's largest fascist organization. The RSS was founded in a group nominally dedicated to protecting and promoting Hindu interests. What this means in practice is that the RSS is dedicated to creating a Hindu state and maintains and promotes a violent hatred of Muslims. The results in RSS members

being at the forefront of anti Muslim programs. The r s s is pre World War Two leaders were open admirers of Hitler and Mussolini, and while they eventually abandoned those positions at the start of World War Two, the rsss politics have remained thoroughly fascist. In the intense communal rioting that both preceded and followed the partition of India

and Pakistan. After independence, which saw mass population transfers of Hindus and Muslims and the death of somewhere between two hundred thousand and two million people, the RSS established itself as a protector of Hindi refugees against Muslim violence, provided protection and aid to those trying to survive the chaos. The good will is generated, however, collapse After a former RSS member did the singa most famous thing anyone associated

with the RSS has ever done, assassinated Gandhi. The RSS was almost immediately banned, but in light of the terrible pr you get when you're associated with killing Gandhi, the RSS became increasingly involved with disaster relief. Over half a century of painstaking organizing, it created schools and youth programs to spread its influence and use them the fuel further

anti Muslim violence. In two thousand one, the organization gained national acclaim for its response to a massive earthquake and Gunjarat. The RSS heavily emphasized the non discriminatory nature of their aid work in their propaganda, but in reality, many of the villages the RS s had rebuilt after the devastation had been transformed into miniature versions of the fabled Hindu state that the RSS seeks to impose on all of India. Strategically,

this should look familiar to us now. It's essentially a fascist form of prefigurative politics. The RSS used an earthquake to build the structure of the new Hindu society in the shell of the old. The BJP's dominance over Indian politics while led by a member of the RSS, and the brutal crackdowns body carried out in Kashmir our bloody

testament to the success of their strategy. Christian fundamentalist organizations have also been extremely effective and utilizing their own form of routing profigurative politics, so in a somewhat different way. In the RSS, their new world is defined above all by theocratic patriarchal authoritarianism. Like the radicals that occupy the religious right was operating off the form of contagian theory, theory that exposure to their social organizations and forms would

essentially be contagious and spread. But the Christian rights preferred form as the patriarchal family, which serves as a microcosm of the kind of hierarchy and patriarchal violence that dominate their long dreamed of theocratic society. The Christian Right would instill these values into their children and send them off into the world to propagate their ideology. Ettinger, an expert on the Christian Right, wrote this about the second phase

of the strategy. In several church leaders came up with a new approach, identifying seven spheres of culture to focus on one after another to try to bring about the lasting change and have a significant impact on the superstructure of American culture. Lauren Cunningham, founder of Youth with the Mission, a Christian missionary group coordinating international and national mission church for young Christians, describes these seven areas as such, these

are the areas you can go on as missionaries. Here they are first, it's the institution set up by God. First the family. After the family was the church or the people of God. The third was the area of school or education. The fourth was media public communication in all forms printed in electronic. The fifth was what I call celebration, the arts, entertainment, sports, where you celebrate within a culture. The six would be the whole area of

the economy, which starts with innovation and science. And technology, productivity, sales and service. The whole area. We often call it business, but we leave out something. We leave out the scientific part which actually raises the wealth of the world, anything new like making sand and chips for a microchip that increases wealth in the world. And then of course prediction, sales and service helps to spread the wealth. And so

the last area was the area of government. This is a need encapsulation of the rights p Refigurative politics start first with the family, and then with the church. Then reshaped school and education and mass media in their image, and from there you can begin to take the entire economy. Churches have also long used aid programs to proselytize and also expand their control over the population, which becomes dependent

on their aid. In the places where the left has failed to provide for their community, the far right has stepped in and has been able to rapidly and effectively reshape the political landscape. This does not mean, however, that they can't be beaten. Cooperation Jackson has offered one of the most powerful visions of dual power in the modern US. A product of the New African People's Organization and the

Malcolm X grassroots movements Jackson Cush Plan Cooperation. Jackson has put forward a radical and democratic bottle of dual power with the aim of turning over control of the land and the means of production into Jackson's black working class and allowing it to achieve its own self determination corporation.

Jackson has formed mutual Aid Networks, started an incubated program to help workers cooperatives get off the ground, and formed a community land trust that purchases abandoned buildings in Jackson

and turns them over to the community. They've also somewhat unusually wound up engaged in the electoral process after the untimely death of Ally and Jackson Mayor Choqua la Boomba, which led to the election of his son Choqua at La Bomba, displaced the movement in a somewhat awkward position of having allies, even if constrained by the realities of state power in the state itself. But Paul Politics in the real world is never as clean as the models

we create to describe it. It is only in our ability to adapt the changing conditions of struggle while maintaining our political principles that we can build the new world in the shell of the old and we can build it. The question simply, will we? It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media or more podcasts from cool Zone Media. Visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for it could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.