Vince Emanuele is a writer, activist, and combat veteran who currently lives in Michigan City, Indiana, where he and Sergio Kochergin run a community-cultural space called P.A.R.C. – Politics Art Roots Culture. In 2006, Vince refused a third deployment to Iraq, left the United States Marines Corps, and joined the antiwar movement, working with antiwar military veterans and activists around the globe, including Iraqi and Afghan refugees.
Since then, he has spent the past 14 years working with a wide range of left wing political movements, including labor campaigns, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, local environmental campaigns, the Standing Rock Occupation, anti-prison campaigns, cultural projects, and the Bernie 2020 campaign.
This piece, republished from Counterpunch, explores the current uprising against police brutality in the context of the struggle against capitalism and asks: what are the most effective forms of struggle going forward? Join the conversation in the comments section.
“We fought a military war; our opponents fought a political one. We sought physical attrition; our opponents aimed for our psychological exhaustion. In the process we lost sight of one of the cardinal maxims of guerrilla war: the guerrilla wins if he does not lose. The conventional army loses if it does not win.”
— Henry Kissinger
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
— Sun Tzu
Over the past several weeks, hundreds of thousands of Americans have taken to the streets in the wake of George Floyd’s hideous murder. Police stations have been commandeered and torched, corporate stores destroyed and set ablaze. In Seattle, people have constructed the ‘Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,’ otherwise known as CHAZ, which encompasses several city blocks, a police station, apartments, and storefronts. Protests and actions ranging from nonviolent marches to small-scale rebellions and uprisings have taken place in over 2,000 cities across the United States.
Before the uprisings, the U.S. was crumbling under the weight of its bloated empire, vicious economic system, and ossified political institutions. Not only has Trump’s response to the pandemic been criminal, to say the least, the political system at every level has failed to respond to the crisis.
The U.S. has been exposed as a failed state.
GOP Senators wheel and deal stocks, including ‘Human Capital Stock,’ as White House adviser Kevin Hassett put it. Meanwhile, Democrats respond to the current crisis with half-measures and symbolic (and absurd) acts of solidarity. So far, the pandemic, which has killed over 115,000 Americans, accounting for 25% of the world’s total deaths due to COVID-19 (the U.S. has only 5% of the world’s total population), continues to spread like wildfire, yet most of the country has gone back to business as usual. Prior to the pandemic, over 140 million Americans lived in poverty.
Now, with 40 million additional Americans out of work, with no end to the pandemic or job prospects in sight, those numbers have and will continue to increase dramatically. Millions of Americans are incapable of paying their bills; tens of millions endure mounting student loan, credit card, and personal debt; and hundreds of thousands face evictions in the coming weeks. At the same time, Wall Street loots trillions from the Treasury and Federal Reserve.
From the very beginning of the pandemic and economic crisis, the state has refused to enact even small-scale economic measures or social programs that would benefit poor and working class people. As a result, tens of millions remain jobless, with no hope in sight. On July 31st, the CARES Act provision that provides an extra $600 a week to Americans receiving unemployment benefits will expire.
People are tired, angry, and rightly so.
Unsurprisingly, many corporate media commentators suggest that systemic racism and policing are the driving factors of the current wave of protests and rebellions. Without doubt, those are the issues that sparked our current ‘Movement Moment,’ but they’re not the only factors playing a role in the uprisings. Class is front and center, though ignored in mainstream political discourse, which seeks to frame everything through a racialized lens. If the corporate media spent some time in the streets, they’d understand that the uprisings have as much to do with class as they do about race.
Corporate Media Lags Behind
During the initial days of the Minneapolis Uprisings, the independent media outfit Unicorn Riot (UR), which describes itself as a “decentralized, educational non-profit media organization of artists and journalists,” was my preferred outlet for on the ground reporting. Journalists at UR don’t necessarily provide commentary as much as they document events in real-time. Outlets such as UR report directly from the streets, with the people, long before or after the corporate media outlets arrive or leave. Young people appreciate and trust UR (UR started during the Standing Rock protests), so they’re given access to moments and events that cable news journalists cover from miles away, if at all. While protesters were smashing up CNN’s headquarters in Atlanta, UR was documenting those actions on the ground, talking to people in the street (CNN commentators were hiding in their studio bunkers high above the streets, shocked that non-Trump supporters also hate their guts).
It’s hard to downplay what Unicorn Riot does: namely, report from streets and document what’s happening from Ground Zero without commercial breaks or talking heads to provide out of touch commentary. Corporate media outlets lack legitimacy. When they do show up to a protest or uprisings, they misinterpret or outright lie about what’s happening. UR, on the other hand, shows up, starts their livestream, and allows anyone and everyone to grab the mic and speak to those watching at home.
Their work is phenomenal and necessary.
At one point during their live broadcast, hundreds of thousands of people were watching the uprisings in real time, along with hundreds of thousands watching live on mediums such as TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. In Minneapolis, hundreds of protesters got on camera and spoke at length about the horrors of capitalism, why they’re angry (issues ranging from poverty to housing, gentrification, climate change, corruption, and wars), and why they were in the streets with such fervor (because they see no hope in existing political institutions). I haven’t seen any such interviews on corporate news outlets.
The uprisings do make one thing very clear: Americans under 35 years old are not getting their information or commentary from traditional news sources such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, or even cable channels such as CNN or MSNBC. The Old Guard was caught flat-footed. Professional class liberals, major NGOs, prominent progressive and leftwing thinkers and writers admit they were shocked at the scale of the uprisings. This isn’t surprising. Professional class commentators live in a different world, socially, culturally, and economically, than the younger generation. And that gap only widens with time.
Poor and working class teenagers and Americans in their 20s, regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender, receive most of their news and information, for better or worse, via social media and various other digital platforms/modes (podcasts, videos, memes) — those are the entities shaping young peoples’ consciousness and ideologies. Young Americans are much more sophisticated than many older people assume. The recent wave of protests and uprisings show that to be the case. Likewise, poor and working class Americans are much angrier than the professional class could possibly understand. There’s an entire underbelly of seething anger and resentment just beneath the surface of our society: the 50% of Americans who don’t vote
Their voices are now heard loud and clear. Bernie’s campaign asked, “Where are the young people?” They’re in the streets, Bernie. And they’re more radical than you. And their voices will only grow angrier with time, as they realize the current government is incapable of responding to their needs and that Wall Street would rather see them die than enjoy healthcare or UBI. The younger generation, as always, is way ahead of the eight ball with their demand to ‘defund the police.’
Defund the Police
Right now, activists and organizers throughout the U.S. are debating what it means to ‘defund the police.’ This demand is very strategic, and for many reasons. Not only does it allow for a conversation about the redistribution of material resources, it also responds to the demands of those on the ground. For better or worse, this is the demand that organically arose within the context of our current struggle. In other words, leftists can choose to ignore or ridicule this demand (I’ve seen both), or they can respond to popular demands and find strategic ways to connect those demands to broader class issues and larger institutional change. If leftwing organizers and intellectuals are interested in meeting people where they’re at, but not leaving them there, it would be wise to take the latter approach.
Since others have written at length about the details about what it would mean to ‘defund the police,’ there’s no need to rehash those points, though the details are interesting and important. Leftists who shrug off this demand for not going far enough, or not encompassing enough class politics, are missing the boat in terms of how powerful this demand could potentially prove to be.
Capitalism has three primary weapons: 1) capital itself, which can engage in capital strikes, divestment, capital flight, and broader forms of economic warfare, 2) the police, who break strikes, arrest protesters, and protect private property, and 3) the military, who also protect property and break strikes, but whose primary function is to express power on an international scale, securing and opening new markets, protecting business interests abroad, and so on.
Defunding the police not only saves black, Latinx, and poor white lives, it also takes away one of capitalism’s primary weapons.
Without overfunded and highly militarized police forces, it becomes much more difficult for the state to protect fossil fuel infrastructure, banks, government buildings, corporate headquarters, and a host of other potential targets. Nonviolent protesters would no longer face the wrath of racist and militarized police departments. Communities would no longer live in fear of being pulled over, harassed, arrested, tortured, or killed by the cops.
Defunding the police also provides an opportunity to dismantle one of America’s favorite sacred cows. The fact that the majority of Americans side with the protesters is a profound ideological, political, and cultural shift. The police, much like the military, regularly rank in the top five in terms of the jobs and institutions most respected in U.S. society. Dismantling the police is a significant step toward eventually dismantling the U.S. Empire. Redistributing funds from police departments to social programs could serve as an example and model for how to proceed with defunding the military, the logical next step. Since the police have limited funds (the NYPD’s operating budget for 2020 is $5.6 billion), the only way to actually meet the needs of poor and working class people will be through a radical defunding of the military, coupled with the nationalization of critical industries, and a broader redistribution of wealth from corporations and the rich to social programs and the poor.
Defund the Military
The U.S. Empire operates 800-1,000 military bases stretched across the globe. The U.S. ‘Defense Budget’ for 2020 is $721 billion, but if we tally the cost of maintaining its nuclear stockpile, intelligence/spy agencies, Veterans Affairs budget, homeland security budget, international-affairs budget, and its share of the national debt, the total cost of maintaining the U.S. Empire in 2019, according to William D. Hartung and Mandy Smithberger, was $1.25 trillion. Without question, a tremendous amount of resources could be redistributed by defunding and dismantling the military. According to the National Priorities Project, the $712 billion the U.S. spent in 2018 to maintain its empire could have provided 49 million Americans monthly relief payments of $1,200 for one year, or 20 billion COVID-19 tests for one year, or 209 billion N-95 respirator masks for one year, or 9 million elementary school teacher salaries for one year, or 20 million Head Start slots for four years, or 300 million children receiving low-income healthcare for one year.
Overall, the total cost of Uncle Sam’s post-9/11 ‘War on Terror’ comes to $6.4 trillion, money that could’ve been used to pay off the $4 trillion in outstanding consumer debt Americans suffer. Aside from the potential social and economic benefits, it’s equally important to note the massive amount of death, pain, and suffering that would be prevented by dismantling the U.S. Empire, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today,” as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. noted over 50 years ago. Since King’s assassination, millions have died as a result of U.S. militarism, with tens of millions forced from their homes and turned into refugees.
Yes, there’s much to gain from dismantling the empire, not the least of which being America’s soul.
Seeing as more and more Americans are beginning to understand that the primary task of police forces within the U.S. is to protect property and repress popular rebellion, it’s a great time to connect the same critique to the U.S. Empire, which performs the same function on the international stage. The U.S. Empire crushes international revolts and anyone who dares to dream of alternatives to global capitalism and so-called ‘American values.’ Doing so, however, would require activists to fundamentally challenge U.S. nationalism, an inherent component of the imperial project, both at home and abroad. Even amongst poor Americans, there remains a sense that Uncle Sam is a force for good in the world, and that the U.S. military ‘protects our freedoms.’ Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
The concept of American Exceptionalism must be challenged head-on if we hope to transition to defunding the U.S. Empire. It’s not surprising that the U.S. government has deliberately hidden not only the financial cost of war, but the images, pictures, and stories of its post-9/11 wars. After all, most Americans would be quite upset if they saw the death and carnage unleashed in their name, with their tax dollars. Important distinctions exist between the military and police, as my friend and former Army Ranger, Graham Clumpner put it:
“The U.S. military doesn’t have the same relationship with Americans as police departments do. Americans interact with cops all the time, and usually those interactions are bad. Cops also sign up for careers. Military personnel sign up for 2-6 year contracts, with the overwhelming majority leaving after their first enlistment ends. The contradiction is that the military is much more powerful and destructive than domestic police forces, yet it’s much easier to organize dissent within the military than it is to organize dissent within police departments. U.S. history shows this to be true. GIs have mutinied throughout the history of this country, from the Revolutionary War and Civil War to the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. We should build on this tradition.”
If activists in the U.S. seek any level of partnership and solidarity with individuals inside existing repressive state institutions, they should look to the military before they look to the police.
Additionally, it remains unclear how the military would respond to a call for genuine Martial Law, whatever that may entail. Certainly, many active-duty troops and veterans are not motivated by the idea of patrolling the streets of America. In fact, “a majority of U.S. veterans believe the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were a mistake,” as recent polls show. An even larger majority of U.S. veterans are opposed to a potential war with Iran. Indeed, more and more U.S. troops understand they’re being asked to fight unwinnable, illegal, and immoral wars, and they’re sick and tired of it. That’s a good thing. Troop morale is low after 19 years of war and civil unrest at home. Antiwar activists should build on this momentum, which will require a new antiwar movement, one led by U.S. veterans, the families of U.S. veterans, and the primary victims of Uncle Sam’s wars: Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, Libyans, and so on.
Defund the Empire
Without the military and police at its disposal, the repressive arms of the state, American capitalism would be amputated, if not crippled. Political movements in the U.S. would greatly benefit, as would revolutionary political movements abroad. The cause of Internationalism would benefit. The planet would benefit, as would human beings in general. In short, there are countless upsides to dismantling the police and military.
Hell, why not extend the same treatment to the FBI, CIA, DEA, NSA, ICE, and a host of other repressive, violent, and inherently undemocratic agencies? Defund them all. After the police, military, and national security state is defunded, and their resources redistributed, why not defund the fossil fuel industry, Israel, Wall Street, the prison-industrial complex, and every other subsidy and corporate handout the state provides to entities?
Violence, Nonviolence, and Resistance to Capital
Discussions concerning violence and nonviolence always pop up during ‘Movement Moments.’ Usually, conversations about violence are overplayed, unhelpful, and totally detached from reality. This time, however, such conversations have entered mainstream political discourse for perfectly good reasons: Americans are engaging in more militant actions than at any point in recent memory. Police stations have been occupied, ransacked, and burnt to the ground. Government buildings have been stormed by leftwing activists and occupied by armed rightwing militias. Gun stores are empty. And Americans are stocking up on ammo. The situation in the U.S. is ripe for political violence.
Some on the left are actively promoting armed struggle, but the left in the U.S. isn’t prepared to engage in guerilla warfare against the military or the police, nor is the left prepared to face off against rightwing non-state actors. The left is disorganized, small, undisciplined, and fragmented. Even if the left generally agreed, which it doesn’t, that armed struggle is strategic, reasonable, or ideal, it wouldn’t matter because the left in the U.S. is simply incapable of waging an armed campaign against the military, police, or rightwing militias.
That said, coordinated, sustained, and dynamic nonviolent actions, including massive acts of civil disobedience, strikes, walkouts, and direct actions such as blockades, occupations, and various forms of sabotage could create a series of crises significant enough to bring the current regime to its knees, if not topple it. At this stage in the game, an overemphasis on weapons, self defense, and militant posturing could prove detrimental.
The U.S. military is far more fragile, unorganized, and ideologically incoherent than many Americans realize.
Even leftists have a view of the U.S. military as an omnipotent force capable of locking down the entire country, maintaining the empire abroad, and imposing martial law throughout the fifty states. Nothing could be further from the truth. According to the Department of Defense Manpower Data Center, “There were a total of 1.3 million active duty military and more than 800,000 reserve forces as of September 2017 . . . Total active duty personnel for the five armed services were approximately 472,000 for the Army, 319,000 for the Navy, 319,000 for the Air Force, 184,000 for the Marine Corps and 41,000 for the Coast Guard.” About 1.1 million Americans are in military reserve units, which only train periodically and lack the combat skills or experience to effectively engage in serious counterinsurgency efforts.
Remember, only a tiny fraction of soldiers (15%) and marines (12%) perform infantry functions — most active duty troops are ‘Personnel Other than Grunts,’ otherwise known as POGs. They drive trucks, fix vehicles, run supply warehouses, conduct logistical operations, set up communications networks, work on computers, answer phones, file paperwork, conduct ceremonies, and a host of other non-combat related tasks.
The U.S. military doesn’t actually have the manpower to keep the country locked down.
Sure, one could argue that the U.S. military has the capacity to carpet bomb the entire country and turn the landscape into rubble, true, but it’s not clear whether or not the military would actually respond to such orders, or initiate such actions, especially if massive numbers of Americans were engaged in nonviolent acts as opposed to offensive guerilla assaults. Again, if the left can effectively organize within the ranks of the military, the odds of such calamity decrease significantly. That’s why the work of groups such as About Face: Veterans Against War and Veterans For Peace is so important. Their efforts should be supported.
Right now, members of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and United Electrical workers’ union (UE) are organizing non-unionized workers in a wide-range of industries. Their efforts should also be bolstered and supported. Defunding the police and military, at best, allow us to amputate capitalism, but the ultimate goal is to decapitate capitalism, and the only way to do that is through highly coordinated actions that include massive numbers of people, particularly workers who have the ability to shut down business and bring society to a halt. It also requires a vision of what we want after capitalism (a topic for another day).
Students, mothers, nurses, teachers, the disabled, and unemployed have a role to play. Bus drivers, healthcare workers, retail, and restaurant workers as well. Workers in the most critical industries: railroads, trucking, warehouses, shipping, and factories, will play a vital role in determining how things play out over the coming months and years.
If the current wave of rebellions can result in long-lasting revolutionary organizations and institutions that operate coherently and cohesively with national and international movements, while building up bases of support at the local level through deep organizing efforts, there’s a serious opportunity for radical political change in the U.S. If not, it’s easy to see this entire wave of protests dying out, being stomped out, or morphing into a spectacle of violence utterly void of substance and detached from reasonable political ends. Now is not the time for posturing. Now is the time for deep organizing.
Vincent Emanuele is a writer and organizer born and raised in America’s Rust-Belt. A former US marine and Iraq War veteran, Vince refused orders for a third deployment in 2005 and immediately began working with the anti-war movement during the Bush years.
Vincent Emanuele is a writer and organizer born and raised in America’s Rust-Belt. A former US marine and Iraq War veteran, Vince refused orders for a third deployment in 2005 and immediately began working with the anti-war movement during the Bush years.
In the following excerpt from “Resistance Radio” with Derrick Jensen, Vince shares his thoughts regarding how discipline plays out an important role in activism and how to become disciplined by starting to make small but constant changes in our day-to-day activities.
Revolutionary Discipline
Vince Emanuele, with Derrick Jensen
[Starts: 1:08]
Vince Emanuele: [My friends] and I will often say things about simple day-to-day interactions. For instance when we are at a dinner, and a server walks up and, you know, to make eye contact and not to just keep eating if they drop something off at the table without acknowledging their presence, making sure that you hold doors for people, making sure that you are courteous with people. Those things for me on a smaller level operate as form of discipline that should carry over to other forms.
So let’s bring this back to military training (…) let’s put it this way: you don’t go into boot camp on day one or week one and start patrolling with a weapon in your hand.
Discipline in Small Actions
In fact, as an infantry soldier or Marine, and I’ll speak from my personal experience, you don’t really do that until sixteen weeks of training. You actually sit in a formation with a group of people with weapons, let alone live ammunition which might only happen once over the course of twenty-four weeks of training. So what do they start you with first? Can you stand up straight? And I don’t mean to sound ableist when I say some of these things, I just wanna throw that out there, but, you know, can you stand there on the line? Can you keep a straight face? Can you keep your hands and your knuckles at the seam of your pants? Can you make your bed or what we call a rack? Can you fold your socks? Can you have everything in line? Can you have your footlocker organized? Can you follow simple commands like “yes, sir” after certain commands, or kill after other commands? Will you move to the right or to the left when you are given a command to do so?
Now, that is an extreme example and it is obviously in a very destructive institution particularly here in the Unites States, but I think that you could take a lot of those lessons and the fundamentals which for me mean starting off very small with people. So, if you can’t be disciplined enough to get up and at least make your bed, at least maybe get something healthy to eat if you can afford it, if you have access to it. Making little schedules for yourself, making sure that you are living up to your commitments, and just doing the smaller things then I think after weeks and weeks of training, finally, as I was explaining to my neighbor who didn’t know this the other day, in Marine Corps Boot Camp you don’t shoot a weapon until, I think, week eleven of a thirteen-week boot camp. So, you’re doing your training and learning discipline for eleven weeks before the United States Marine Corps even gives you a weapon to fire.
So, when I think of resistance movements, when I think of even say non-violent direct actions groups who are performing very illegal actions but, say, in a non-violent action, but who still face serious repercussions, I think to myself we need activists and organizations who are disciplined on the same level, and maybe not in the same manner, obviously, but I do think some of those techniques and some of the long view that, you know, we are not just gonna discipline people in the course of a weekend workshop or we’re not gonna just discipline people, even if you could spend a week with someone, I mean, we’re talking about having people for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 16 weeks before you can trust them enough ,and that’s under great duress and stress for those 16 weeks just to get people to the point where they can walk down a street together, and know what to do when someone fires on them.
I don’t want to overly stress that, I don’t want to like people who are thinking out there: “Gee, I just want my group to be a little more disciplined “or “I just wanna find some discipline for myself to do that.” That’s the ideal I would say, and I would say that’s a model, but in any small way and I think that extends to day to day courtesies looking at someone when they’re talking to you – listening someone who’s talking to you, to be there in the moment, to pay attention to what you’re doing, and what you’re saying, you know, the way you’re coming across to people. I think that’s a very important thing, and I think that just starting with those smalls things like, hell, can I do half an hour of working out today? I don’t really like to read, but I now that reading is very good for me, I know my brain is a muscle; I need to work it, can I at least read half hour or 45 minutes a day? Just those little things I think if you stay with them long enough, and if you do them, I think they’ll have a profound impact on your life I think there’s no question about that.
Derrick Jensen : I think this is extremely important; the importance of this cannot be…
Discipline and Burnout
Vince: Oh, I was going to say… the other day I saw this clip from Oliver Stone, and it was a really good clip about his movies and I don’t even know him as a person, so if he’s an asshole person I apologize. I’m just with what he said the other day, it was the National Writers Guild Awards and the gist of what he said towards the end, and I’m paraphrasing, but he was like “look, I’ve been fighting this people who make war my entire life, and most of the time you’re going to get your ass kicked, you’re gonna get insulted, there’s people who are gonna make threats against you, and there’s gonna be even people who flatter you but, at the end of the day, if you can stay in course, and if you believe in what you’re saying then you can make a difference.”
There’s been a lot of people there over the years, Sergio and I talk about this very regularly, I would say 90 to 95 percent of people that I started doing activist work with no longer do the kind of activist work that Sergio and I are still engaged with. They might be involved in smaller level which is still good, they might be doing artistic work, which is all good, all that stuff is good, but in terms on being of the same level we were at 22, thinking we can radically change society, and we are not going to deviate from these principles, there’s very few of us who’ve remained.
Now, some of that is the toxicity of the left, some of that is life can beat you down, some of that is we’re living in one of the most fucked up economic periods on US history, and all this other stuff, I mean, all that’s true, but another large part of that is, and this from seeing people at least anecdotally, and I’d like to see a study on this, but just how many people sort of fell away because they couldn’t maintain certain level of discipline, like I have it in my head that this is what I’m doing for the rest of my life.
I’m not just blowing smoke up your ass. I’m not just saying that at the pub because we’re having a few beers. I’m not just saying that to make you happy. I’m not just saying that because that’s what I think I wanna hear. But I have seriously sat back and meditated and thought to myself… Okay, maybe meditation is the wrong word because I’m not really into some of those things, that’s another story, nonetheless sat there and reflected and thought to yourself “Is this what I’m seriously all about and why?” ‘cause it better not be for, you know, a career or book deals or to get your name in the newspaper or to appear in radio programs.
If it’s for those reasons you’re in the wrong fucking line of business, and I don’t wanna be around you and, number two, you’re gonna fall away anyway because this work, as most people who do it know, it is very difficult, it is time-consuming and it is extremely stressful, and it can beat you down. It is very, on the flip-side, very rewarding, you meet amazing people, you get to participate in very meaningful activities, you don’t have to look back as many of my friends are doing in their early 30s and asking: “God! What the hell did I do with my 20s?” or “God, what the hell did I do in the last decade?” I haven’t asked that question.
Discipline and Self-Critique
I mean are there things I would have done better? Of course, I’m not crazy, there’s plenty of things. For me part of being disciplined is not that you’re going to be always this perfect person, it’s that you’re gonna notice when you start screwing up. I know I need to get back into shape right now, I know that’s the case, I’m not in the kind of shape I need to be in. So what’s that gonna require? That’s gonna require me clamping down sort of on myself. So, you know, I just think little things like that, even showing up to stuff that sometimes you don’t want to. You know, for the activists who are out there and so on, you know, and I have to be reminded of this when I watch those old video clips, and I see someone -I need to find her name- like the woman from the Mississippi Freedom Party who was telling people, just regular rally folks dressed like they’re going to church: “you’re gonna have to put your lives on the line.” That kind of stuff reminds me, that kind of stuff inspires me, you know.
The other day when I saw clips of disabled people, people who are terminally ill being dragged out of Senator’s offices just because they need their Medicaid and their health care, that stuff not only enrages me, those images and those kinds of actions inspire me, and how can you not be the least bit inspired? How can I look to someone who is terminally ill in a god damned wheel chair and I’m sitting at home going “Man! I really don’t know if I want to go to this meeting tonight” or “I really don’t know if I want to go to this action next week” or whatever.
Now, sometimes you have to take a break so you don’t burn out, but a lot of times I think we make a lot of excuses for people, and I actually think it’s insulting. It’s not like we understand these are systemic issues, but I have had people tell me: “well, you know, they’re poor immigrants, like we can’t expect them to stand up” and I’m like “Do you understand how patronizing that is? Do you understand how offensive that is? You think there aren’t tons of immigrant families who are already standing up? How about we highlight their work, how about we use them as an example and not, you know, sit back with this goofy mentality go ‘Oh, well, you know, we can’t expect them to stand up, they’re in a position.’” It’s like no, I don’t think we should ever do that, I don’t think that’s what good organizers are, I don’t think that’s what good leaders, intellectual, cultural, political leaders do.
I think they say “hey, I understand your situation, maybe I’m even in your situation, but regardless I’m here to walk with, to work with you hand in hand and this is what we are going to do.” I’m never going to say “oh, well, you know, it’s a bad systemic problem and I don’t really expect you to do much about it because you’re in this terrible state.” I think of other situations, I think if you can resist slavery, I mean abolitionists, I mean, I just think those things fire me up. Because I think, “Man! If this people could do what they did under those circumstances, then, dammit, I can’t make excuses for myself, and I can’t run away and I can’t makes excuses for other people.” People need to take breaks, I understand that, but at the end of the day we need to be holding up these people as examples, we don’t need to be sitting back.
You know, “Derrick, he has health problems so you know I don’t expect him to write that much, I don’t expect him to do anything.” I mean, yeah, I mean a lot of us have health problems in to varying degrees we can all put in what we could put in, but I don’t think all of us including myself need people other than just ourselves to push us, and that’s why I love people like Sergio or my dad or my mom like, “hey, Vince, you know, you could be doing a little more. Hey, you could help this out more.” That to me is real friendship, it’s not just sitting there going, “Oh, Derrick, you’re the greatest person in the world and you don’t do anything wrong.” It’s like, hey, if we spend enough time around each other where we’re comfortable enough to have those conversations, that’s what good activism is, that’s what good organizing is. I mean, building trust, I think, also includes critiques and as long as they’re done with solidarity in mind and with you know good intentions, I think that’s what it’s all about I mean to me should always be critiquing and proving as much as we can ‘cause obviously we are not winning with what we’re doing now.
Discipline and Commitment
Derrick: Well we have about, we have about, oh Gosh, five or six minutes left and there’s, I wanted, we’ll save self-defense for another time.
Vince: Okay * laughs.* I’m sorry, I’ve been rambling…
Derrick: No, no, no, this is perfect, this is great, this is wonderful and another thing that you brought up that I also just want to say, but I want to save for another time because I know you’re gonna have a lot of great things to say about it is something else that’s very clear in the military, at least from reading military history which is all I’ve ever done, if there’s a war that you want to win. And I’m reading a book right now. I’m going back up and I’m going to ramble for a minute
Vince: Yeah!
Derrick: One thing having to do with the discipline: one reason I have so many books out is, surprisingly enough, because I write, you know. That’s it. It’s a cliché, but my mother’s grandmother used to say all the time “inch by inch life’s a cinch.” And so, I don’t write whole books. Like today, I have typed in edits I made, today it was 40-some pages. And I did edits over the previous three or four days of about 90 pages, and now I’m gonna print those out, I’m gonna read it again tonight, and then tomorrow I will type in those changes, and then I’m done with that 90 pages. I mean, obviously I’d written them in the first place, but the point is I do work every day.
Another thing I want to say about that, and it has to do with the whole reading thing, is one of the smartest things I did when I was a teenager is that I decided that every night, before I went to bed, I would read 10 pages of a book that was good for me, that I would never get through otherwise, and it’s pretty extraordinary that if you do 10 pages every night, which is a piece of cake, then in a year you got 3,600 pages, and that’s a bunch of books.
So I’ve read Oswald Spengler that way, the first one I ever read was Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and then I was like 20, I read all of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and it’s not a big deal it was just 10 pages a night, slow but sure, and why am I bringing all this up? Oh, the reason I’m bringing all this up is because right now I’m reading a book called “Thunder on Dnepr” (16:16) which is about the Russian defense against Operation Barbarossa when the Germans Invaded in World War II. There was a question asked early on and I will say this once, but I want to ask you this question for an entire interview sometime in the future, early on the book they’re saying a military maxim is “don’t do what you enemy expects” and I read that and I don’t really 100 percent agree with that, because if you have a very defensible position and your enemy expects you defend it you might as well if it’s defensible, if it’s the best place, instead the question I’m interested in is what does your enemy most fear? And then do that, and I asked this on Facebook I asked just people in general and it was so interesting because the responses by many of the people where things like building an alternative currency, not spending money, and there was one person who said ‘destroy the transportation infrastructure that allows the movement of resources’ and I clicked on the guy and he was ex –military.
Vince: *laughs* Yeah, that’s not surprising!
Discipline and Tenacity
Derrick: So, at some point, and I realize this the total crap thing to do in this interview when we have like one minute left, I would like for you, if you don’t mind, to think about that question, if you were in power, what you would most fear? And I would love to interview you again in the future on that question
Vince: Right on, I would love to do it
Derrick: So far as settling down today, we can’t really talk about self-defense ‘cause we only have like two minutes.
Vince: Well, there’s a quote I can give that I think encompass everything that we’re doing and it’s a good old ju-jitsu quote that it’s attributable to no one, nobody knows where it came from and the quote is very simple or the saying is very simple, it’s simply: “a black belt is a white belt that never stopped coming to practice” and all that’s all the black belt is in jujitsu. Every single day or as many times as you can go. There’s people who get it in 8 years, there’s people who get it in 25 years, but the point is just to get up and do it and do it as most as you can, and show up when you can.
This conversation between Max Wilbert and Vince Emanuele covers mutual aid, organizing strategies, revolution versus reform, coronavirus, survival, the Iraq war, the crumbling of the United States, and more.
Vince Emanuele was born and raised in America’s Rust-Belt and lives in Michigan City, Indiana. In 2002, he joined the United States Marine Corps. In 2005, Vince refused orders for a third deployment and immediately began working with the antiwar movement. Today he works in Michigan City and is co-founder of a community space called PARC—Politics, Arts, Roots, Culture.
The Green Flame is a Deep Green Resistance podcast offering revolutionary analysis, skill sharing, and inspiration for the movement to save the planet by any means necessary. Our hosts are Max Wilbert and Jennifer Murnan.
Tonight, I attended a town hall meeting featuring John Zody, the utterly uninspiring and banal Chairman of the Indiana Democratic Party. The meeting was as informative and inspiring as it was frustrating and sad. Without doubt, the Indiana Democratic Party is in serious trouble. In a county that’s 48% people of color, less than five of the 65 folks in attendance were black or brown.
Honestly, I actually feel bad for the party and its die-hard supporters. That’s no bullshit. They’re so fractured and disorganized it’s almost unbelievable. For instance, the so-called leaders of the Lake County Democrats were too busy drinking Budweisers at the VFW bar to even pay attention to what most of their constituents were saying. That’s the level of respect the Democratic Party gives its people.
Mark Lopez, the top aide for Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-IN), spent the night walking around the room, making sly remarks under his breath, and shaking hands with the local drunks and criminals who operate the party at the county level. If you don’t know the history of the Democratic Party in Chicago or Lake County, Indiana, please, do some research.
At this point, I’m convinced that anyone who thinks they’re going to reform the Democratic Party is not only wrong, they are completely out of touch with reality. The Democratic Party resembles a walking zombie that doesn’t even realize it’s dead yet. That’s how bad tonight was, at least in terms of what people should expect for the future of the Indiana Democratic Party.
However, and this is a very important distinction, the people who attended tonight’s meeting, particularly the women in the room, had very interesting things to say about organization, values, vision and the future. They want a serious platform and they’re willing to work for it. They made tonight’s meeting worthwhile and interesting.
That being said, my frustration with the Left is limitless. To be clear, if the Left had its shit together, it could control entire swaths of this country, including places like Northwest Indiana. The people are ready. They want to organize. You know what I heard people say throughout tonight’s event? “How can we organize? How do we create grassroots organizations? Where are the tools and resources?”
In other words, the things that people were asking of Zody and the Democratic Party – resources, vision, money, manpower – should be provided by the Left. Those things will not come from traditional unions. In fact, as time moves along, I have less and less faith that organized labor will do a damn thing for the people of Indiana. After all, in 1962, Indiana was the third most unionized state in the country. Today, those unions are in shambles.
In many ways, unfortunately, they are part of the problem. The unions who operate in Indiana do not educate or organize their members, yet they badger those who voted for Trump. That’s not a winning strategy. I heard several people tonight talk about ignorant “hillbillies” and union members who “don’t get it.” In the meantime, instead of organizing their members and helping local community groups, unions in the Hoosier state wasted millions of dollars trying to elect centrist Democrats like Evan Bayh and John Gregg.
Undoubtedly, we need new institutions and we need to build them now. That’s the sort of work that gets me excited. And yet, I’m willing to work with local progressive Dems, for strategic reasons, but on our terms, not theirs. There is, for lack of a better term, a power vacuum in Northwest Indiana.
The Republican Party sure isn’t going to fill it. Black and brown people in the sate of Indiana aren’t going to all the sudden turn conservative. And after tonight, I’m more than convinced that the Democratic Party isn’t going to fill the gap. So, who, or what, will? That’s the question activists and organizers must answer, and soon.
Yes, right now, we have plenty of people in the streets. But these actions remind me of 2006-2008, when people were overwhelmingly opposed to the Bush regime. Yes, we were anti-Bush, but we never created alternatives to the Democrats or the major NGOs, many of whom continue to influence and/or control the major demonstrations taking place against Trump.
In many ways, I liken the Left’s current dilemma to someone thinking about getting back into good physical shape. You don’t go to the gym and expect to bench press 300lbs without years of laying a solid foundation. You don’t go to jiu jitsu practice expecting to successfully grapple black belts in your first couple years. These things take time.
We need to build a solid foundation and that becomes very difficult if we’re beholden to news cycles. My advice: stop watching the news. Stop paying attention to the day-to-day madness of the Trump regime. Sit back, read, think, reflect and learn. That’s the only way we’ll stop making the same mistakes we’ve made for decades.
People want to act, and that’s great. But if those actions aren’t tied to something larger, more substantive, they’ll be fruitless in the long-term. I fully understand everyone’s sense of urgency, but I’m starting to think that level of anxiety is extremely unhealthy and rather unproductive.
We need activists to operate with less emotions and urgency, and with more focus, which requires discipline, education and time. We don’t have time, but we can engender discipline and a radical political education.
Vincent Emanuele is a writer, journalist and activist who lives in Michigan City, Indiana. He hosts “Meditations and Molotovs” which airs every Monday @1:00pm(CST) on the Progressive Radio Network (prn.fm) and can be reached at vincent.emanuele333@gmail.com
