While mostly white “leftists” were inventing strategies based on missing analysis, there was an organization in the city doing all of this better: Community Movement Builders.

A critical appraisal of recent struggles in Atlanta

  • a_fanonist_hexagon [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    No, the first section of the article is criticizing the DSA and DARC for "trying to radicalize people" by leading them in what they knew would become a failed civic action, to show the need for more radical change. But once the civic action failed, the people who had been roped into that were demoralized rather than hungry for a more radical action, showing that strategy to be a failure.

    This was of course predictable, and indeed it was predicted. A member of the Democratic Socialists of America’s local Steering Committee, told a reporter at an August protest outside City Hall, that DSA thought the measure would pass. “We just believe that Councilwoman Shephard isn’t actually listening to her own constituents, and she is doing what she wants to do to support the Atlanta Police Foundation’s funders.” For some organizers, the obstinance of local officials was more than just likely, it was necessary. A former member of a local organization called Defund Atlanta Police Department, Refund Communities (DARC), Jesse Pratt López, stated in a recent interview that the defeat came as no surprise. It was, in fact, the very reaction the coalition had built their strategy around. According to Pratt López, the goal was to radicalize the masses by leading them through a futile civic exercise, thereby catalyzing a more militant movement against the project. Following the vote, however, rather than picking up steam the first iteration of the movement to Stop Cop City began to fissure.

    • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      No, the first section of the article is criticizing the DSA and DARC for “trying to radicalize people” by leading them in what they knew would become a failed civic action, to show the need for more radical change. But once the civic action failed, the people who had been roped into that were demoralized rather than hungry for a more radical action, showing that strategy to be a failure.

      Damn, it turns out most people don't like joining orgs that loses all the time. Something something defeat is an orphan.

    • Dimmer06 [he/him,comrade/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      How is this distinct from CMB's strategy? Is it just that the DSA is more transparent that the masses aren't organized or militant enough to actually fight this?

      • a_fanonist_hexagon [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        From the relevant part of the article

        **CMB is based in a neighborhood known as Pittsburgh, where the APF is currently building three homes under the auspices of its “Secure Neighborhoods” program. ** The group is loosely modeled on the Black Panther Party’s community outreach programs. They teach adult literacy and political education classes, organize community gardens, host lectures on various topics and otherwise defend the community’s interests. As the struggle against Cop City has progressed, CMB’s involvement has increasingly become showing up to do media damage control for the latest mess their white “comrades” have made. They have done an admirable job of this, somehow managing to not directly criticize their “allies” in public. This says a lot, both about their organizational discipline and the quality of the help they’ve had in the fight.

        So CMB is doing political education, adult literacy, and other programs in the neighborhoods being occupied by police. That's quite distinct from the DSA strategy in major ways.