Celebrate People's History & Build Popular Power

I didn't vote for Obama!

I haven't seen this t-shirt for sale anywhere, and I wouldn't buy one even if I could.

I didn't vote for Obama, but I'm stoked that he won. And the world is stoked that he won, and who but a complete sourpuss would go around trying to make enemies out of potential friends by telling everyone they shouldn't believe Obama's rhetoric?

They shouldn't, but who am I to say it? In this case Kafka might well have said, "In the battle between yourself and the world, support the world."

In this spirit, I have enthusiastically endorsed a call for the Celebrate People's History & Build Popular Power Bloc to take place Jan. 20, 2009 in Washington, D.C., to coincide with the inauguration. The spirit of communion expressed therein is exactly what the radical left should embrace at this moment.

Here are the right-on "points of unity" from the document:

– We believe that human freedom and happiness would be best guaranteed by a society based on principles of self-organization, voluntary association, egalitarianism, and mutual aid. And thus, we reject all forms of social relations premised on systemic violence and hierarchy, such as the state, capitalism, and white supremacy.

– On January 20, we will actively seek to cooperate with as well as support anyone who is working to create a more liberatory world, and in fact, to learn from them and each other.

– We will gather as a bloc, unmasked and with open arms, respecting the celebratory spirit of the day—presence rather than protest—and will encourage others who want to honor social struggles from below to join us.

This document turned up in Anarchist news dot org and boy did the commenters hate it. (One of them had a problem with the no masks thing.)

Happily, I am the kind of Anarchist who believes in building unity, instead of the kind who likes breaking windows. Don't smash the state, surpass it.