Ben Barker’s “Imagine a Left”
Excerpt, editing by
Carolyn Bennett
“To ignore politics or revile it,” Barker begins, “is to do
nothing more than sit on the sidelines as society unfolds.” But whether or not we
participate, decisions will be made; and we have two choices:
We
can concede power over our lives to the powerful; or
We
can take that power back for our communities and landmasses.
Politics
“Politics is not the political system.”
From the most global to the most intimate, the real meaning
of the political is that which shapes the world we live in; that which
determines who has power and who doesn’t, who has wealth and who doesn’t, who
eats and who doesn’t ─ this is the real meaning of the political.
From the Latin politicus,
the term means “of, for, or relating to the citizen” [Merriam Webster defines
it “the total complex of relations between people living in society”]. That
means therefore that politics concerns all of us; it is and should be important
to all of us.
The Left
Nonexistent in the United States of America, the Left is also
more than what is seen and heard in the noise of contemporary leanings, thought
and action. In its original and most honest meaning, Barker points out, “The Left
is an opposition to the ruling class.
Not a loyalty to it. Not an indifference to it. Not even a
hatred of it ─ [the Left] is an opposition. “And in our case, he says, “it
means an opposition to capitalism. This is why there is no Left in America.
This is why we so desperately need one.”
Present void
In the absence of any meaningful political opposition to
join, potential activists diverge into the benign, the fringe, the bizarre;
each heading in a unique direction but never one that leads to the society’s
transformation.
Some remain at Center, wanting to take from the established
Left and the established Right to find bipartisan solutions; “but bipartisanism
is itself the problem: Democrats and Republicans are far more alike than different.
The only real political party in the United States is the capitalist party” and
those conspiring against us are not “‘the new world order’” but “multi-national
corporations.”
Fill void
“The task before us, Barker says, “is to rebuild a home for [revolutionary]
Leftists.” Make the Left the common-sense avenue for resistance. Be a reminder
that the political is important; be a reminder that the world can be changed,
that there is an organized opposition capable of making that happen.
Instead
of being one end of a spectrum, one pillar of the status quo, what if the Left “could
sink the spectrum, topple the pillars?
What
if the real meaning of the Left is a culture of resistance: a fiery populist
radicalism potent enough to shake the power elite with even the smallest dose?
“Our energy is diffuse but vast among pools of the
disenfranchised and it is up to us to rescue our opposition from the status quo
of the ruling class, where it became (in words of Chris Hedges) ‘fearful,
timid, and ineffectual [creating] an ideological vacuum on the left and ceding
the language of rebellion to the far right.’”
It is impossible to say exactly what an actual Left would
look like in contemporary America and the project toward transformation won’t
be easy. “We won’t always agree but our debates could be held behind the shared
banner: our unwavering Leftist vision of opposition to the ruling class.
There’s a chance it won’t work but right now that ruling class is driving [the]
world to ruin.” Establishing the Left that is capable of arresting this erosion
once and for all is a chance worth taking, Barker concludes.
A
Left worth the name is less a sold-out party line and more a grassroots
revolutionary force of the kind we’ve not seen for far too long.
No
matter what we want to call that force, now is the time to build it again
Sources and notes
“Beautiful Justice: Imagine a Left” by Ben Barker, Deep
Green Resistance Wisconsin, December 1, 2013, DGR News Services, http://dgrnewsservice.org/2013/12/01/beautiful-justice-imagine-a-left/
Ben Barker is a writer and community organizer from West
Bend, Wisconsin, and a member of Deep Green Resistance, writing a monthly
column “Beautiful Justice.” Barker is also writing a book “about toxic
qualities of radical subcultures and the need to build a vibrant culture of
resistance.”
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