What's wrong with the radical critique of the People's Climate March →

Jonathan Smucker and Michael Premo:

In the days leading up to these mobilizations, a few critics on the left framed a stark dichotomy between these two kinds of actions. The PCM was cast as a depoliticized, corporate-friendly sellout, in contrast to more militant direct action, which Flood Wall Street soon emerged to organize. Chris Hedges, for example, called the PCM "the last gasp of climate change liberals," and argued that the real resistance would come afterward "from those willing to breach police barricades." Resistance, according to Hedges, can only be effective "when we turn from a liberal agenda of reform to embrace a radical agenda of revolt." Likewise, Arun Gupta accused PCM of spending too much money on subway advertisements and wondered how much political value a march can have when mainstream politicians and other elites felt comfortable enough to march in it.

Surely there are critiques to be made of last week's mobilization—there is always room for improvement. But last Sunday's march was an important step toward building a popular movement for climate justice, which, in turn, is a necessary condition for more radical actions—like the ones FWS organized. The dichotomy between the PCM and FWS is a false one. What the world saw last week in New York was a vibrant movement ecosystem in which a broad mobilization and its radical edges engaged in a critical interplay.

What Hedges overlooks is how easily direct acts of revolt can be dismissed or repressed, if they are carried out by a small number of people who are not visibly tied to a broader social base. This is why Flood Wall Street's mobilization in relation to the PCM was so vital. To grasp this relationship requires us to shed the dichotomous thinking that pits this vs. that and us vs. them—too often extended to even our closest allies—and that limits our options to the absurdity of a multiple choice test.

Even if we are partial to the escalated tactics of Flood Wall Street, it is clear that the efforts and resources that poured into the PCM literally set the stage for a radical edge to then move further. Leading the radical edge was the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), a collaborative of over 35 community-based and movement support organizations uniting frontline communities. CJA put out a call to action that accomplished several important things. First, it inserted a deeper structural analysis into the mobilization, both naming corporate profit and power as culprit and articulating how different communities—indigenous peoples, people of color, and working-class whites, for example—are disproportionately impacted. Second, CJA called for nonviolent tactical escalation. Indeed, Flood Wall Street was initiated in response to this call. Third, the call helped build Sunday's massive march by encouraging CJA's social bases and allies to attend the march and organize delegations. By insisting that the people who are affected by the climate crisis should be involved in the solutions, CJA positively altered the composition, framing, and narrative of the march.

Are you trying to build a mass movement or a clubhouse?