RefuseFascism.org Webinar: Andy Zee Remarks on December 14 #OUTNOW! Protests:

“...Disrupt all the thinking that keeps people accommodating to and complicit with this regime...”

December 9, 2019 | revcom.us

 

The following are edited remarks by Andy Zee toward the end of last week’s #OUTNOW! Webinar. He is responding in part to a question on the relationship between protests that are being called by various pro-impeachment organizations for the night before the House vote on impeachment and Refuse Fascism’s plan for December Disruptions. Here we are excerpting these remarks where he speaks about the mass protests demanding #OUTNOW on December 14. We have made edits for clarity and especially where he refers back to key points made earlier in the webinar.

AZ’s reply:

Let me just pose this: We need to really work hard over the next 10 days so that there are hundreds of people out in the big cities on the 14th. And I want to say a few things in a second about how we’re going to get those hundreds. I don’t know if we’re on track now to get them or not. We are aiming for a few thousand out on December 14 nationally.

But it might occur to someone: well, okay, but if that’s all you’re getting—that’s still not the hundreds of thousands of people, that’s not the tens of thousands of people and even millions that are going to be needed to get on track to drive out the regime.

As you said in your question, there may be more people out at the impeachment rallies than on December 14. I mean, there may or may not be. Actually, some of these impeachment rallies we’ve gone to expecting thousands of people, and we’ve found that we’re the only or most of the people there. That’s happened many times over the last couple of years. But let’s hope that that’s not the case now. I would love to be in a rally for the impeachment, you know, for Refuse Fascism to be there, and for there to actually be thousands of people. That would be fine.

So what difference does it make if we get hundreds of people out on December 14th? Well, it makes this difference: We’re bringing a message of how this regime could actually be driven out. We’re going out into the streets with what the problem is that people are actually facing, which is a fascist regime that has catastrophic implications for humanity. We’re going out there to bring forward people now who will become the backbone of an organization and movement that will be able to take this struggle where it needs to go. The thing that’s agonizing right now is that most of the people—and it’s what happens always—will initially take the course of least resistance. The problem, when you’re dealing with fascism, is that it can become too late, so we’re trying to both accelerate that process, but also when masses of people are ready to move, that there’s the organized capacity and understanding of how to actually cohere that into a movement that’s determined that the entire regime must go—and doesn’t settle at just making their point heard. Because our point will not count if fascism succeeds. These fascists will not say: Oh well, you guys made a good point back then but we won so why don’t you just come along. That’s not how these fascists are going to do, okay?

So you have to understand the importance of building December 14 is, first off, that things could happen in the world and particularly with the impeachment hearings this week and the protests could turn out to be very mass on the 14th. But if even they’re not, they have to be much larger than what we’ve done. So here’s where it comes down to: What do we need to do?

... People have raised what about going to invite other organizations? Earlier Sunsara Taylor read the names of organizations that people who were at the #OUTNOW! meetings are a part of. If you know people in those groups, if you know the leaders of those groups, go talk to them. Tell them they’re invited. They can speak at the rallies. #OUTNOW! is not something we’re trying to own. We’re trying to actually build a truly mass nonviolent sustained movement to remove a regime.

But don’t just be thinking about the traditional or the impeachment organizations. What about progressive synagogues, mosques, and churches? Are there plans in every city to go out to them? Do you know who the progressive congregations are in your city? Go talk to them. We have a religious task force they can connect with.

I know a lot of schools are now or will be in exam week in the colleges. Can we go out to them this week? Call people up. We’ve got to go organize. We do need the 250 people who came to the November 24 #OUTNOW! meetings to go out and organize. As for the impeachment groups, the different organizations who are trying to push the Democrats to fight harder and some to cheer lead them ... there are groups and many people who think that the Democrats conducted the impeachment hearings on too narrow grounds. They should be out on December 14.

We have to struggle hard for all kinds of people to do what needs to be done. We don’t want some future generation reading a thing that says: Well, fascism came to America but such and such a group that had 300 people was nervous about another group that had 500 people. What were those people thinking about?! Why weren’t they thinking about humanity?!

But you have to go struggle with people about this because it’s not how people look at it. Everything and everybody is branded, every organization is branded. Everybody thinks of their relations with each other as commodities. This has to stop! There’s too much at stake for this kind of pettiness.

So this is part of what we have to do. Mainly we have to get out to the masses of people—reaching tens and hundreds of thousands through our actions—from banner drops, to agitation in transportation hubs, to disrupting business as usual.

The 14th will not be any different in numbers than last month if the people who are watching this webinar don’t change what they do over the next 10 days. Let’s really shake things up and make what we do on the trains and in the public square exciting. Let’s have a blast and let’s really blast away all the delusions and illusions that people have.

I want to say again that December 14 really does have to be bigger than the protests during October/November. And, we have to be pointing to where we’re going. See, in and by itself, December 14 is significant, but not that significant. The 14th is very significant in what its objective is—of trying to spark and to build up a force and an understanding of what it’s going to take to get rid of this tremendous horror that’s looming.

Last point is for the people who are involved in movements fighting the attacks of this regime... look, you should take your hats off to the people with Never Again and these lawyers who are down on the border, people who are fighting around this immigration thing. This is righteous, the fights against different outrageous attacks that people are waging. But we do have to say to these dedicated activists that whatever progress you’re able to make, if this fascist regime consolidates, everything you’ve done will be washed away. So, the dedicated fighters should be won to say: because I care about the immigrants or the DACA youth, I believe Trump/Pence Must Be Out Now! And then go back to be in front of the ICE Center the next day and next week and continue representing people in the courts while struggling to bring more people into the streets to join in with #OUTNOW! The same thing pertains to every social movement. Come to #OUTNOW!, organize your forces and bring your demands and bring your understanding of whatever outrage it is that you’re fighting and bring it to the December 14 OUTNOW protest...

The message from tonight’s webinar is that right now great crimes are being committed by the Trump/Pence regime, millions are already suffering, but a far greater crisis is in the making, and the rules of the game are changing that will lock down fascist rule and that is of horrific consequence. The way to stop this is what is being put forward by Refuse Fascism and is taking shape through the #OUTNOW! movement. Our task—that is sharply and urgently posed—is to go all out, to disrupt all the thinking that keeps people accommodating to and complicit with this regime ... to fight for this week to make December 14 the advance in this movement it must be.

See the full film, excerpts and Q&A of this film