The Current Situation

Since the turn of the millennium, millions of working people throughout North America have been in open revolt against the prevailing system – from Occupy to Standing Rock, from the George Floyd Uprising to resistance against the genocide in Gaza. These interlinked movements of the period since the Great Recession of 2008 are just the latest revolts by ordinary people to free themselves from the oppressive consequences of capitalism, patriarchy, and the imperialist nation-state. Our society’s hierarchical systems of class rule continue to spark crisis after crisis in people’s daily lives. For growing numbers, this proves they are incapable of meeting our human needs. And despite massive state repression, radical movements to replace these systems with freedom, decolonization, and genuine democracy continue to emerge in fits and starts.

Yet at the very same time—in a moment when the stakes couldn’t be higher—our movements are losing ground. Reformists and revolutionaries alike are in disarray, with their organizations shrinking from attrition and their former members grasping for something, anything, that’ll make a genuine difference. The declining quality of life, the ecological crisis, and the global rise of fascism that sparked our revolt have only grown worse.

The good news is that—all over the world—we are still fighting. In the US, organizers in social movements across the country have spent years building nodes of resistance, learning from experience, and creating vital local networks of mutual aid and solidarity. The bad news is that our efforts at grassroots organizing are not keeping up with the challenges we face. Too often we end up creating short-term isolated projects, almost always disconnected from one another, rarely lasting longer than the protest that brought them into existence. Movements that were once radical dissolve into electoral campaigns for the sake of reforms that never actually appear. Without something real to plug into, we burn out, becoming passive consumers of left-wing media or drifting away from politics altogether. Hard-won experience has taught us that it takes an enormous amount of effort to move from social-media inspired protest to long-term organizing relationships. Meanwhile, our enemies are backed by billionaires and security forces; they’re increasingly committed to using political violence to get their way. In the face of these challenges we should ask: what can we build that will actually challenge their power – and actually last?

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Our Strategy: Dual Power

Nobody has all the answers. But in recent years, a few truths have become clear. If we want a movement strong enough to challenge the systems of power that dominate and threaten us, we have to move beyond the limits of activism for activism’s sake. Rather than just expressing our outrage or temporarily disrupting business as usual, building our own power requires us to move from merely getting people to show up to a protest, to helping them exercise their collective strength through lasting organization.

From tenant and labor unions to mutual aid networks, worker co-ops to neighborhood assemblies, there are many inspiring examples of grassroots power being constructed today. Many of us have been actively involved in this kind of work for years. We are united by a shared understanding that our collective liberation cannot come as a gift from above, but only through the painstaking work of building a new society within the shell of the old – that is, through dual power.

To build this power, we not only need a movement with more grassroots organizing – we need a vehicle that can facilitate lasting communication and coordination between grassroots organizers who would otherwise be isolated working on their own diverse projects. Such a vehicle would allow organizers to discuss their experiences, develop new strategies, access resources, and work together towards common goals. This is the organization we intend to build with the Dual Power Network.

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What We’re Building

We envision the Dual Power Network as a nation-wide organization of organizers whose purpose is to build dual power – that is, to construct independent institutions run by and for ordinary people from the bottom up as the germ of a future stateless socialist society, using them to win victories in the present and networking them into a worthy counterforce to the capitalist nation-state.

Practically speaking, this means making a space for existing organizers to share information and coordinate actions as well as recruit aspiring organizers; creating resources and training materials; connecting organizers with existing social movements aligned with the dual power strategy; and building up new movements where they don't yet exist. Our working groups will be hubs of discussion and activity, where members can coordinate with people in their local area or across the country about a shared bit of infrastructure or a particular sort of organizing. Only an organization that exists locally, regionally, and across social struggles can generate a movement that’s greater than the sum of its parts, and turn our desire for a better world into the means to achieve it.

We are a group of grassroots organizers from a variety of backgrounds, including labor organizing, tenant organizing, community organizing, mutual aid (from disaster relief to harm reduction to street medics), abolitionist and sex worker collectives, social centers, and cooperatives. We’ve worked within organizations like the Symbiosis Federation, Food Not Bombs, the Autonomous Tenants Union Network, The Industrial Workers of the World, the Democratic Socialists of America, the Black Rose Anarchist Federation, Labor Notes, Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, Black & Pink, as well as various other social movements, unions, and local groups. We’re anarchists and Marxists, syndicalists and ecologists, feminists and abolitionists – it’s a big tent where we don’t have to agree on everything. For months we’ve been sharing experiences, learning from past mistakes, and dreaming of how we can create together what our movements have been missing. What unites us is our rejection of capitalism and the state, our belief that socialism means putting people directly in charge of the decisions that affect their lives, and our commitment to building dual power.

The Dual Power Network is a place for organizers, and being a member means actively participating. It's not a debate club: there are enough places to follow discourse and get into arguments about articles or podcasts. The point is to grow and learn together as organizers. We need an organization that will add to our capacity, not subtract from it. By focusing our efforts and streamlining administrative tasks, we free up our time and energy for meaningful organizing and action. Our goal is to create a hub that, as more and more organizers join it or come out of it, supports and expands the most promising independent organizing initiatives across the country, weaving our dual power projects into a dual power movement.

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Join us!

Are you a dual power organizer, or interested in becoming one? Do you believe that the change starts from the bottom up? If you’re willing to commit to the vision above – join us! You can find us by filling out this form emailing DualPowerNetwork@proton.me. We’ll follow up with you soon for a brief orientation and to connect you with one of our working groups!