An explosion of movement. Escape from inertia. A magazine to focus attention. Its message: the situation is urgent; we must change the world by any means necessary. But urgency carries its own danger. The urge to act separates from thought. Yes, we must change the world by any means necessary. But what means are necessary in our current situation? To answer that question we need space to slow down
. Else we mistake what’s needed for what’s simply familiar. Bamn is a provocation, a provocation to think. It’s been eight years since the financial crisis started. That crisis marked a new era. It’s been three years since 2011. That year was the year of protest. Together these events have a message: we have still not found the political means to address our present problems. Post-crisis struggles have much to teach us yet we still tend to see them through the prism of the past. The traditions of past generations weigh like a nightmare upon the brains of the living. Let the dead bury their dead so we can make our own history. The main government response to the crisis has been austerity and repression. The crisis of neoliberalism needs… more neoliberalism. Our political and economic elites, the dominant fractions of capital, are incapable of new thinking. For them there is only one plan, Plan A. More of the same. They cannot solve this crisis, they can only displace it. In response some propose a Plan B. Indeed there have been many. But most of these are also trapped by the past. They seek a return to the postwar years, the Keynesian deal. Yet there is no route of return, the world is too altered, that vision of change is too limited. Our tactics are also often stuck in the past. We gather to march and then be ignored. Then hopelessness… then inertia. Or we explode and rage then fade from view. If we reject Plan A and Plan B then what should we call Plan C? The reopening of strategy, the making of plans, attention to what’s necessary, a rethinking of means. If a course of action is objectionable then we must do more than just object. No more moral stances, no more “not in my name”. Instead we pose the question, how do we make it stop? How do we exercise power? How do we build something different? How do we start from where we are so together we can decide where we are off? Of course we don’t have ready-made answers. This magazine doesn’t contain party lines. Some articles are in tension with others. Similarly we don’t address every issue demanding attention. This is deliberate. We want space to slow down, to step back from the fire brigade politics of the Left, which rushes between blazes, following an agenda set by the powerful. We need time to decide on our own course of action. To understand which problems we need to address. It’s in this spirit these articles are offered. They each address a problem we think is important and offer some ideas for a way forward. Several articles are grouped together under a vague theme: How can our ideas become popular? And what would it mean if they did? What is the role of populism? Or of popular culture on the Left? Other articles and interviews stand alone, though they are just as important. Indeed the art, the photo essay, the short story, these are no mere embellishments but are central to our purpose. This is edition one of b a m n. We plan to produce the magazine twice a year. If 2011 taught us anything it is the need for open yet durable institutions of struggle. We want b a m n to contribute towards that. To make this possible we’d like you to respond to what you read here. Send a letter to be published. Subscribe. Let’s be done with the art of the possible. Let’s address the necessary. We’ll create possibility on the way. We will start with people’s needs but keep one eye on the long-term. Let’s build up the movements’ infrastructure. And then, bamn! Explode into movement, escape from inertia.
An Unofficial Magazine of Plan C
