In the past months, Senator Sinema and Senator Manchin have been flooded by everyone from climate activists to dreamers asking, begging, for reforms and resolutions they promised during their campaigns. Both politicians have refused to acknowledge them, even when activists face them in a bathroom, airplane or yacht. Both democratic Senators raised hope among their constituents, who advocated and campaigned for them seeking to turn their states blue. People were looking for a change and they believed a simple flip of parties would grant them the better life conditions they deserve. Now after using their constituents’ hope and work to get them into the senate, both senators are ignoring their pleas. But what people are failing to realize is that their actual power lies in our ability to organize for our own interests, strengthened by political unity.

I was once a dreamer who also believed my power was in finding the right candidate that could represent me and advocate for my needs, especially when I couldn’t vote. I got used to visiting Capitol hill and it quickly became tiring to continuously take trips to DC and fetch meetings with politicians who will look you in the eyes to make empty promises that were never reflected in their votes. Unlike Senator Manchin and Sinema, our republican Florida senator George Lemieux (2009 – 2011) did meet with us, listened to our stories, felt sorry for what we went through, but never once voted in favor of the dream act. We filled all his landlines with voicemails, flooded his office with letters and countless protests, but they were all in vain. He never represented our concerns, and had his own agenda to fulfill. Regardless of the party they represent, neither Senator Lemieux, Sinema or Manchin are able to provide us with a truthful progressive alternative. They’re not there to represent us, they represent capitalists, donors who pay for their campaigns are pulling their strings. For instance, despite Senator Sinema running and being voted in as a Democrat, some of her largest donors have been GOP lobbyists, and this has been reflected in her decisions as a Senator far more than any promises she made to her constituents. Those same people who voted to put her in power fail to realize that she won’t bring them change, just as back then our blinding hope didn’t allow us to see no matter how many times we spoke with Senator Lemieux, he wasn’t going to vote for the Dream Act.

It was a slow process to realize that following politicians, those we thought were “in power,” couldn’t permanently resolve our situation. They are part of an electoral process that’s not even supposed to represent us. All they could do is provide temporary solutions that are unable to identify the root cause of our issue, imperialism. A concrete solution to the problems we were facing then, and continue to face now, can’t be addressed without recognizing the systems that force immigration to happen. Our “democracy,” is a capitalist democracy made for upper class folks, to pacify/ dominate the middle class, and oppress the working class. We fall for the idea of “democracy,” when in reality what we have is an arrangement that’s meant to benefit the capitalist class, bourgeois democracy.

Under electoral politics, we are granted with some concessions, but they’re often meant to pacify the masses, they don’t provide permanent solutions, they’re mere reforms that are meant to benefit some portion of the upper class. For example, Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of homeland security, recently made raids at workplaces illegal, the real reason is that due to our labor shortage, the economy needs some cheap immigrant labor. Another instance is when after years of protests and demands, President Obama signed DACA on June 15, 2012, in the year he was up for re-election on November. But the executive order was only granted if the beneficiary got involved in education (debt) or military service (foot soldier for imperialism). What politicians provide us are reforms that keep us pacified, but they can never provide concrete actions against imperialism and capitalism. The oppressive systems that have become the root cause for immigration, global warming, and many other social issues we constantly fight for.

Electoral politics is simply a tool of capitalism and imperialism, a fake sense of “democracy” that keeps us engaged in a roundabout that takes us nowhere. This system plays heavily on our ideologies and representing us based on our identity and we often believe the lies that they understand and advocate for our needs. The system only represents the capitalist class and the biggest lie of all is that all our power is behind a voting booth or a politician that seems to sympathize with us.

At the time I didn’t realize the strength I had within my community wasn’t wrapped up in politicians. Working under the NGO umbrella, I was serving their agenda of lobbying and funding, never building the unity to understand that our power is in how we organize protests, meetings, hold workshops, build resources and strengthen our communities to no longer live in fear. We only had one goal: immigration reform; but no contribution to the pathway to get there, no discussion of continued organizing in the aftermath, no real conversation about what our political beliefs were. Instead we were taught to victimize our stories, organize campaigns around politicians, and create events that will attract the press. We were nothing more than foot soldiers of an NGO and photo ops for politicians. Because the reality was that they didn’t care about the root issues of immigration, they were looking for temporary solutions that will continue to fund their business, a non-profit.

I often imagine how differently the struggle around DACA would have played out, and what type of further resistance we could have collectively constructed, if we developed our internal leadership, our abilities to construct and build strength in our communities, and were able to build forms of resistance outside of the avenues that are presented to us by capitalist society. And even though back then we were granted DACA, time has proven that the reform can easily be revoked and that it’s just not enough. What our reality needs is more than temporary reforms, we need autonomous organizations that can expose the class interest that is really served by systems that pretend to be on our side while oppressing and dominating us. Struggles solely focused on immigration are quick to dissipate after a reform is passed because there’s no real unity built to create a movement. When DACA passed, the organization I was a part of quickly lowered in numbers (by that time I wasn’t even there). Unfortunately the unity was only on one reform, focused on immediate needs without being willing to recognize the root causes of our struggles, imperialism and capitalism. 

Its time to expose the fuckery, expose the lies, the fucked up sytem that oppresses us and dominates the working class.We can’t continue to be foot soldiers for organizations where theres not unity built intentionally. Organizations created to satisfy capitalism, expand the riches of capitalist while dominating the ideologies of the masses for a temporary solution. We cannot also hitch our hopes for better conditions or solutions to our struggles to elected representatives as they all are working under a class interest that is in opposition to what we need. We need to create autonomous organizations that recognize and expose capitalism and imperialism as the root issue for many social struggles, and has a political line that guides us in a progressive direction. We need to build organizations based on political unity instead of marching behind candidates who will eventually show their true colors when they have to choose between advocating for us or for their donors.

If you’re interested in building these type of organizations, get involved and get in touch.

onestruggle.southflorida@gmail.com
FB – @OneStruggle
IG – @SeedsofUnity