The collective gives priority to local action. It rejects the mass politics of the white nationalists with their national committees, organisers, and the superstars. Definitely, the collective is out of the mainstream and what is more it feels no regrets. The aim of the collective is to feel new thoughts and act new ideas - in a word to create its own space. And that, more than any program, is what is intolerable to all the xerox radicals trying to reproduce their own images
The collective is the hindquarters of the revolution. It makes no pretence whatsoever in regard to the role of the vanguard. Expect nothing from them. They are not your leaders. Leave them alone. The collective knows it will be the last to enter the new world.
The doubts people have about local action reveal how dependent they are on the glamour of mass politics. Everyone wants to project themselves on the screen of revolution - as Yippies or White Panthers. Having internalised the mass, they ask themselves questions whose answers seem logical in its context. How can we accomplish anything without mass action? If we don't go to meetings and demonstrations. Will we be forgotten? Who will take us seriously if we don't join the rank and file?
Slowly you realise that you have become a spectator, an object. Your politics take place on a stage and your social relations consist of sitting in an audience or marching in a crowd. The fragmentation of your everyday experience contrasts with the spectacular unity of the mass.
By contrast, the priority of local action is an attempt to unify everyday life and fragment the mass. This level of consciousness is a result of rejecting the laws of mass behaviour based on Leninism and TV ideology. It makes possible an enema of the brain which everyone so desperately needs. You will be relieved to discover that you can create a situation by localising your struggle.
How can we prevent local action from becoming provincial? Whether or not it does so depends on our overall strategy. Provincialism is simply the consequences or not knowing what is happening. A commune, for example, is provincial because its strategy is based on petty farming and glorification of the extended family. What they have is astrology, not a strategy.
Local action should be based on the global structure of modern society. There can be no collective action without collectives. But the creation of a collective should not be mistaken for victory nor should it become an end in itself. The great danger the collective faces historically is that of being cut off (or cutting itself off) from the outside world. The issue ultimately will be what action to take and when. Whether collectives become a social force depends on their analysis of history and their course of action.
In fact, the 'provinces' today are moving ahead of the centres in political consciousness and motivation. From Minnesota to the Mekong Delta, the revolt is gaining coherence. The centres are trying to decipher what is happening, to catch up and contain it. For this purpose they must create centralised forms of organisation - or 'co-ordination' - as the modernists call it.
The first principle of local action is to de-nationalise your thinking. Take the country out of Salem. Get out of Marlboro country. Become conscious of how your life is managed from the national centres. Lifestyles are roles designed to give you the illusion of movement while keeping you in your place. "Style is mass chasing class, and class escaping mass." (W. Rauschenbush, "The Idiot God Fashion," Woman's Coming of Age, eds Schmalhausen and Calvert, 1931).
Local action gives you the initiative by enabling you to define the situation. That is the practice of knowing you are the subject. Marat says: "The most Important thing is to pull yourself up by your own hair, to tum yourself inside out and see the whole world with fresh eyes." The collective turns itself inside out and sees reality.