————— a ss se cE EEEE Sen i ee Se [fe fl (Ee ele - sci EJ EEE aE {teal faltealtalitalinalltaltialliailltn »bylan Rodnguez the political logic of the non-profit industrial complex PERHAPS NEVER BEFORE HAS THE STRUGGLE TO MOUNT VIABLE movements of radical sucial transformation iu the United States deen more des- perate. urgent, or difficult. In theaftermath of the 1960s mass-movement ea, the edifices of state repression have themselves urdergone substantive transformé- tion, even asclassical techniques of politically formed state violence—colonization and protocolonial occupation, racist policing, assassination, political and mass- based imprisonment—remain feirly constant in the US production of global order. Here, I am specifical'y concerned with the emergence of the US prison industrial complex (PIC) and its relationship to the non profit industrial com- plex (NPIC), the industrialized incorporation cf pro-state liberal and progressive ‘campaigns and movements into a spectrum of government-froctored non profit ‘organizations. In my view, these overlapping developinents—the tise ofa racially constituted prison regime unprecedented in scale, and the almost simultaneous structural consolidation of anon-proit industrial complex—have exerted a form and conteat to US-based resistance struggles which enmeshes them In thesocial arrangement that political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal names an “industry of fear” In a 1998 correspondence to the 3,000-plus participants in the conference Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Incustrial Complex, he writes, Americans live in a cavern of fear, a psychic, numbing force manufactured by the so-called entertainment industry, reifed by the psychological indus- try, and buttressed ty the coercion industry ‘i,, the courts, police, prisons, ‘nd the like). Tae social peychology of Amerca is being fed by a media that threatens cll with an army of psychopathic, deviant, sadistic madmen bent on ravishing a helpless, prone citizenry, The state's cosreive apparatus of “public safety” is erected as < needed protective counter-peint? | wish to pay special attention to Abu-Jamal’s illustration of the social fabri- cation of fear as a necessary political and cultural condition for the rise of the US non-profit industrial complex, which has, n turn, enabled and complemented the massive institutional prnduction of the US prison industrial complex. As under- standit, the NPIC is the set of symbictic relationships that link together political HE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE FUNDED and financial technologies of stats and owning-class proctorship and surveil- larce over public political intercourse, including and especially emergent progressiveand leftist social movements, since about the mid-1970s. Aba-Jamal’s “cavern of fear” illurnina’es the repressive and popular broaély récist common sense that both kaunts and constitutes the political imagiration of many con:em- porary progressive, radical, and even self-professed “revolutionary” social change activists. Why, in other words, does the political imagination of the US a0n- profit and nongovernmental organization (NGO)~cnabled Left generally refuse to emb:ace the urgent and incomplete historical work of a radical counter-state, anti-white supremacist, prison/peral/slave abolitionist movement? Lam especially concerned with how the political assimilation of the non-profit sector into the progressive dreams of a “democratic” globil civil society (the broad premise of, the liberal-progressive antiglobalization movement) already presumes (and therefore fortfies) existing structures of social liquidation, including biological and social death. Does Abu-Jamal’s “cavern of fear" also echo the durable his- torical racial phobias of the US social order generally? Does the specter of an authentic radical freedom no longer structured by the assumptions underlying Ue historical “fizedons” invested in white American political identity—including the perversions and mystifications of such concepts as “democracy, “civil rights,” “the vote,” and even “equality’—logically suggest the end of white civil society, ‘which :s to say a collapsing of the very sociocultural foundations of the United States iself? Perhapsit is*he fear of a radically transformed. feminist/queer/anti- racist liberation of Black, Brown, ané Red bodies, no longer presumed 10 be permanently subordinated to structures of criminalization, colonization, (state and state-ordained) bodily violence, and domestic warfate, that logically threat- ens the very existence of the sill white-dominast US Left: pechaps it is, in part, the Left's fear of an unlesshed bodily proximity to currently criminalized, colo- nized, and normatively violated peoples that compels it to retain the staunchly anti-abolitionist political limits of the NPIC. ‘The persistence of such a racial fear—in effect, the fear of a radical freedom that obliterates the cultural and ‘material ascendancy of “white freedom”—Is neither aew nor unusaal ia the his- tory of the US Left. We are inveking, after all, the vision of a movement of liberation taat abolishes (and transforms) the cultural, economic. and political structures of a white civil society that continues to largely define the terms, lan- ‘guages, and limits of US-based progressive (and even “radical”) campaigns, political discourses, and local’global movernents, ‘This polemical essay attempts ‘o dislodge some of the theoretical and opera~ ioual assumptions underlying the glut of foundation-funded “establishment Left” organizations in the United States. The Left's investment in the essential palitical logic of civil society—specifically, the inherent legitimacy of racist state ‘The Political Logic of the Non-Profit Industral Complex violence in upholding a white freedom, sccial “peace,” and “law and orde:” that is fundamentally designed to maintain brutal inequalities in the putative free world—is symbiotic with (and not oppositional to} the policing and incarcera- tion of marginalized, racially pathologized communities, 2s well as the state’s ongoing absorption of organized dissent through the non-profit structure. While this alleged Left frequently considers ts array of incorporated, “legitimate” orgs- rrizations and institutions as the fortified bulwark of a progressive “social justice” crientation in civil society, I am concerned with the ways in which the broad assimilation 0° such organizations into a non-profit industrial complex actually ‘enables more vicious forms of stte repression. the velvet purse of state repression Ik may be appropriate to initiate this discassieu with a critical reflecsion on the accelerated incorporation of progressive socia: change strugglesinto a structure of state accreditation and owning-class surveillance since the 1970s. Robert L. Allen's classic book Black Awakening in Capitalist America was among the first ‘works to offer a sustained political analysis of how liberal white ph'lanthropic “organizations—including the Rockefeller, Ford, and Mellon foundations—facil- itated the violent state repression of radical and revolutionsry «lements with:n the Black liberation movements of the late 1960s and early 70s, Allen argues that it was precisely because of philanthropy’s overtures toward the movement's more moderate and explicitly reformist elements—especially those acvocet- ing versions of “Black capitalism” and ‘political selfdetetmination” through participation in electoral politics—that radical Black liberationists and revol4: tionaries were more easily criminalized and liquicated. Allen's acccunt, which appears in this collection, proves instructive for a current critique of the state- corporate alliance that keeps the lid on what is leftof Black liberationist politics, along with the cohort of radical struggles encompassec by what was once called the US “Third World” Left. Perhaps as important, Allen’s analysis may provide 8 critical analytical framework through which to understand the problem of white ascendancy and liberal white supremacy within the dominant spheres of the NPIC, which has become virtually synonymous with the broader political category of a US Left “The massive repression of the Black, Netive American, Puerto Rican, and other US-based Third World liberation movements daring and beyend the 1960s and 70s was founded cn a coalescence of official and ilicit/legal forms of sate ad state- sanctioned violence: police-led racist violerce (including ‘alse imprisonment, home invasions, assessinations, and political harassment), white civilian reaction ‘lynch- ings, vigilante movements, new electoral blocs, and a complementary surge of ‘THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE FUNDED white nationalist organizations), and the proliferation of racially formed (and racially executed) juridical measutes to criminalize and imprison entire popula- tions of poor and working class Black, Brown, and Indigenovs people has bbeen—and continues to be—a fundamental legacy of thisera, Responding to the liberation-movement era momentary disruption of a naturalized American apartheid and taken-for-granted domestic colonialism, a new coalition of prom- ‘nent owning-class white philantaropists, lawmakers, state bureaucrats, focal and federal police, and ordinary white civilians (from across the already delim- ited US polirical spectrum of “liberal” to “conservative”) scrambled to restore the coherence and stability of white civil scciety inthe midst ofa fundamental chal- lenge from activists ard radical movernent intellectuals who cavisioned substantive transformation in the very foundations of US “society” itself. One ‘outcome of this movement toward “White Reconstruction” was the invention, development, and refinement of repressive policing technologies across the local and feceral scales, a labor that encompassed a wide variety af organizing and deployment strategies. The notoricus Counterintelligence Program (COINTEL- PRO) of J. Edgar Hoover's Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) remains the ‘mest historically prominent incident of the undeclared warlare waged by the state against domestic populations, insurrections, and suspected revolutionaries. But the spectacle of Hooverite repression cbscures the broader—and far more Important—convergence of stale anc capitalist/philanthropie forces in the absorption of progressive social change struggles that defined this era and its currentlegacies. During this era, US civil soctety—encompassing the private sector, non-profit organizations and NGOs, faith commurities the mass media and itseansumers— partnered with the law-aad-order state through the reactionery white populist sentimental ty enlivened by the respective presidential campaigns of Republican Party presidential nominees Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon, ItwasGoldwa ter’ eloquert articulation of the meaning of “freedom,” defined against a racially coded (though nonetheless transparent) imagery of oncoming “mob” rule and turban “jungle” savagery, poised to liquidate white social existence, that carsied his message into popular -urrency. Goldwater’ political and cultural conviction ‘was to defend white civil society from its racial'y depicted aggressors—a white supremacist discourse of self-defense that remains a central facet of the US state and US political life generally. Thongh his hid for the presidency failed, Gold ‘water's message succeeded as the catalyst for the imraineat movement of White Reconstruction in the aftermath of US apartheid’s nominal disestablishment, and in the face of liberal reformist charges to US civil rignts law. Accepting the 1964 Republican >residential nomiration, Goldwater famously pronounced, ‘The Political Logic of the Non-Profit Industral Cuanplex ‘Tonight there is violence in cur streets corruption in our highest offices, aimlessness among our youth, anxiety among our elders and there is a ‘ual despair among the many who look beyond material success forthe inner meaning of their livs....Security ftom domestic violence, no less thar: from foreign aggression, isthe most elementary and fundamental purpose of any ‘government, and a government thateansot fulfil that purposs is one that ean~ not long command the loyalty ofits citizens. History shows u:—demonstrates that nothing—xothing prepares the way for tyranty more than the failure of public officials to keep the streets from bulliesand marauders.” On the one hand. the subsequent exponential growth of the US policing appara- tas closely followed the white populist political schema of the Goldwater-Nixon law-and-order bloc Law and order was essentially “he harbinger of White Reconstruction, mobilizing an apparctus of state violence to protect and recuper- ate the vindicated white national body from the allegedly imminent aggressions and violations of its racial Others. White civil soc‘ety, accustomed to generally Lnilaieraland exclusiveaccessto the cultural, conomic,and political capital nec ‘essary for individual and ccllectve self-determination, encountered reflections cf its own undoing at this moment. The politics ef law and order thus signiti- cantly encompassed white supremacist desire for survsiling, policing, caging, and (oreemptively) socially liquidating those who embodied the gatheringstorm of dissidence—organized and disarticulated, radical and pretopelitical Inthishistorical cortext, COIN TELPRO s illegal and unconstitutional abuses of state power, unabashed use of strategic and deadly vialence, and development of invasive, terrorizing surveillance technclogies might be seen as paradigmatic of the contemporary era's revivified white supremacist hegemony. Contrary to the widespread assumptior, that COINTELPRO was somehow excessive, episodic, and extraordinary in its deployment of (formally illegal ard unconstitutional) state violence, J. Edgar Hoover's venerated racist-state strategy simply rellected the Imperative of white civil suciety’s impulse toward self.preservation in this moment. ' Elaborating the white populist vision of Goldwater and bis political descendants, the consolidation of this white nationalis: bloc—which eventually incorporated “liberals” as well as reactionaries and conservatives—was simply the political consolidation of a white civil society that had momentarily strolled ‘with the specter ofits own incoherence. Goldwater's epoch-shaping presidential campaign in 1964 set up the political premises and popular racial vernacular for much of what followed in the resto- ration of white civil society in the 1970s and later. In significant pert through the reorganization of a US siate that strategically mobilized arouad an internally ‘complex, substantively dynemic white supremacist conception of “security from domestic violence.” the “law and order” state has ma:erialized on :he ground ‘THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE FUNDED and has gencrated a popular consensus around ils odes of dominance: puni- tive racist criminal justice, paramilitary policing, and straiegically deployed domestic warfare regimes have become an American way of life. This popalar- ‘zed and institutionalized “law and order” state has built this popular consensus in part through a symbiosis with the non-proit liberal foundation structure, which, in tarn, has helped collapse various sites of potentia. political radical- ism into nonantagonistic social service and pro-state reformist initiatives. Vast expenditures of state capacity, from police expansion te school militarization, and the multiplication of state-formed popular cultural procuctions (from the virtual universalization of the “tough on crime” eectoral campaign message to the explesion of pro-palice discourses in Hollywood film, ‘elevision dramas, and popular “reality” shows) have conveyed several overlapping political mes- ‘sages, which have accomplished several mutually reinforcing tasks of the White Reconstruc:ionist agenda thatare relevant to ous discussion here: I) the staunch the Mellon, Ford, and Sores foundations, the very existence of many social justice organizations has often come to rest more on the effectiveness of professional ‘and amateur) grant writers than on skilledé—much less “radical”—political educatorsand organizers. A 1997 Atlantic Monthlysrticle entitled “Citizen 501(6)(2)” states, for example, that the net worth of such foands- tions was over $200 billion as of 1996, a growta of more thaa 40) percent since 1981. The articie’s author, Nicholas Lemann, goes on to write that in the United States, the raw size of private foundations, “along with thetr desire to affect the course of events in the United States and the world, has made feundations one of the handful of major [political] actors in our society—bat they are the one ‘that draws the least public attention.”” As the fourslation lifeline lias sustained the NPIC’s emergerce into a primary component of US politica life, the assimi lation of political resistance projects into quasi-entrepreneurial, corporate-style ventures cccurs under the threat of anruliness and antisocial “deviance” thet rules Abu Jamal’s US “eavern of fear”: arguably, forms of sastained grassroots social movement that do nct rely on the material assets and irstitvtionalized legitimacy of the NPIC have become largely unimaginable within the pditical allure of the Lutrent US Left. If anything, th's culture is generally disciplined and ruled by tke fundamental imperative to preserve the integrity and coherence ‘of US white civil society, and the “ruling class” of philanthropic organizations and foundations may, a times, almost unilaterally determine whether certain are appropriate to their consensus vision of vist commitments and practi: ‘American “democracy” ‘The self narrative of moltibillionaire philanthropist George Soros—iwhom the P2S program NOW described as “the only American etizen with his own foreign policy” brings cancor and darity to the societal mission of one well known liberal philanthropic funder-patro: ‘Wher I had made more moneythan | needed, I decided to set up a foundation. Treflected on what itwas I really cared about. Having lived through both Nazi persecution and Communist cppression. I came to the conclusion that what Was paraniount for me was an open society. So T called the foundation the Open Society Fund, and I defined its objectives as opening up closed societies, making ofen societies more viable, and promoting a critical mode of think ing. That was in 1973,...Ey now I have established a network of foundations that extends across more than twenty-five countries (not inclucing Chima, where we chut down in 1989)! ‘THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE FUNDED Soras’sconceptinn ofthe “Open Societys” fueled hy his avowed disdain for laissez- faire capitalism, commuism, and Nazism, privileges political dissent that works firmly within the constraints of bourgeois liberal democracy. Tae imperative to protect—and, in Soros's case, to selectively enable with funding—disseating political projects emerges from the presumption that existing sccial, cultural, political, and economic institutions are in some way perfectible, and that such dissenting projects must not deviate from the unnamed “values” which serve as the ideological glue of civil society. Pethaps mast important, the Open Society is premised on the idea that clashing political projects can and must be brought (forced?) into a vague state of reconciliation with one another. Instead of there being a dichotomy tetween open and clased, I see the open society as occupying 2 middle ground, where twe rights of the individusl are safeguarded but where there are some shared velues that hold society together [emphasis added]. I envisage the open society as a society open to improve ment. We start with the recognition of ou own fallibility, which extends not only to our mental constructs bat also to our institutions. What isimperfect ccan be improved, by a prozess of tril and error. "The open society not only allows this process but actually encourages it, by insisting on freedom of expression end protecting dissent. The open society offers a vista of limitless progress ‘The Open Society merely provides a framework within which different views about social and political issues can be reconciled: it does not offer a firm view on social goals. It did, it would not be an open society.” Crucially, the formulaic, naive vision of Soros’s Open Society finds its condition of possibility in untied foundation purse strings, as “dissent” flowers into viability on the strength of @ generous grant or -wo. The essential conservatism of Soros's manifesto obtains “common-sense” status within the liberal/progressive foun- ation industry by virtue of financial force, as his patronage reigns hegemonic among numerous organizations and emergent social movemnerts Most impor-ant, the Open Society’s narrative of reconciliation and societal perfection marginalizes cadical forms of dissent which voice an irreconcilable antagonism to white supremacist patriarchy, neoliberalism, racialized state vio- Jerce, and other structures of domination, Antorio Gramsci’ prescient reflection on the formation of the hegemonic state as simultaneously an organizational, repressive, and pedagogical apparatus is instructive: “The State coes have and request consent, but it also ‘ecucates’ this consent, by meins of the political and syndical associations; these, however, are private organist let to the private ini- tiative of the ruling class.” Certainly, the historical record demonstrates that Soros and other founda- tion grants have enabled a breathtaking number of “left-of-center” campaigns and projects in the last 20 years. The question I wish to introduce here, how- ‘The Political Logic of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex ever, is whether this enabling also exerte a disciplinary or repressive force on contemporary social movement organizations while nurturing a particular ideological and stractural allegiance to state authority that preempts political radicalism. Social movement theorists Ichn McCarthy, David Britt, and Mark Wolfson. argue that the “channeling mechanisms” embodied by the non-proft industry “may now far outweigh the effect of cirect social contrel by states in explaining the structural isomorphism, orthodox tactics, and moderate goals of much coi- lective action in modern America." hat is, the overall bureaucratic formality and hierarchical (frequently elitist) structuring of the NPIC kas institutionalized tore that just a series of hoops through which aspiring social change activis:s must jump—these institutional characteristics, in fact, dictate the political vistas of NPIC organizaticns themselves. The forma of the US Left is inseparable from its political content. The most obvious element of this kinder, gentler, industrislized repression is its bureancratic incorperation of social change organizatiors into “tangle of incentives”—such as postal privileges, tax-exempt status, and quick access to philanthropic funding apparatuses—made possible by state bestowal of “not-for-profit” status. Increasingly, avewedly progressive, radical, leftist, and even some self-declared “revolutionary” groups have found assimilation into this state-sanctioned organizational paradigm a practical route to institutionaliza- tion. Incorporation facilitates theestablishment of arelatively stable financial and operational infrastructure while avoiding the transience, messiness, and possible legal complications of working under decentralized, informal, or “underground” auspices. The emergence of this state-proctored social movenient industry “sug- zgests an historical movemen: away frem direct.cruder forms fof state repressior), toward more subtle forms of stat> social control of social movernents."” Indeed, the US state earned irom its encounters with the crest of radical and revolutionary liberationist movements of the 1960s and early 7iks that endless, spectacular exercises of military and police repression against activists of color on the domest frant could poteatially provoke broader local and global support {or such struggles—it was in part because they were so dramaticclly subjected to ‘violent and racist US stete repression that Black, Native American, Puerto Rican, and other domestic liberationists were seen by significant sectors of the US ard international public as legitimate freedom fighters, whose survival uf Uhe racist state pivated on the mobilization of a global political solidarity. On the other hand, the US state has found in its coalition with the NPIC a far less spectacular, ‘generally demilitarized, and still highly eflective apparatus of political discipline and repression that (to this poin’) has not provoked a significant critical mass of opposition or political outrage. ‘THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE FUNDED Central to this sublimated state discipline and surveillance are the myriad regulatory mechanisms that serve to both accredit and disqualify non-profit social change groups. The Internal Revenue Service, tax laws of individual states, the US Postal Service, and independent auditors help heep bureaucratic order witii-—and the politica lid on—what many theorists refer to as the post-1960s emergence of “new social movements.” McCarthy, Britt, and Wolfsen conclude that ths histori- cal development has rather sweepirg coasequences for theentirety of civil society: ‘Another consequence of the growth cf this system is blurring ofthe bosnd- aries between the stat and society, between the civil and the policcal. Our analysis suggests that a decreasing proportion af local groups remain unpen- trated by the laus and regulations of the central state...Some analysts see civil space declining asthe esult of afusion ofthe private and political bythe ac:vists of the “rew” soctal movements who politcize more and more civil structures in the pursuit of more comprchensve moral and political goals. Our analysis views the construction as more theconsequence o state penstra- tion ofthe civil, and the consequencesin more traditional terms—a rarrowing and taming of the potential for broad dissent. ‘The NPIC thus serves as the medium through which the state continues to exert 4 fundamental dominance over the politicel intercourse of the US Left, as well as US civil society more generally. Even and especiclly as organizations linked to the NPIC assert their relative autonomy from, and independence of, state influence, they remain fundamentally tethered to the state through extended structures of firancial and political accountability. Jennifer Wolch’s notion of a “shadow state” crystallizes this symbiosis between the state and social change organizations, gesturing toward a broader conception of the state’ disciplinary power and surveillance capacities. According to Wolch, the structural and polit!- calinteraction between the state ard the non-prefitirdustrial complex manifests as more than a relation of patronage, ideological repression, or institutional sub- ordination, in excess of the expected organizational deference to state rules and regulations, social change groups are constituted by the operational parzdigms of conventional state institutions, generating a reflection of state power in the same “organizations that originally emerged to resist the very same state, In the United States, volurtary groups have gained resources and politcal clout by becoming a stadow state apparatus, but are increasingly subject to state-imposed regulation oF their behavior. the extent that the shadow state is emerging in particular places, shereare implicatiors forhow volustary organizations operate. The increasing importance o state funding for many ‘voluntary organizations has been accompenied by deepening penetration by the stat into voluntary group organization. management. and goals. We argue thatthe transformation of the voluntary sector into a shadow state apparatus could ultimately shackle its potential t create progressive social change." ‘The Political Logic of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex. + the npic as political “epistenology’: the coopiation of political imagination Mowe insidious than the raw structural constraints exerted by dhe Sounidatien/state/ non-profit nexus is the way in which this new industry grounds an epistemology— literally, a way of knowing social change and resistance praxis—that is dificult to escape or rupture. lo revisit Abu-Jamal’ conception of the US “cavern of feat,” the non-profit industrial complex has facilitated a >ureaucratized management of {fear that mitigates against the radical break with owning-class capital (read: foundation sappert) and hegemonic common sense (read: law ané order) that ‘might otherwise be positedas the necessary precondition fer genevating evuntes~ hegemonic struggles. The racial and white supremacist fears of American civil society, in other words, fend to be respected und institutionally assimilated by a Leftthat fundamentally operates through the bureaucratic structure of the NAIC. As the distance between state authority and civil society collapses, the civic spaces for resistance and radical political experimentation disappear and dis- pperse into places unheard, unseen, and untouche¢ by the presumed audiences of the non-proft industry arguably, the most vibrant sites of radical and proto activity and organizing against racist US state violence and white civil society ate condensing among populations that the NPIC can- not casily or fully incorporate. Organized, underorganized, end ad hoc ‘movements of imprisoned, homeless, and uncocumented people. as well zs activ- ists committed to working beneath and relatively autonomous of the NPIC’s pobtical apperatus, may well embody the beginnings of an alternative US-based praxis that displaces the NPIC’s apparent domination of political possibility. Such a revitalization of radical political vision isboth urgent and nec- essary in the current moment, especially waen the US srate’s constan: global displays of violence and impunity seem ‘o imply that authentically radical ckal lenges to its realms of domination are all but doomed. Even a brief historical assessment of the social movement history reveals the devastating impact of tate violence on the political imagivation aud organizing Practices of progressive and radical >olitical workers in the United States, Noam Chomsky, for example, argues that the watershed year of 1968 signifieé a turn 1n the institutional and discursive trajectory of state violence and repression, iscourse and departing from the spectacular, peculiar imagery of more traditionally hrutal repressive techniques. Framing the state’s partial movement away from technolo- gies of violent public spectacle (assassinations, militarized police raids aad “riot control,” and go forth) toa more comples, surreptitious, multidimensional ap>a- ratus of coercion, Chomsky’s elaboration of @ new “culture of terrorism’ echoes Abu-Jamal’s “cavern of fear.” While Chomsky’s critique focuses on an analysis THE REVOLUION WILL NOT BE FUNDED of the Lran-contra scandal in the mid-1980s, one also finds resonance with the state’ attempts to preemptively contain and liquidate political disorder through the white supremecist criminalization ard mass-based incerceration fostered by the Reagan administration’ simultaneous initiation ofa “War on Drugs.” As the prison and policing apparstuses began to flower at the pinnacle of the Reagen- Bush bloc, so the culture of terrorism provided a context for their reproduction and expansion: ‘As tae Vietnara war escalated through the stages of subversion, state terrorism, and outright US aggresion, disaffection and protest among the pablicbecame a significant force, preventing the government from declaring the national ‘motilization iat would bavebeen seguited t9 wie what wasbecominga major war,..The general dissidence. particula-ly among the routh, was perceived in clite circles asa serious problem by itself in 1968, whie within the Pentagon, there was concern that suffident military force be held in reserve to control domesticdisorder ithe US aggression visibly increased, Thekey phrase is ily’ it yas feat of Cie public that led tothe expansion ofelandestine operations in those years, on the usual principle thet in cur form of democracy, if the pub- lic escapes fram passivity, it must be deceived—for its own good." ‘The key terms here are clandestinity and decepticn: the lessons ot 1968 demon- strared that state and owning class elites needed to maintain a delicate balance between two parallel, nterdependent projects. On the one hand, repressive state violence had to be sustained under shrouds of secrecy to prevent the potensial ‘coagulation end ctisis of a domestic dissent bloc. On the other hend, the state also acknowledged thet within the discursive structure ofa bourgeois liberal democ- racy, people had :0 be convinced that a “free” way of life pivoted cn the state’s ability to violently enjorce it: that is, the state reyuised « pedagogy of “common sense” that cculd effectively “teach” people to consent to its profoundly expansive and historicelly unprecedented methodologies of domestic and global warfare/ militarization. The subtle change in the production of a hegemonic state—tts absorption of social change movements and simultaneous construction of new strategies for the production of a popular conseat—now manifests deeply and widely ia the terrains of civil society. Civil institutions that once housed what Aldon Morris calls the “indigenous cen‘era” of social movement and resistance organizing (¢., schools, churches, families, friendship networks)” are now far ‘more likely to exhibit the penetration of the state through a popular epstemol- ogy that considers the viclent policing of order to be @ necessary concition of social life generally. ‘The cearticulation of state coercion into the massive institutional and discur- sive formation of the post-ioldwater “law and order” society goes kand in hand with the elow, steady, and voluntary entry of es-ablishment Left organizations The Political Logic of the Non-Profit industrial Complex into a dependent relation (albelt uneasy and at times conflicted) with the neo- liberal state and philenthropic foundations. This is not ta suggest that a “pare” autonomy from state authority and discipline is attainable, but rather to argue thar resistance and counter hegemonic organizations dismantle the possibility of radical artagonism as they move into cleser proximity to—and dependence on—the centers of state power and (philanthropic) capital. Wolch suggests sev- eral critical dimensions to this“ dynamic of reduced autonomy’: 1. The state will force voluntary groups to plan reactively, in response to new Hate policies nd practices. Thie is in contrast to enabling groups to plan proactively, to decide on their own goals and objectives, and how to acieve them. 2, Contracis and grants will increasingly come with requirements for stringent, -igid, and quantitatively oriented aaproaches to planning, evaluation, and -ponitoring 5. Those organizations unable to meet the expanding denands for planaing will become increasingly marginalized and may not be 7Teveapiallcapital word 11 Antonio Gramsci, Selections Fram the Prison Notebooks, 8. Quintin Hoare and Geotiey Nowell Smith (New York Intemational Publishers, 995), 258, 12 John McCarthy, David Brit, and Mark Wolfson “The instiutional Channeling ofSocil Move ‘mentsby th State inthe United Sates? Research fa Social Movements, Conf’ ana Charge 1 (99th 4b. 1 tid ibid 1 Jennifer. Welch, Tne Shadow State: Governmert and Valuvtony Sortorin Transit (New Vor: "The Foundation Center, 1990) 15. 16 Noam Chomsky The Culture of Tertrdan (Boston: South End Prise 1568), 6 17 See Aldon Mortis, Te Origins ofthe Civil Rights Mosement: Black Communities Orgavizing for ‘Chunge (ew Yor: Face Poesy 1960) 1 Welch, The Shadow State, 206-207 1 Ruth Wilson GrImore hasoften spoken of te gererallyunderexplored and uncer theurizl polit ‘cal possibilities in engaging organizing strategies that are "conservative: form, But radical in content.”She speaksof such strategies manifesting in histor cally conservatie spaces, such és thechurch or mosgue, while articulating politi: crtiqueand praxisthat envisions radi- tal socal transformation 20 Set Haunani-Cay Trask, “The New World Orde” in Froma Native Daughter: Celomatism and “oversigntyin Hawaii (Londlulu:Jniversiy of Havaii Press, 1999) 58-63 11 My use of the torm common cence derives from Antena Grams’scenception of the assures tions, truths, and general fh that predominate ina given social fermation or hegemony. 22 Allert Nema, The Calonizer and the Colsized (New York: Orion Dress, 1965). 7-8 13 Frante Fanon, The Wretched ofthe Earth (New York: Grove Weidenfelé, 1962), 50. 2003, traserip, http! 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