The Political Education Workgroup of the Symbiosis North American Federation plans and hosts webinars on relevant topics in order to undergird the work of local member and partner organizations and to educate those outside Symbiosis wishing to shift or deepen their current organizing lens towards more transformative power building and systems change. This page presents summaries of completed webinars along with links to access webinar recordings and slide presentations.
Future webinars on dual power and beyond will be scheduled and conducted as standalone programs when each is developed and ready for presentation. See the Upcoming Webinars page for notices of such webinars.
Bottom-up Democracy: From Crisis to System Change through Dual Power
The workgroup launched a weekly online series on Dual Power, titled: Bottom-up Democracy: From Crisis to System Change through Dual Power on August 24, 2020. The series opened a space for those wanting to shift or deepen their current organizing lens towards more transformative power building and systems change. This shift aims toward an inclusive, liberated future of direct democracy, ecological well-being and a just, regenerative economy. The weekly design concluded on Oct 4th 2020 with the 6th webinar focused on dual power at the municipal level. Future webinars on dual power and beyond will be scheduled and conducted as standalone programs when each is developed and ready for presentation.
Dual Power Series: Topics and Sequence
The initial weekly series included six webinars. Each webinar used a variation on a design including slide-based presentation with breakout groups and, or general question and answer segment(s). The presentation content of each webinar is summarized below. Links to a recording and to the slide presentation for each webinar are also provided. If you wish to go directly to an archived, streamable set of the 6 webinar recordings they can be found at: Dual Power Weekly Series Webinar Recordings link
Opening: Dual Power Series
Mon 8/24/2020 at 8:00pm ET / 5:00pm PT
The series began with a webinar that introduced and overviewed the dual power series. We presented an overview of today’s dominant hierarchies and aspects of system change openings created by the pandemic and the BLM uprising. The openings included vulnerabilities of frontline workers and BIPOC communities, degraded ecologies spawning pandemics, and the paralysis of divided, quasi democracy. We highlighted mutual aid and the BLM uprising as crisis responses potentially pointing toward a directly democratic society free of hierarchy, exploitation and domination. We overviewed the dual power concept highlighting the tension between dominant power institutions and alternative counter power institutions. We concluded by reviewing the topics in the planned series.
Clarifying Dual Power: Theory, Background, Practice
Tues 9/1/2020 at 8:00pm ET / 5:00pm PT
Dual power was visually presented as a tension between dominant power institutions based in hierarchies and alternative counter power institutions based in horizontal, direct democracy. Hannah Arendt’s relational view of power was presented pointing to the power of people acting in concert to challenge institutionalized hierarchical power. By withdrawing support for hierarchies their leaders lose power, but withdrawing requires organizing and seeing/experiencing alternative horizontal organizations. This requires building democratic institutions to which governing authority can flow as hierarchies are weakened. The presenter described use of the dual power term in the Russian Revolution, then Murray Bookchin’s converting of the term to a strategic use. An organizing case for 3 blocks in Detroit showed a local council meeting local food needs, opposing conversion of a recreational area to a car park, and networking with other councils aiming to achieve sufficient collective power to challenge Detroit’s official city council.
Solidarity Economy and Dual Power
Mon. 9/7/2020 at 8:00pm ET / 5:00pm PT
We presented a comprehensive set of concepts drawing on work of Kolanut Collaborative in Chicago along with the presenter’s ties to varied national movements. The presentation began by defining solidarity economy in contrast with capitalism and contemporary neoliberal capitalism. We then delved into the 7 principles of SE: solidarity, cooperation, mutualism, equity in all dimensions, participatory democracy, sustainability and pluralism. The domains of SE: production, exchange/transfer, consumption/use, surplus allocation were presented noting the significance of local inter-related social and ecological contexts. A timeline showed development of the solidarity economy movement development. Lastly the webinar covered several complementary resist and build strategies, black histories of solidarity economy and links of SE to varied dual power framings.
Open week
Week of 9/14
Framing Tenant Organizing as Dual Power
Thursday 9/24/2020 at 8:00pm ET / 5:00pm PT
Presenters described contexts and practices of the Milwaukee Autonomous Tenants Union and Tenants United-Chicago to illustrate concepts. The webinar opened with a review of the dual power concept, including the DSA-LSC framing. They described the local contexts, history, and impacts of racial segregation in Milwaukee and the class and race stratified context of Hyde Park in Chicago. The presentation then focused on the basics of tenant organizing: tenant structures, tactics, organizers, including specific practices in each city. They then addressed broader structures: federated councils, neighborhood assemblies and community land trusts, legal resources, and finally reform versus revolutionary aims and measures. One notable topic from discussion included the impacts of policing on tenants and gentrification in both cities.
Mutual Aid to Dual Power
Wed. 9/30/2020 at 8:00pm ET / 5:00pm PT
One presenter explained concepts and another described practices from Bridgeport Mutual Aid/Ayuda Mutua Bridgeport in CT. Mutual aid was defined as a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another in contrast with the system-affirming arrangements of charity. Mutual aids association with solidarity economy was presented. Occupy Sandy and the Black Panthers were cited as recent and earlier examples of mutual aid. The second presenter described and illustrated pod mapping as an exercise for building a MA network. Mutual aid was framed as foundational to building dual power both spatially and over time. Then historic development of dual power from MA was shown in Spain before WWII and in Northeast Syria more recently. The webinar presentation closed with responses to critiques of MA and with key takeaways.
Dual Power in Municipalities
Sun. 10/4/2020 at 3:00pm ET / 12:00pm PT
This webinar showed the strands of dual power integrated at the municipal level through peoples assemblies. The webinar was international in scope with cases from Olympia Assembly, WA, Commercy, France, and Cheran, Mexico. Translation from French and from Spanish to English was provided. Each case presentation addressed context, democratic/communal social power origins/development, and democratic/communal structures, actions and impacts. The OlyAssembly presentation emphasized structures including: points of unity, workgroups and issue organizing. The Commercy emphasis was on local mobilizing in relation to the nation-wide Yellow Vest movement and on challenges and progress in building the local assembly. Cheran laid emphasis on local organizing to resist outside forces and on establishing autonomy through local organizing and through multilevel legal reform. Rich discussion included the role of ideology in local organizing and the challenges of Covid 19 for local organizing.