(Traducción al español aquí)

When most folks think of the word “activist,” they often think of committed and passionate people who serve others and selflessly devote their free time to movements or their communities. This is not always the case. Some, whether they mean well or not, have turned their activism into a source of income. Anyone with a job understands that when we go to work and clock in, we are in fact selling our time and labor. This means we have goals to meet and are required to do the job expected by our employers. Now we must ask: who are these paid activists and who are they selling their time to? Who are their bosses that call the shots on what they can and cannot do? Certainly it is not the people of Austin paying their salaries. We are not the people with the power to influence or determine the nature of their work, let alone their actions. If these paid activists are not accountable to the people, then who are they accountable to? If they do not serve the people, then who do they serve? The answer is plain in front of us—they serve their bosses!

The bosses of the paid activist usually appear in the form of a board of directors. The organizations that these boards run are sometimes referred to as “Non-Governmental Organizations” or NGOs. These NGOs of “professional activists” have to get the money to hire their employees from somewhere—and as usual, if you want to find the devil … follow the dollars. More often than not NGOs receive funding in the form of “charitable donations.” These donations oftentimes come in stacks of dirty corporate money—money that was made off the sweat and backs of hard-working people. These corporations are able to fund both large and small NGOs and “non-profits” due to two major facts: they refuse to pay their workers enough, and the government gives them corporate tax breaks and all that bailout money. These corporations work together with the city, state, police, rich landlords, and of course the big real estate developers. The developers themselves can donate lots of their corporate cash as a tax write-off to these NGOs, while the NGOs beg for more and more corporate bucks, like a pipe fiend. The corporations donate this money to the NGOs to sway, influence, and control public opinion. The NGOs are selling a product to the corporation: outside influence on community issues—essentially telling folks what they can and cannot do when it comes to their own interests.

The corporations, banks, and developers rarely (if ever) have the interests of the poor and working people in mind. They are driven only by profit. They know that when a community is united, the community becomes a force to be reckoned with. In order to avoid the invincible force of the people united, they must divert it, like a canal meant to defeat the tide. The corporation uses the NGOs to dumb down or decrease the power of the people. These NGOs, regardless of their intentions, become tools of the people who finance them: their big-money donors. Just like when we go to work, we do the jobs our bosses tell us to do—that’s what we are paid for. We do our jobs or we get fired, and the same goes for these paid “activists.”

Paid “activists” always encourage surrender, obedience, and worst of all settling for the most modest scraps the system and its ruling elite find acceptable, and to hell with what is acceptable to the people. When their bosses tell them to move on to the next case, they give up on the people’s struggles and abandon them. For them it is often nothing but another day at work. Their involvement in any issue is temporary, because sooner or later their bosses will send them out to a different job site and at the end of the day they go back to their comfortable houses that are not in danger of being eliminated. In order to get the most funding, the NGOs have to document their work. Much like filling out a job application, these NGOs put their best face forward and hide the ugly parts. Smiling for the cameras and talking to the evening news, shaking hands with all the local and state politicians, and making their brunch appointments on time. Flattering the “right people” and ignoring or snubbing the rest.

Under the capitalist system, everything can be bought and sold. Complex human relationships can be reduced to what is profitable and what is not. Our struggles, much like our homes and communities, are on the market. In this regard, “activists” paid by their NGOs who are financed by corporate donations turn into people who are managing and controlling the communities for those corporations—overseers who must seek to transform the people’s struggles into forms that are acceptable to the oppressor—to the same thieves and parasites who caused the problem to begin with! These “activists” are paid to make sure the people’s struggles come to conclusions that the landlords, developers, and corporations can accept, with as little uproar as possible. That’s why some of these professionals have been doing the same thing for thirty-plus years while working-class neighborhoods are pushed further and further out of the city. Much like the NGOs, politicians are also accountable to the people who donate to their election campaigns. In a city like Austin, real estate developers are the biggest and most powerful businesses, and so they influence or steamroll over local politicians as part of business as usual.

Real change becomes impossible unless we stop allowing these NGOs and sell-out politicians to dictate the terms of resistance. They must not be allowed to represent the people when the people can represent themselves far better. The people united and representing themselves is their greatest fear, along with activists who money can’t buy or corrupt. The NGOs have the time and money that working folks often lack, so they use this to talk over the people, telling folks what to do without ever actually listening. When a struggle gets taken over by uninvited NGOs or is twisted to fit the agenda of some politician who storms in and takes charge, resistance to injustice is transformed into a salaried job—tamed, obedient, and toothless. Real resistance comes in the form of people power and has consequences. We fight, win or lose, but we must seek to build up community power throughout the struggle.

Serve the People is committed to the principle of solidarity not charity. We are not paid. All STP programs are 100% volunteer operated. By sharing resources and a lot of hard work we are able to distribute food every week and run monthly free stores, by bringing people together. This is what we mean by people power. Without power, everything is wishful thinking. Without power, the city and developers can come in and push us around—they can unleash their NGOs to make us accept whatever deals they want. Solidarity means standing firm together and fighting to the finish. Community power is only built through the struggles we face to better our conditions as working people. Together we can keep out all who stand to profit off the struggle and much more. We can live in service to the people and not in service to money. We can fight for a world where people are what matters, where no one else is profiting off our work, and where all those who would sell each other out for a buck are nothing but ghosts of a troubled past.

People are what is most important, and the people united are more powerful than money! Together we can accomplish anything! United we can move mountains! Dare to struggle, dare to win!

– Serve the People – Austin