Guerrillas of Desire: Notes on Everyday Resistance and Organizing to Make a Revolution Possible

Behind the smiling faces of cashiers, wait staff, and workers of all sorts, a war is being planned, usually without the knowledge of official political and labor organizations.Guerrillas of Desirebegins with a provocation: The Left is wrong. It's historical and current strategies are too-often based on the assumption that working and poor people are unorganized, acquiescent to systems of domination, or simply uninterested in building a new world. The fact is, as C.L.R. James has noted, they "are rebelling every day in ways of their own invention": pilfering, sabotaging, faking illnesses, squatting, fleeing, and counter-strategizing. Kevin Van Meter maps these undercurrents, illustrating that everyday resistance is an important factor in revolution and something radicals of all stripes must understand.
Kevin Van Meteris an activist-scholar based in the Pacific Northwest. He is coeditor ofUses of a Whirlwind: Movement, Movements, and Contemporary Radical Currents in the United States.