As of January 13th, 2012, Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee has unanimously decided to disband. This decision was not the result of any political difference among us on our principles of unity, and we agreed that our last group activity would be to write this statement.
SAIC was organized in August 2005 as a working alliance between non-affiliated activists and Communist Voice Organization supporters determined to build up working class anti-imperialist consciousness and organization in the city, particularly in the anti-war movement. To do this we targeted the imperialist system (monopoly capitalism) as being the cause of Bush’s and then Obama’s wars abroad, as well as their reactionary domestic policies. We used tactics to win the broad masses away from illusions that the Democratic Party was anti-war and progressive. And while uniting with the various opportunist-led coalitions (e.g., ANSWER, SNOW, and World Can’t Wait) whenever possible, we also fought to expose how they refused to do this necessary work, thereby weakening the movement. Additionally, we soon broadened our work to include other fronts of the class struggle.
Through all of our activity of the past six and a half years—feeder marches, contingents, co-sponsoring demonstrations, putting up posters, discussions, passing out some 124,000 copies of our many leaflets, etc.—we think SAIC has indeed won new comrades to anti-imperialism. In fact, along with the recent objective political developments that all progressives are excited about, we mobilized more people than we’d ever before mobilized to the October 7, 2011 anti-war demonstration. But alongside this our actual membership had been declining for several years, due to some combination of objective political conditions and our abilities as organizers. Then, the January 13 resignation of our last non-CVO member (mainly for reasons that take him away from all political activity) meant that we were no longer an alliance organized on an anti-imperialist basis. The SAIC project had therefore come to and end.
With high regard to all, and forward with the struggle!
Former members of the Seattle Anti-imperialist Committee