Image ID
ID: A poster in 3 segments, 2 at the top and one bellow:
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The text “if we wait for the government it will be too late” above a drawing of 4 people meeting in an airconditioned building. One is Grey and is smiling and showing love to the others, saying “I love you guys!”. The 3 others are red, who is smoking a cigar, green holding a bag of cash, and yellow wearing a top hat represent gas oil and coal respectively.
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The text “if we act as individuals it will be too little” above a drawing of a person in a small but flourishing garden, they are holding up an apple they got from one of their trees, saying " Such… beauty!" with sparkly eyes. Beyond their fence to the left is an incoming tsunami, to the right are a field and trees on fire with bellowing smoke.
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The text “if we act as communities it might just be enough” above a drawing of several groups of people outside. From left to right, there are 3 people standing around a produce table that has a sign above it saying “crop swap on today!”, next to it is a small cabinet marked “seed library”. On the ground in the centre foreground are an adult and 3 children sitting around a campfire, the kids listening intently, the adult has the Australian Aboriginal flag on their shirt. Behind them are an adult and child getting a pizza out of an outdoor oven. To the right is a stall with a sign above it saying “refugees welcome”, in front of it are two adults, one is wearing a head scarf and is holding a baby. In front of the stall are 4 rows of crops growing from the ground.
Quote by Rob Hopkins in “From what is to what if”
Credit: @brenna-quinlan
Your community won’t stop global capitalism. Toppling your reactionary governments and striving for internationalist socialism, however, will.
Although community care and help is an important cornerstone of building dual power!
Nowhere is it even implied that community on its own will stop capitalism, but without it you will achieve no meaningful change.
Like, who the fuck do you think you’re going to be toppling the government and doing socialism with? How the fuck do you think you get people today to understand the value of doing that? How do you gather enough human mass to enact it?
I’m all for a violent abolition of our existing establishments, but this hostility that seems to be coming out of people towards the mere suggestion of the importance of community building is really odd…
You will never get anywhere without a community.
I just meant to add to your post, not dispute it. It just reminded me of utopian solarpunk idealism that has no meaningful longterm vision except for vibes. Hence my perceived harshness
also the second part of my comment should make it clear that I think of community as being vitally important
Your comment reads like you’re shooting down this agitprop because it doesn’t have an explicitly revolutionary spin, which seems extremely counterproductive. If we only stick with revolutionary rhetoric, we will never attract those shy of revolution, who only understand it as a violent upheaval.
Forming communities and spreading agitprop which promotes more community formation is fundamental to any path forward. Communities are the best tool to saving anyone from the currently fucked situation, even if toppling never happens. It’s also the only means to build the trust needed for legitimate organizing. Agitprop only promoting community formation should not only be tolerated or accepted, it should be strongly encouraged.
The problem is that revolution is necessary, and simply hoping things get better isn’t acceptable. Agitprop needs a practical message as well.
Again, whether necessary or not, you are immediately alienating anyone who isn’t ready for revolution by always putting it in the message. If we expect to ever compete with centrist and fascist propaganda, we must implement their same tactics in our agitprop, which means pipelining.
At the same time, what revolution means also varies. Some think hacktivism, asking for Jane, and other counter-establishment movements - for others it’s waging a guerilla war against the US government and the upper class. I just want to get the ball rolling, regardless of where it starts rolling.
I agree with pipelining, but messages can’t conflict or leave out the further conclusions. I do a lot of pipelining on Lemmy myself.
That seems like a pretty arbitrary rule which no other political groups doing pipelining adhere to. Outside messages often contradict as you go deeper with white supremacy, cults, and neoliberal rhetoric. They also constantly leave out the more extreme messaging on the outside and slowly ramp up the other stuff.
I don’t doubt you’ve moved leftists further left, but actually shifting centrists, conservatives, or anyone else does not seem likely with your approach.
Plenty of conservative libertarian farmer types who voted for trump would agree about the importance of community, but they will immediately check out if you even hint at toppling the government, or even mentioning socialized infrastructure. We need to adjust our agitprop so it can at least start reaching out that far, and by doing so we’ll be more likely to capture centrists for pipelining. We need a large portion of most countries if we want a global revolution, and we need agitprop that can gain that.
You adjust ajitprop based on audience, and want to serve as a slide without preventing further movement. If you give a leftist message that takes an anti-revolutionary stance, that makes further pipelining more difficult.
On “lefty memes,” the people are largely liberals and progressives that can be converted into actual leftists with proper messaging, I wouldn’t worry about appealing to libertarian conservatives here.
The above agitprop post is not anti-revolutionary, it is just not explicitly revolutionary. It does not make pipelining harder, as it transitions smoothly into agitprop promoting militant protection of communities and community activism which can mesh cleanly with revolution.
Liberals and progressives are both still solidly in the “work within the system” camp but are receptive to community building and counter-establishment action. I’ve seen them receptive to as far as underground distribution of abortion meds, and even activist vandalism. Most are still shy of the idea of taking up arms, and any mention of ‘revolution’. I expect you will end up getting better capture by just omitting talking about revolution and instead just talking about the actual practices and infrastructure that lead to it.
Gonna have to agree to disagree here, the overt pacifism and lack of even a unionization message ultimately means it delays revolutionary messaging.