Everyone thinking that the only two options are being quiet or being violent.
Strikes are currently making those in power very uncomfortable, and are resulting in genuine progress for workers.
In my area, people camping out in thousand year old trees has protected them time and again from being illegally logged.
Black Lives Matter protests were loud and made the powerful uncomfortable, and despite media narratives it wasn’t “violent protesters” that made the powerful uncomfortable.
It is true that any form of protest that is loud and inconveniencing enough to actually be productive will be met with state violence.
It’s also true that some working for progress do use violence. But make no mistake, it’s not guns that made those in power uncomfortable when it came to Malcom X and the Black Panthers.
The most radical and intimidating (to those in power) things the Black Panthers did were to give free food to schoolchildren, and free healthcare at their People’s Free Medical Clinics.
Building community and mutual aid is subversive.
Building community and mutual aid makes those in power uncomfortable.
This. Both the government and the major corporations depend on being able to extract wealth from real people getting what they need. If we build dual power structures, help one another out and cut the owner class out of the transaction entirely, we weaken them. Growing food in your garden is revolutionary. Clothing swaps are revolutionary. Cutting the old lady next door’s lawn, then eating the soup she made is an act that strikes at the fundamental underpinnings of the power structure set up by those who think that they should be entitled to our labor because they’ve been arbitrarily designated as the “owners” of things. We can and should remove them from the equation entirely.
Canada’s treatment of first nations is just as bad as the U.S.'s, and we won’t win every time; But neither will the fascists.
People are waking up to the fact that many governments we were raised to trust are committing active genocide, but the protests that will win will not be spontaneous. They never truly are.
The people that are organizing and building community now learned (usually quite directly) from those that made real change decades ago.
The constant cries of “general strike!” (almost exclusively from white people who refuse to learn from those that have done the work) always fail.
They fail because it’s not about just setting a date and announcing it; It’s about having the community, infrastructure, expertise, and experience already in place to care for the people that simply would otherwise starve if the communities of care weren’t in place.
The trust from very reasonably scared people that they will be cared for rather than abandoned.
Successful movements always come from years to decades of building a foundation.
Every protest is an opportunity to build that community, even if individual actions “fail”.
And yes, people will die on the path to real change. But more will die if we simply remain complacent.
I know you weren’t suggesting to give up, and I assume you also weren’t suggesting perpetrating violence to achieve progress.
Even though you weren’t suggesting either, I think it’s worth laying out the bigger picture explicitly.
Building community and mutual aid makes those in power uncomfortable.
Small mutual aid for local communities grow out into large social aid organizations that have political power. Politicians can make them redundant by unemployment, healthcare and pensions, or try to nip them in the bud.
ITT:
Everyone thinking that the only two options are being quiet or being violent.
Strikes are currently making those in power very uncomfortable, and are resulting in genuine progress for workers.
In my area, people camping out in thousand year old trees has protected them time and again from being illegally logged.
Black Lives Matter protests were loud and made the powerful uncomfortable, and despite media narratives it wasn’t “violent protesters” that made the powerful uncomfortable.
It is true that any form of protest that is loud and inconveniencing enough to actually be productive will be met with state violence.
It’s also true that some working for progress do use violence. But make no mistake, it’s not guns that made those in power uncomfortable when it came to Malcom X and the Black Panthers.
The most radical and intimidating (to those in power) things the Black Panthers did were to give free food to schoolchildren, and free healthcare at their People’s Free Medical Clinics.
Building community and mutual aid is subversive.
Building community and mutual aid makes those in power uncomfortable.
This. Both the government and the major corporations depend on being able to extract wealth from real people getting what they need. If we build dual power structures, help one another out and cut the owner class out of the transaction entirely, we weaken them. Growing food in your garden is revolutionary. Clothing swaps are revolutionary. Cutting the old lady next door’s lawn, then eating the soup she made is an act that strikes at the fundamental underpinnings of the power structure set up by those who think that they should be entitled to our labor because they’ve been arbitrarily designated as the “owners” of things. We can and should remove them from the equation entirely.
If you wrote a book I’d read it.
deleted by creator
Canada’s treatment of first nations is just as bad as the U.S.'s, and we won’t win every time; But neither will the fascists.
People are waking up to the fact that many governments we were raised to trust are committing active genocide, but the protests that will win will not be spontaneous. They never truly are.
The people that are organizing and building community now learned (usually quite directly) from those that made real change decades ago.
The constant cries of “general strike!” (almost exclusively from white people who refuse to learn from those that have done the work) always fail.
They fail because it’s not about just setting a date and announcing it; It’s about having the community, infrastructure, expertise, and experience already in place to care for the people that simply would otherwise starve if the communities of care weren’t in place.
The trust from very reasonably scared people that they will be cared for rather than abandoned.
Successful movements always come from years to decades of building a foundation.
Every protest is an opportunity to build that community, even if individual actions “fail”.
And yes, people will die on the path to real change. But more will die if we simply remain complacent.
I know you weren’t suggesting to give up, and I assume you also weren’t suggesting perpetrating violence to achieve progress.
Even though you weren’t suggesting either, I think it’s worth laying out the bigger picture explicitly.
Also, for anyone who read this far, I highly recommend reading any of Mariama Kaba’s books, https://mariamekaba.com/ https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1922-let-this-radicalize-you .
Why wasn’t I taught about the free food and medical care part of what they did?
You were quietly taught that armed black people were scary. That’s what they wanted you to remember, not what they armed themselves for.
Ugh… this just makes me feel all sorts of awful. I struggle to find the exact words.
Shit, at least you were taught about them. Never even heard about the Black Panthers until later in my adult life on a random reddit comment.
Small mutual aid for local communities grow out into large social aid organizations that have political power. Politicians can make them redundant by unemployment, healthcare and pensions, or try to nip them in the bud.
Politicians can try.
That can’t stop us from trying though.
https://valleysunderground.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/blackshirts-and-reds-by-michael-parenti.pdf
One of the most subversive things you can do IMO is move your life and wealth to China
or get hired for a gubment job and slack off/sell seekrits
if you can’t do those two, then comes the 5 finger discount and IRL minecraft
IRL socialist networks need to be secretive and disguised as something else. Maybe even “community watch” or something