I feel seen
Tell me what to burn. Tell me who to harass. Tell me where the heads of the heritage foundation are eating lunch so I can stop by and accidentally plow through the building with an 18 wheeler.
Lonewolfing fash is based and all, but it’s more based to build up your local community and empower the people. We’re stronger together, we can’t win on our own.
Does anyone want to come over and bake cookies and thermite?
“Smells good, what are you cooking?”
“Napalm”
I love the smell of napalm in the kitchen.
Smells like victory
I’m not working with my fascist neighbors that still happily wave Trump flags. They deserve the same punishment everyone who supports him needs to have, from the top down. Make fascists afraid to show their face.
This is the trouble I’ve got. Deep red rural area that’s very clearly deep red. I don’t like going out around here because everyone supports Trump, and I have zero interest in supporting or interacting with people or businesses like that. Sure there are good people around, but finding them is incredibly difficult because they mostly keep to themselves because gestures at the entire area being regressive
I’d love to be able to actually find people to work with directly, but they would be very very very unlikely to actually be neighbors or even particularly local… so instead I’m focused on my diaspora. People I already know and care about, who are unfortunately not local to me anymore (1-5 hrs away), but who have less regressive communities, and more chance to extend the network themselves, and who I can help support in some way. I’m also working on some things that I hope will be able to help support people more widely. It’s not the community network I’d like, but maybe it’ll help. We can only do what we can do.
I’ve felt the same as you and have been working to find like-minded people in my area, and have found some success, so I can offer a bit of advice. Even in deep red rural areas there is likely to be an active Indivisible chapter, and the people who participate in those groups - despite their closeness to the DNC - tend to be on the more progressive side of liberal and more willing to act beyond just electoralism. Usually in the rural red areas they will skew older as well, but there’s almost guaranteed to be younger and more lefty folks lurking in the group chat, they just tend to have less free time to dedicate to it or they may be more cynical about the protests. You can also find leftists by volunteering at places like homeless shelters, soup kitchens, etc. so long as you avoid the evangelical ones. I’ve also found like-minded people at farmer’s markets, though that’s usually a mixed bag, but if you do something subtle to make yourself visibly inclusive like a pin or a t-shirt with a progressive message like-minded people might approach you, but of course you might want to be careful about attracting the wrong kind of attention. Look for more hippie-ish looking folks and you’ll hit more often than you miss.
I’m still working at it but I’ve managed to find a decent number of like-minded people in a much shorter time than I expected by doing some of the things listed above, and this is in rural West Kentucky. Form relationships with the people you find and the organizing can follow.
It’s going to be harder. Start subtly subversive but hard to criticize mutual aid. Local cultures vary. Look for how they existed together 20 years ago as a guide for what kind of thing will go over well. Maybe somebody misses the bowling alley or church potluck.
Use descriptions not labels. Talk about values not movements. ‘Communism’ is evil, ‘anarchism’ is chaos! But sharing togetherness community freedom and democracy are much easier to sell.
Figure out whose fascism is shallow aesthetic ‘going along to get along’ and who’s genuinely a monster to the core. They’re going to have shitty opinions and be wrong about everything, but figure out why they’re wrong and where/how you can push. Arguing is not generally helpful until they already respect you. Remember; most capitalist subjects are just tribalistic little monkeys who believe in nothing, and wouldn’t know if they did.
You’re going to be dealing with a lot more nuance and edge cases. Most of your attempts to start things will fail, and if you don’t, the risks of 'bad success’¹ are much higher.
Figure out a place to buy used books and get copies of your fav very basic theory to just have around for people to pick up. Kropotkin and frieri are good for that. Some lefty fiction isn’t a bad thing to have around. Or if you have a portable projector, have a film playing. Be fucking creative and know your target.
You’re going to fail. You’re going to revise and adapt.
¹organization going bad directions and cultiness
I know Lemmy or any online space loves to see everything in black and white. From my experience, people are a lot more complicated than that. I’ve lived in both extremely rural areas and big cities. I’ve met good and honest people that were conservative and left leaning people that acted like toxic shitheads. Politics are important and it’s good to have values, but in certain relationships it’s best to just not hyper focus on it so much. Solidarity with fellow working class people is more important than agreeing on absolutely every single issue.
I don’t care how “good and honest” a conservative is when they support people that want to see my trans and gay friends and family eradicated from the public and shoved into the shadows.
Okay, that’s your prerogative. My only point is if you’re trying to organize working people, you’re going to realize pretty fast not all of them think exactly like you do.
It’s why I don’t want to organize them and just want to see conservative supporters of all types drop dead like they wish upon those I care about.
Building community feels hard. I think we are all waiting for someone else to get it started.
It is hard. When I was more active in local activist groups, the amount of people we would get at movie nights and other events varied heavily on whatever liberal fixation was currently happening.
It also doesn’t help that the US has zero concept of third spaces due to capitalism and industrialization. They don’t want people hanging out in spaces that don’t keep some constant cash flow going for parasites.
Yeah but… That involves people, and that’s something I don’t like.
Don’t expect other people to do all your work for you. Take your own initiative and do your own thinking.
who to harass
What’s your main issue? What part of the world? Do some footwork. Do you care most about the environment? The wretched of the earth? The means of sustainable production? Ending imperial oppression? Are you in Juno? New York? Lyon? Hong Kong? Lima? Johannesburg? Moscow? Luhansk? Manchester? Beijing? Because every combination of that has different answers.
what to burn I dunno, what near you does no good and lots of bad for the world? I’m not your mother.
heads of the heritage foundation are eating lunch
How do you figure that out? Start with OSINT; country clubs and fancy restaurants nearby their HQ. Then get your shoes real gummy. then learn to drive your 18 wheeler, or, like, be learning at night or whatever.VI’s driving an 18wheeler into them the best solution?
And consider that change isn’t just destructive. What do you want to build? What do you want to make? The two compliment each other very well. The creative urge is also the destructive urge.
Unionize. Make your salary an issue for those who would harass other for profits otherwise
Unfortunately, I’m in a tiny shop with good bosses. Not much to change in that regard.
Reminds me of a story.
Adam Sandler made a football movie. His ‘team’ was elite stuntmen and former college players, the opposition was former high school players. One opposition player said he really wanted to sack Sandler. The actor playing the QB explained that he’d have to knock down all the opposition players, and they’d keep replacing anyone he knocked down.
Your truck would have to break fifty layers of security to get near the elite guards.
