now’s the time to get really active in your immediate local community, figuring out a barter system & pooling resources so everyone will be okay during a collapse.
if you live near fairly conservative people, try starting it off with making a local directory of small businesses & trades, so people can support them. that’s a great starting point for getting to know who has what skills in your local area.
then after a while, you can try expanding that to making a local directory of resources and/or tools, and frame it as a way of sticking it to bigger businesses. “why should everyone buy their own separate lawnmower when people can borrow mine & the few others already in people’s garages? we win, walmart loses!”
We don’t have to assume total collapse, we can organize in working class parties like PSL so that when crisis hits, we can successfully overthrow capitalism and instate socialism.
we can do both, imo! working class parties are great at organising folks on a larger scale, and on a smaller scale, sharing skills & resources in our local communities will still be useful under socialism, or even just in the case of bad storms & businesses being temporarily shut down
Completely agreed, then! Just wanted to state that maintaining revolutionary optimism needs to be maintained, if we only look to local organizing we’ve essentially already given up. If we use each to supplement each other, though, then we plan for the best and prepare for the worst!
then you have misidentified them, those aren’t leftists.
try the same tactics anyway. you don’t have to be best friends with your neighbours & agree with them on everything in order to set up a mutually beneficial system, but that system will never get made if everyone just dismisses the possibility before ever making an attempt.
that’s weird, they tell me that they are leftists and that if I disagree with them at all them I’m not a leftist.
Then they lecture me about how privileged I am and I should just shut up and listen to them because my any thoughts or opinions of my own are automatically wrong because they come from a position of privileged rather than oppression. And I point out I grew up working class from a low income family. Then they tell me to go fuck myself how dare I even talk to them since I’m clearly a MAGA supporter if I am working class, and I shouldn’t have been allowed to go to college because clearly I’m so stupid for not being a ‘real leftist’ like them.
maybe try to organise a directory of local businesses/services/shared resources etc without discussing politics at all, if it’s something that gets people in your locality upset.
if your area has to deal with some extreme weather & gets flooded, for example, ensuring that everyone can stay fed & have access to medical care will be a lot easier if the groundwork has already been done in advance.
now’s the time to get really active in your immediate local community, figuring out a barter system & pooling resources so everyone will be okay during a collapse.
if you live near fairly conservative people, try starting it off with making a local directory of small businesses & trades, so people can support them. that’s a great starting point for getting to know who has what skills in your local area.
then after a while, you can try expanding that to making a local directory of resources and/or tools, and frame it as a way of sticking it to bigger businesses. “why should everyone buy their own separate lawnmower when people can borrow mine & the few others already in people’s garages? we win, walmart loses!”
We don’t have to assume total collapse, we can organize in working class parties like PSL so that when crisis hits, we can successfully overthrow capitalism and instate socialism.
we can do both, imo! working class parties are great at organising folks on a larger scale, and on a smaller scale, sharing skills & resources in our local communities will still be useful under socialism, or even just in the case of bad storms & businesses being temporarily shut down
Completely agreed, then! Just wanted to state that maintaining revolutionary optimism needs to be maintained, if we only look to local organizing we’ve essentially already given up. If we use each to supplement each other, though, then we plan for the best and prepare for the worst!
what if my immediately local community is full of leftists who mostly want to take from other people and give to themselves?
then you have misidentified them, those aren’t leftists.
try the same tactics anyway. you don’t have to be best friends with your neighbours & agree with them on everything in order to set up a mutually beneficial system, but that system will never get made if everyone just dismisses the possibility before ever making an attempt.
that’s weird, they tell me that they are leftists and that if I disagree with them at all them I’m not a leftist.
Then they lecture me about how privileged I am and I should just shut up and listen to them because my any thoughts or opinions of my own are automatically wrong because they come from a position of privileged rather than oppression. And I point out I grew up working class from a low income family. Then they tell me to go fuck myself how dare I even talk to them since I’m clearly a MAGA supporter if I am working class, and I shouldn’t have been allowed to go to college because clearly I’m so stupid for not being a ‘real leftist’ like them.
then i’m sorry that you’ve had that experience.
maybe try to organise a directory of local businesses/services/shared resources etc without discussing politics at all, if it’s something that gets people in your locality upset.
if your area has to deal with some extreme weather & gets flooded, for example, ensuring that everyone can stay fed & have access to medical care will be a lot easier if the groundwork has already been done in advance.