Cargo Bike Collective

Replace Cars, NYC! Cargo Bikes are the key to our transportation future. Bike Love to all those who schlep by human-power!

[cargobikecollective]

#stolenbikealert #bikenyc! Keep your eyes peeled on streets & craigslist for MY matte black Trek 830 Antelope. It is no longer with kickstand or rack. VERY LOUD BRAKES. Stolen last night in BEDSTUY. REWARD FOR RETURN! Message us or "@critmasspanic" on twitter if seen. Thxxx!🤞🏻🚲🖤

[derekrub]

[cargobikecollective]

Fuck cars, Brooklyn. It's the #cargoway! Custom hat by my bro with the reflective silkscreen is tight ! #diy

[steph-mcmillan]

NGOs* are cages.

We really need to understand the methods used by NGOs to undermine radical political organizing efforts and divert us into political dead ends. The climate march is a good case study because it’s so blatant. In South Florida, we saw the exact same process after the BP oil spill. Once the NGOs came in to the organizing meetings and were given the floor, all potential resistance was blocked, strangled, and left for dead. NGOs will descend on any organizing effort and try to take it over, dilute it, and bring it eventually to the Democratic Party. We can also see an identical set-up with the established labor unions and many other organizations. If organizers are being paid, usually they are trapped in this dynamic, whether or not they want to be. While combining a job with organizing to challenge the system sounds very tempting and full of potential, it’s overwhelmingly not possible. They are two fundamentally incompatible aims, and those funding the job definitely do not have the aim of allowing its employees to undermine the system – the very system that allows the funders to exist, that they feed off of. Capitalists aren’t stupid, and they know how to keep their employees chained to a post, even if the leash feels long. With NGOs, capitalism has set up a great mechanism for itself both to generate revenue, and to pacify people who might otherwise be fighting to break the framework. “The unity of the chicken and the roach happens in the belly of the chicken.” Another problem is that the rest of us attending an activity or a demonstration have to wonder: when organizers are being paid to say whatever it is they’re saying, how do we know whether or not they believe it? They follow a script, and can’t reveal their true feelings. They attempt to promote their cause in a convincing way, but if their funding was cut off, would they still be involved? Would their orientation still be the same? It’s hard to believe anything said by a paid spokespuppet – it’s like interacting with an embodied list of talking points. There can be no real trust, that the person could be relied upon when the money is no longer there. Of course people need jobs, and NGOs provide them. I’m not blaming those who work for NGOs any more than who work for any other capitalist institution. We’re all trapped in the enemy’s economy. Instead, what I’m arguing for is to be aware of the nature of it, its severe limitations, and to do real political work outside the framework provided by the job. We should attend demonstrations like the climate march, because a lot of sincere people will be there who want to make a difference. But we should remain autonomous within them, bringing our own message targeting capitalism as the root of the problem, exposing the uselessness of working within the political frameworks it sets up for us, and building our own organizations with the people we meet. To challenge, weaken and ultimately destroy capitalism, we need to build a strong, organized, broad, combative mass movement outside the influence of capitalist interests. * (NGO: Non-Governmental Organizations, or “non-profits,” usually in fact funded by governments and/or corporate foundations).

[cargobikecollective]

A decent load from Ridgewood to UES.

[velokultur]

[cargobikecollective]

[cargobikecollective]

It was snowing in Brooklyn at the end of our Cargo bike training on the Nick and sons work

[cargobikecollective]

Cargoway Brooklyn

[anarchopuppy]

A 10,000 person protest could flip and torch a few cop cars, but 100 people acting independently could cut the valve stems on 100 different cop cars and render them unusable and unrepairable

A 10,000 person protest could smash some windows of businesses and offices, but 100 people could superglue 100 buildings’ locks shut overnight

A 10,000 person protest could loot a few stores, but 100 people skillfully and persistently shoplifting could liberate just as much over time

1,000 people could blockade the construction of an oil pipeline, but it only takes 1 to turn the emergency shutoff valve on an existing one

100 people could camp in treehouses and prevent a clearcutting, but it only takes 1 to spike a few trees to drastically slow them down or even destroy their equipment

I’m not saying that mass actions aren’t important - no doubt, they accomplish things that couldn’t be done otherwise - but be aware of what can get done independently when those protests aren’t coming together. Get creative, stay active, direct action gets the good

[queeranarchism]

Sooooo true. I don’t recommend doing a lot on your own with no buddy and no support system, but two people who are determined to fuck shit up? Now there’s power. Three or more people? Now that’s an incredibly force.

There have been cases where thousands of people in an antifascist protest could not prevent the nazis from also showing their faces and doing their little march, but one affinity group figuring out which pre-meet location the nazis used and fucking up all their cars did just that. 

There have been cases where thousands of protesters, hashtags and signatures could not prevent a deportation but one person faking a seizure on the flight before take off could, and it saved that refugees’ life.

And I could go on. Direct action is magic.

[lemondeabicyclette]

[ultraviolet-techno-ecology]

There is a very specific sort of trauma which comes from being a small child, being told about widespread ecological destruction. Trauma which does not come from that initial fact - but rather the adult response to that child’s inevitable question of “What can we do about it!” 

Even in grade school I recognized the inherent absurdity of being told about the massive destruction of rainforests - particularly the amazon - but then being told that if we want to help we can “Recycle Cans” or whatever. 

And I think that to a certain extent that trauma has a somewhat malevolent yet subtle intention. When you make small children think that the world is dying because they ate a chocolate bar in plastic wrap - you foster a sense of preexisting damnation which cannot be meaningfully fought. 

Alternatively when you make children think that adults have no plan or interest whatsoever to tackle the problem, you foster a worldview in which the children have an actively antagonist relationship to older generations. Given the power dynamics between children and adults however, this is just as likely to produce crushing despair as it might prompt furious rebellion. 

Both paths ultimately lead toward learned helplessness and general misanthropy, ensuring that resistance to ecological destruction is minimal. Stifling the emotional ecological connection of every person who was once a child filled with the wonder of a tall tree, a grassy meadow, or the first squirrel they ever saw. 

Capitalism sustains itself through mass-trauma, and this is only one small piece to the larger situation. However it is a piece I find personally meaningful to discuss given my focus on environmentalism.

[cargobikecollective]

Happy Saturday we are still supporting Food Not Bombs the #cargoway in Brooklyn

[cargobikecollective]

#cargoway Brooklyn no filter

[cargobikecollective]

Summer cargo bike times in Brooklyn 2020

[anarchopuppy]

Autonomous Disaster Relief Efforts Are Organizing in the Face of Wildfires & Hurricanes - It's Going Down

Mutual Aid Disaster Relief (MADR) presents a list of efforts aimed at combating the recent wave of natural disasters

Hurricane Laura

To get involved, fill out the Mutual Aid Disaster Relief volunteer application. Sign up here. And check their social media for different ways to get involved

Iowa Derecho

Advocates for Social Justice 

Iowa City Mutual Aid Collective

California Wildfires

Santa Cruz Mutual Aid, Mutual Aid Spread Sheet

Gilroy/Morgan Hill 

San Mateo County 

Monterey County 

Mask Oakland

Mask Sonoma

Vallejo for Racial Justice

Lake Mutual Aid

Lehigh Valley Mutual Aid

Oregon Wildfires

Symbiosis PDX

The Witches PDX, CashApp: $PDXWitches Venmo: @TheWitches

Portland DSA Mutual Aid Fund

Rogue Valley: Medford, Ashland, Oregon

Hurricane Isaias

Corona Aid 757

Hurricane Hanna

RGV Mutual Aid

Michigan Floods

Mutual Aid Saginaw Bay CashApp: $SistersUnited2016

By Mail: Sisters United CCR LLC P.O Box 464 Carrolton MI 48724

Indonesian Floods

Paramedisjalananmks, Paypal

Lebanon Explosion

Al Makan (The Space) Cultural Center

Paypal: [email protected]

Lebanon Herbal Collective Response

Coronavirus

MADR’s resources

US map

UK map

See the original article for more information, and subscribe to MADR’s mailing list or social media for ongoing updates

[anarchopuppy]

This is off-script but I honestly think Mutual Aid Disaster Relief is the most important organization on Turtle Island right now, and they’ll only continue growing more important as “disaster” more and more becomes the new default

MADR has formed affinity clusters between groups all across the continent, but in a way that maintains complete autonomy and doesn’t get caught up in unnecessary bureaucracy. They also coordinate distribution of materials and information where it’s needed extremely effectively

No other org has been able to do that. And many others have tried to “unite” the COVID mutual aid movement to no avail

I also think they’re the most equipped to kickstart a new “economy” of mutual aid when the 18-wheelers stop coming, which I think may be very soon. Having coordinated with them I know they’re connected deep, deep into the grassroots in a really unique way

Anyway, truly excellent work. Please give them your support (monetary, material, labor, etc), especially right now as natural disasters seem to be happening everywhere at once

[dankmemeuniversity]

[cargobikecollective]

Or a covid test