Comrade I picked a bad time to get radicalized when it comes to safe organization. I’ve already linked up with my local DSA chapter but there’s really not much I can do except for attend zoom meetings and kind of just sit around with my dick in my hand. Besides sending money and going to more outdoor protests, do you have any suggestions on what to do about direct action while a meet up with my local groups is pretty much impossible?
First of all, welcome to the insurrection, friend! We’re glad to have you on!
I don’t think you’re alone in this boat. Material conditions are such that lots of people are getting radicalized-- they’re being evicted, they’re fleeing climate apocalypse, they’re seeing their loved ones die from cops and coronavirus and they’re helpless to stop it. They’re getting deported and fired and laid off and atomized and can’t even afford to subscribe to shitty streaming services as a palliative force.
Your first instinct-- to find others-- is fundamentally correct. We can only effect real meaningful change in large numbers. We don’t have the cash, but we have the people and we got the guillotine.
Do you have a job? Do you have a union? If the answers are yes and no, respectively, now is the time when you can organize more easily with your co-workers outside the control of your boss. Test the waters in friendly conversation with people you can trust not to snitch, and consider organizing your workplace. The IWW has a very useful guide on how to do so.
Do you rent? Consider forming a tenants’ union. Organizing one of these is less dangerous than organizing your workplace, as you don’t report to your landlord regularly. If your landlord tries to kick one of you out, all of you can strike.
Many mutual aid efforts are still ongoing in the face of lockdown. Now more than ever, we need to care for each other. Food Not Bombs probably has a chapter near you, and the ones around where I’ve lived continue to operate (albeit with precautions like gloves). Join one of those efforts. I’d focus on housing and food-related mutual aid.
Finally, use this time to learn a useful revolutionary skill. You can grow a tiny garden even if you’re in an apartment, you can learn to brew cider, mead, beer, and wine. You can learn to sew and mend, build structures, forage, survive in the woods, read revolutionary lit, and shoot with/care for a gun. Get comfortable carrying heavy things on your back, and expand your cardio abilities (lots and lots of running). Not everyone can run, of course, but do whatever you can to make it easier to escape or throw a punch (when we get back into contact with each other, take up a self-defense art). Once you know the basics, teach them to someone else.
If anybody else has ideas, please put them here!
And again, welcome, comrade, and good luck.
kianamaiart
romaincrisis
jacobvanloon
vaporwave
germansingergirl
areudirty
blakekathryn
