You know that Chris Fleming line that goes "Call yourself a community organizer even though you're not on speaking terms with your roommates"?
I honestly think every leftist who talks about the "revolution" like Christians talk about the rapture needs to spend a year trying to organize their workplace. Anyone who sincerely talks about building a movement so vast and all-encompassing that it overwhelms all existing power structures needs the dose of humility that comes with realizing they can't even build a movement to get people paid better at a badly run AMC Theaters where everyone already hates the manager.
the real takeaway here is that organizing movements is *not* what most people think it is. This is where ideological purity on the front end destroys movements. This is why the left loses. If you want change, you need power. If you want power, you need people. If you want people, you need a collective goal or objective.
You pick a target, something the left is garbage at. NOT EVERYONE NEEDS THE SAME TARGET AND YOU CANT DO EVERYTHING AS A SINGLE GROUP. You pick a target that is immediate, specific, and salient. This usually involves actually working with fucking people. You have to understand what they want and need to unite them around a common goal. You can’t just come in and say “I care about a walkable city and so should you, dumbass.” You have to come in and listen and learn about what people actually would unite around. Maybe they’re sick of having to pay so much time and money to commute because they can’t afford to live near their work.
Then you work together to develop a solution. With specifics. And goals. And tangible milestones. The “things should be better!”rallying cry is true, salient, and fully fucking useless. You find out what solution is most acceptable. What’s going to make an impact that people are going to feel and care about and fight for. The bigger the fix, the longer and harder the fight. Maybe it’s better public transit. Maybe it’s higher wages. Maybe it’s rent caps. Maybe it’s renters unions. You build a coalition of people around a common goal. They might not be from the same background, political ideology, etc. AND THATS OK. IN FACT, *THATS GOOD AND NORMAL AND HOW IT SHOULD BE.* (more on this later)
Then starts the hard, frustrating, boring slog of work. It takes WORK. It takes lots of people lots of time to attend meetings, develop talking points, work to get more people on board, develop plans and suggestions.
All the while people are still STRUGGLING. This is where so many orgs fall flat on their fucking faces. YOU NEED MUTUAL AID. Provide for people. Help them tangibly. Get them bought in. So many orgs either want to provide services but have no endgame, or want to fight for change but have no way to keep people in the fight. This is exactly how the Black Panther Party built power and truly threatened the status quo. MAKE PEOPLE LESS RELIANT ON CURRENT POWER STRUCTURES THAT ARE KILLING YOU.
Ok, but you’re not all ideologically pure. But you know what? This is where you build solidarity. Maybe your pro life coworker sees a single mom of 3 get pregnant and wrestle with what to do. She sees the humanity of people who are in these situations and how the world is shades of grey. Maybe the guy who isn’t homophobic but isn’t super comfortable with trans folks has car trouble and someone in the community helps out. That person has a trans sister and talks about how scared she is right now. This helps humanize the problem and help people see why they should care. Maybe this guy isn’t gonna fistfight a nazi, but maybe the next politician who starts trans bashing isn’t going to get his vote.
Now you’re building power. You’re getting momentum. You’re building community and you’re getting somewhere. But maybe you’re only still just dozens or hundreds in a sea of millions. Well boy howdy welcome to mutualism. Look across and see your fellow communities who are fighting their fights. See where there are bridges and common goals. Maybe the next city council meeting to discuss the budget for public transit gets your group AND the folks fighting for rent caps. And then you attend their city council meeting to shut out the bitching landlords complaining about new regulations.
NOW YOURE BUILDING REAL POWER. And not just in your movement. In your mutual aid too. Now people have more help. More folks who they can uplift and be uplifted by. And the power of the city council seems pretty small by comparison. In fact, the next election may see many of your group win seats.
But this is not easy. This takes time. This takes flexing communal muscles many have all but lost (definitely the case for us in the US). And it takes patience. And the willingness to put community over self. Yeah there are people who you don’t agree with now. But life isn’t about surrounding yourself on a bed of pillows to never struggle. I get it. It’s already hard. And getting harder by the day. So that bed looks really appealing. But we’re only digging the hole deeper. And the first rule of holes is to stop digging.
