Apologies in advance for this being part rant.
I have a group of people who, in theory, are pumped up to go out and fight ICE. My local org is full of people who claim they want to do things, but what they actually do is endlessly bicker about theory minutae, criticism of other orgs or politicians, but rarely showing up.
I mean the org has turned out for some things but the most activity was one anti-ICE protest and then tagging along to a bunch of PSL events.
So we had a minor win with our immigration campaign the other day and were trying to pick a next action. I suggested several low-lift activities like canvassing local Hispanic businesses, handing out whistles and getting to know our community, or showing up to yell at Lib candidates to do better on fighting ICE. Doing more advocacy at local city council meetings. Going door-to-door in a local Hispanic neighborhood and getting to know people... and instead I get people saying we need a "mission statement" and wanting to plan out something perfect.
I feel like my local org doesn't know how to do anything! They mean well but I'm tired of sitting around waiting for buy in to do things I thought we should have been doing for six months now. Every little event is a huge ordeal and feels like pulling teeth!
IDK what to do. Am I personally being a poor organizer? Is there something I can do to convince people to start doing things and stop just talking about them? I could go out alone but I'd rather build a group that will go out together vs. my awkward ass walking into some Panderias.
Is there a manual for how to do this that actually works? I believe we had a reading group for No Shortcuts a year ago, but I guess that either didn't apply or people didn't learn anything from it.
Have one on ones with like everybody. Do you have people you work well with? Enlist their help, start holding weekly meetings for something tangible, other than internal organizing. Start building campaigns. Organizational myopia crops up everywhere, there something about this work that engages a lot of bureaucratic thinking and approaches. And that needs to be combatted. People often want to formalize something that doesn't have a concrete basis. We like abstract things. Then it causes burn out when the a priori structures that were formalized have problems and gaps.
Plan an education event, a mobilization event, and a follow up. Use the education event to get people to mobilize, then use the mobilization to organize and gather contacts for another education event. Have lots of side conversations, recruit people to lead educations and mobilizations. Take names, build contacts, follow up.
Do not waste time trying to get people to do something. Give people something to do. Campaigns create the basis for organizing, and party structures emerge out of campaign work. When orgs start organizing themselves, they produce bourgeois leadership structures and give way to opportunism. Struggle for internal democracy and keep making shit happen. Ideas only exist in practice, what they build won't exist, and what you build will, and the difference is political. So get your group of 1-2 other people and start meeting regularly. Just make sure you center work on politics and not pragmatism.