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I like this guy's stuff. He basically discusses how to organize and deatomize your neighborhood.
Badass democracy - reclaiming the public commons: Mark Lakeman at TEDxSantaCruz
Mark Lakeman on Urban Permaculture: City Repair, Re-patterning the Grid, Solar Cat Palace
It's by no means the be all end all but I think it's a good example how Organize! means thinking beyond just joining a union or a political party.
this is great, thanks
Welcome. Good luck!
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
If you don't have a local PSL chapter, DSA/Democratic Socialists of America usually has ones in smaller cities. They've been radicalising in recent years and do a lot of local activism/mutual aid. SRA/Socialist Rifle Association is also a decent national group with local chapters, providing a mutual self-defense network for vulnerable groups and teaching gun safety.
Food not Bombs is also poised to become more of a dual structure as the economy gets worse. Here food banks are overwhelmed and shutting out people who don't live in the specific counties. It's fun to cook a big dish to distribute and at least have some weekly ritual that connects you to other leftists in the area.
got it, i'll look into all of those. applied to PSL, i'll see how it goes.
Keep in mind that PSL is kind of notorious for not getting back to people about applications (this varies locally, it seems). You may have better luck using in-person strategies like attending their events. The ANSWER Coalition is basically PSL, you could find one of their protests nearby and ask around, something like that.
Depending where you live, how far you are from an established branch, etc your experience can be very different with PSL. It takes a lot of hard work to start organizing in a new place. But with time and effort you can make it happen, and you will have comrades to support you along the way.
tbh my first thought was to organize some of my friends, i posted asking because i figured there was something established i should join rather than creating a smaller separate group. but if theres nothing in my town, maybe thats the move, there are two socialists in my life irl i trust a lot
Organizing is just getting people to do things in a coordinated way, amplifying your power through numbers and differential impacts (solidarity from those in a position to do more than others). If you have ever had people sign a petition, you have done some light organizing work. If you got them to also commit to go to a meetig, you did fairly substantial organizing work, bread and butter stuff.
RevComs are a Bob Avakian cult. No surprise that they were inappropriate and good on you for noticing something was off.
CPUSA is full of contradictions. It has good commies in it but also climber liberals revisionists (one of the clearest cases where that word can be validly used), particularly in the upper ranks at the national level. It is simultaneously the main internationally recognized communist party and one of the most wrong-headed in action, including their disastrous repeated attempts to focus so much on promoting Joe Biden and liberals in bourgeois electoralism. It is not a bad idea to look into your local group and pote join, but you may need to prepare for identifying the internal factions and getting very frustrated with leadership at at least the national level. I don't personally find projects that require saving the org from its core leadership to usually be a good use of time, but I won't tell you not to do it.
I would recommend that you find a local group that is vaguely commie-friendly and that actually does things like host reading groups, rallies, marches, etc etc. It might be DSA, it might be PSL (less likely for a small town but maybe they cover you regionally), it might be an orf that only exists in your town but has solidarity with other groups. A good sign for an org that "gets it" will be that they actually do things and they have decent anti-imperialist lines: they don't condemn Hamas, they don't promulgate liberal nonsense about existing socialist project states, they do place focus on the USA itself and ita complicity. You might find them based on a local march in solidarity with Palestine or hosting a reading or movie viewing about a relevant topic. Even if the "best" group isn't the host, you can discover them by asking around at these events.
It is also okay to join an org that ends up not being the one you stay with. Most people transition throigh a few orgs as they radicalize and develop experience and skills. It's better to be in an okay org than to wait for a really good one. Just avoid the ones like the Avakian cult.
Revcoms, the avakian cult, are the revolutionary communist party.
Revolutionary communists of America are trotskyists formerly known as the international communist tendency
Ah, the IMT rebrand. IMT is its own kind of cult.
So cool of them to pick an almost identical name to another already-hated org.
Good on ya for trying to organize atleast, most don't seem to get that far. I had a similar experience with CPUSA and upon looking more into it and seeing them fumble palestine related things I left for PSL. My experience with PSL focused on education. I was educated by them and I educated for them. In order to get membership you have to take basically a marxism 101 course, this should be a requirement for any party that claims to be marxist imo but unfortunately it is not. During and after this time I met with fellow PSL members in my area and discussed agitation strategy, who we think would be receptive, how to reach them, etc. We were pre-branch at the time so this was mostly foundational stuff. Anyway we did flyering and held seminars and screenings of documentaries on important topics for the small group we were building. We also had party internals where we would discuss world events and party politics. It was great. Unfortunately my mental health spiralled and I had to take a long break, then I moved cities for a bit and haven't been in touch since but from what I experienced with them they seem like the best we have in America.
alright, everyone's saying PSL so im gonna commit to joining them, thanks !!
If all they want is dues they’re probably trots. Basically a cult.
If there’s a PSL group near you they’re probably your best bet!
look for Food Not Bombs if you're by a decent sized city, they will have local org pamphlets
Like a lot of decentralized movements, you never know exactly what you'll get. I have met some extremely cool people at FNB, but the one where I live now feels very lib and pacifist.
yeah local practices vary but they're a good / safer resource for people looking to meet the people actually doing work in the area
Check out a book called we are our own liberators by Jalil Muntaqim, it has a very practical guide to organizing within it, along with a lot of other good stuff.
As far as mainstream groups go, PSL is the best. I wouldn't join any other group mentioned so far in this thread because I have worked with and around all of them and seen too many problematic decisions and incorrect theory.
I'm not in PSL bc we have a local org that is majority bipoc and non men with a lot of queer/trans folks but if you don't have something that checks all your boxes, PSL is a safe bet.
awesome thanks for the info, starting the book rn. is there something specifically wrong with food not bombs?
FnB is mostly liberals who just take free food and give it to people, sometimes cooking it themselves but often times just giving it directly from whole foods or whatever other store. It's a charity, not a political organization. There is no political education component, no screening for reactionaries, no system of internal accountability, no strategy for social change. It is anarchist in that no one in accountable for the org and there is hardly any structure or rules but it's not like they'll even teach about anarchism. This is why the majority of the people who do it are liberals who want to volunteer for charity but even more of them are just people who want free food and know that by volunteering you can get first pick of the spoils before it gets distributed out. I've seen so much racist and transphobic shit come from FnB members.
One thing I'll say is, like DSA, every now and then there will be a local chapter who is actually full of communists who do want to do more than what I described above. This is just a random thing that can happen but is not the norm in my experience. If you truly have no options locally, it couldn't hurt to go volunteer and get a feel for folks there.
I'll just say join DSA, read, run new ideas past well read people you trust. Go doorknocking, the skills you'll learn are cross applicable to everything else.
But in terms of "what is organizing?" Its a few things:
Its moving people to action: taking people from "im mad about this" to "maybe we could do x about it" to "will you do x with me?"
Its building community: capitalism tries to organize us into consumer demographics. Even punk festivals are selling a brand identity. Instead, get people talking face to face, sharing food, going for hikes, making art unmerited by ads and for-sale events
Its politicizing those communities: draw the lines between your struggles to find public space and the commodification of space. Draw the lines between sharing food and hunger continuing to exist in the US. Draw the lines between your hikes and the loss of old growth forests globally.
Move those politicized communities to action.
Oh, and
-keep a list -escalate your actions over time -have a plan for how you can concretely win before you start
leaving a comment to save post and respond later
Does "small town" mean 50-100k, or does it mean <5k? Oftentimes county population is a lot more meaningful than municipality population.
Do you have any like-minded friends in your town?
10k. i have two friends who would join
If you have more than 100k people in a 25-mile radius, that's enough to have an if-you-build-it-they-will-come dynamic.