hexFeb 7, 2025

Hey anarchists and general leftists organizing in #RuralAmerica and deep red territory! I know you exist, but a lot of folks don't. This might be a good time to share your experience so others doing similar things can learn from them.

What strategies have you used?
What lessons have you learned?
What successes can you talk about?
How do you talk about your ideas and frame your conversations?
What organizations exist to make that type of organizing easier?

Edit: I forgot about this episode
https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co/episode/92cbcf70/sabot-media-on-rural-organizing

#USPol

S1E71 - Sabot Media on Rural Organizing

# Episode Summary Margaret talks with Sprout and Charyan from Sabot Media and The Blackflower Collective about organizing in rural areas and how that can be different from organizing in more urban areas. Sprout and Charyan talk about the different projects that Sabot Media and The Blackflower Collec

Live Like the World is Dying
Show threadFishercatFeb 7, 2025

@Hex Hey. You're encouraging folks to publicly post information about themselves that could land them in jail or in an exciting new position fertilizing someone's cornfield.

Maybe take a look at some of the stuff @hakan_geijer has posted recently about #OpSec, and reconsider.

#opsec #opsec101 #anarchism #uspolitics #USPol #anarchists

Show threadhexFeb 7, 2025

@Fishercat @hakan_geijer I am not. The majority of organizing that folks can do is both legal and not high risk. Anyone who is doing high risk work should absolutely not share anything about that.

The majority of folks in rural areas are not nearly as scary as city folks tend to think... And most of them hate the few loud Nazis and good ol' boys who run a lot of small towns.

If you're doing things like abortion support or trans healthcare, yeah, don't talk about that. But you can just do things like organize 4H (as a leftist), organize marches with Quakers, or be involved in other community organizations, or organize folks to be more active in local government. That stuff tends to fly under the radar.

Show threadhex
@Fishercat the big thing that folks were organizing around was saving post offices because they are community meeting spaces. There's a lot of stuff with broad popular support in rural areas that's invisible as "leftist" activity.
Feb 7, 2025 at 3:34pmWeb
Show threadhexFeb 7, 2025

@Fishercat I think folks also don't realize how big the US is. It's impossible to police. The town I lived in had one cop per shift whose patrol took several hours.

Those folks are checking social media. Fash may, but they aren't trying to dox everyone all the time because they just aren't that organized.

Even if you're talking about guns, like Redneck Revolt or shit, folks probably already know you. From my experience, you're either known or you know you have to be invisible. There isn't really much middle ground.

But I don't know how well my experience has aged, so I'm open to being corrected.

Show threadFishercatFeb 7, 2025
@Hex I know how many hours it takes to drive across my state, which is comparatively small.
Show threadFishercatFeb 7, 2025
@Hex Gotcha.