Mastodawn

Beardy Star Stuff 🌹🏴🇵🇸2d ago

RE: https://thepit.social/@peter/116804571026818516

It is insane and it was also predicted. And it will get worse. And worse. And it will keep getting worse. We are at the beginning of a planet that will keep heating. And yet, the vast majority of the middle class of the wealthy Northern nations refuse to act. They make no effort to organize against capitalism nor do they attempt to build solutions in their communities. They refuse to take any action at all. Instead they wait for the right-wing state to save them. The same right-wing state that is THE trusted partner of capitalism. They just go on living with no demands upon themselves. They continue feeding capitalism with their labor and consumption.

We refuse to act for our planet while we happily feed the fire with every aspect of our lives. Certainly the majority of the US are not seriously interested in a solution to the crisis because it will mean changing their lives. Easier to just let the worst case happen.

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#ClimateEmergency #ClimateDiary #Capitalism #Politics

Beardy Star Stuff 🌹🏴🇵🇸2d ago

If the state is the problem along with capitalism then we have to organize against it while we take immediate action and responsibility. Just as we saw in Minneapolis this past winter, people came out to protect their neighbors and organize against the state. They showed up, everyday. That is the model we must adopt for our movement. All of it.

In every neighborhood we come out. We don't get to skip it. We treat it like the emergency it is. And we come out of our homes and our comfort zones and we organize.

Murray Bookchin was organizing and writing about our social ecological crisis in the 1950s. He described, in detail, the way that we could organize in our communities to challenge capitalism and the state while we created a radically democratic and ecological society from the ground up. This is the method adopted by the Kurds in Rojava, directly inspired by Bookchin.

What are we waiting for?

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#SocialEcology #Organize #Anarchism #Politics

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut4ZRVYde6g

Murray Bookchin Visions of a New Society Interview 10/18/93

YouTube

Beardy Star Stuff 🌹🏴🇵🇸2d ago

You can get his texts for free. Also, lots of folks have written about his ideas so read those too. Start organizing, find others and create the solutions in your neighborhood, town, community.

No, it won't be easy. It won't be easy. It won't be easy. But is letting the world burn into an authoritarian hellscape the answer simply because you can't be bothered with making an effort?

Tell me again about how much you love your children or your grandchildren. Uh huh.

Make this your life. That's the kind of change we need. It's not a side hobby. This is where we are at. You don't have to do all of these at once but each can be a part of a larger longer term community system:
- Organize a weekly study group. This can help you finds co-organizers. If I can do this in deep read rural Missouri you can do it.
- Organize a mutual aid project
- Organize a community garden
- Organize a community bike co-op
- Organize a repair cafe
- Organize a community assembly
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https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/murray-bookchin

Murray Bookchin

Murray Bookchin

The Anarchist Library

seedsignal 2d ago

@bss I think you miscalculate the average human level of awareness, self or otherwise. I think this because I did the same until about 25, when I got my hands on the science and realized that no, actually, humans are variable AF and that definitely includes awareness be it self, situational, environmental, or however else you want to define it.

Most will follow but never initiate more because at core, monkey want to sit in tree with banana and sun on head. Maybe leaf for when sun mad. 🖖

seedsignal 2d ago

@bss I'm not saying it's hopeless. It's not. I'm saying lecturing humans turns them off, not on. No matter how accurate your data.

Reciprocity starts with giving and often looks like altruism initially. People get confused, I think. But trust over time is a thing and if you have the energy and resources to organize, you should. Maybe assume less intention and motivation of others. It's rarely there or that. 🖖

Beardy Star Stuff 🌹🏴🇵🇸2d ago

I appreciate your appeal to science! And I agree with some of your observations but only to a degree. Lecturing humans is one interpretation of my posts here and I'm okay with that. I'm on the soapbox and I think that's what we need to do. The folk that are not organizing, not putting up an effort need to be lectured. Whatever words we want to use, the point is that generally speaking, we are not acting but are, rather, remaining fairly passive in the face of several crises.

It's more complicated than monkey want to sit in tree with a banana, lol, though I get that point. But be careful in describing human nature too generally. What humans? Where? What time period? What context?

We are a social species that is conditioned by context. So yeah, it can be difficult to discuss simply because, well, context changes. But, for the sake of a social media post, I'll simply repeat, more of us have got to take initiative. More have to join in to support initiatives.

@bss It is interesting that your scope changes in defense, but I think that just makes the point. "Deserved to be lectured" is an occlusion not to mention a waste of effort you could better spend in/on the community who is active. Especially as it's well known that approach doesn't work more often than not.

But, you admit you're doing what you enjoy, and that's as valid as any other human choice.

I don't require agreement. Was sharing perspective. Appreciate the exchange. Good luck.🖖

Beardy Star Stuff 🌹🏴🇵🇸2d ago

@seedsignal
Well, to be clear, you wrote "deserved to be lectured" in quotes, I did not say deserved. I said need to be. Nor did I say that I enjoyed it. I organize because it is what my ethics in our context requires it.

Also, just to clarify, I speak differently to people I'm in direct relation with. Again, context. Communication style and content varies based on situation. My posts here are directed in a general way by my observation that the majority of people in the US, a vast majority, do not initiate action. Many often don't even support the action of others. The majority sit on the sidelines. This is why we have the word "activists" to describe the folks that do act when, in fact, everyone *should* be sharing in the responsibility of acting.

The culture of the US, especially since the 1950s, is an especially passive, consumerist culture with far less willingness to engage in organizing of any kind...

Anyway, yeah, complicated. I do appreciate your comments!

seedsignal 2d ago

@bss Generations have been carefully taught that obedience to authority is mandatory. We're not going to activate those humans. They will self-activate when the vice pinches, which is in process. Rarely otherwise, as what research we do have clearly shows. The monkey/banana/tree is more accurate than many realize, which is a detriment to all community and organization effort. Xenophobia is a factor no one wants to admit but it's here, too. Being there to catch them is where the flip lives.🪔

seedsignal 2d ago

@bss I see this as a gap that community programs across the board have ignored where they should have engaged the strong/weak connector model. More interconnection, less competition. But in a world that rewards resources for competition over collaboration that too is uphill. So the threshold remains where they fall between the cracks. Good thing we know where those are, innit? 🖖

seedsignal 2d ago

@bss I tend more to help people who are seeking pointers to community. Analogy more like wandering courier than anything. I'm kind of surprised more of organizers like you aren't deep embedded in Facebook to sieve those folks out and into the community as the vice arrives (happening now, everywhere). I see #DSA sweeping the binary into finally acting, but that's their death knell and deserved for the laxity. I don't think DSA solves the future, but a bridge is possible from that. Hope? Hah.

Beardy Star Stuff 🌹🏴🇵🇸2d ago

I recently tried to get back on Facebook for this very reason. I'd quit in 2014. I set-up a new account for the purposes of local organizing and outreach. Facebook flagged my account and closed it after 10 days. I'm guessing because I used a VPN and was not offering the kind of personal information they can monetize. In short, I was using Facebook and not offering them much in return.

But, I will say, in the few days I was there I found a few anarchist/mutual-aid organizers doing exactly what you suggest (or so it seemed in my short period of observation). I may try again.

seedsignal 2d ago

@bss I spent some years pulling people out of Facebook before taking my leave in early 2010's. Could see the profiling ramping up but no one cared or would listen. Floating keeps me from despair, so I recommend it. I iterate avatar and approach semi-regularly. These power interests working to chain it all no less than back in 90s. Attrition game. 🖖

Beardy Star Stuff 🌹🏴🇵🇸2d ago

@seedsignal Agreed about generational conditioning to obedience! But "self-activate" is a problematic term simply because the "self" is an intelligent person making observations of their environment. Every moment of everyday, being in an environment. I would suggest that "self" is incomplete because we are social beings. Self is gradient of experiences over time. Self is changing. Repeated interactions and observations with others brings the knowledge, change of perceptions and views and eventually the flip.

I organize on the premise that when I interact with a person, especially one in my community, that they may not be the same person the next day, the next week or the next year.

But yes, being there, agreed. That's a part of the organizing. To always be around and accessible in a community. That's what I try to do.

seedsignal 2d ago

@bss As a buddhist lineage holder, we don't need to argue 'self' but I will say it's a convenience reference, not a literal one. Placeholder 'agency' and 'autonomy' as a twisted pair if you prefer for precision. It remains that obligation is accepted not laid - thus in context, lecture is both intrusion and non-consensual -- while accessibility reflects the more realized understanding (beyond 'knowledge') that community is a unilateral commitment, realized in trust and reciprocity over time. 🖖

seedsignal 2d ago

@bss My legacy work is rendering 'heritage seed' into musical concepts that can travel light, land well, and bootstrap deeper if the soil receiving it is curious. If not, walk on and well, yeah? Mom's network shows us how to do this, no one pays much attention. I picked 'dandelion' with great care. So too, seedsignal and it's tag - sun. soil. seed. signal. secrets hiding in plain sight. <g>

Swirl cycle complete here... appreciate your responsiveness. Enjoyable braining. Task calling.🖖

Derek Caelin is writing a book 2d ago

@bss @seedsignal I've read some Bookchin and I've tried some organizing for various causes in my suburban town. It gets exhausting, esp when balancing family and work. How do you do it?

seedsignal 2d ago

@derek @bss I bow to @bss as I float and support from 'connective tissue' more than the soapbox. But when I once did more, it was only in conjunction with other groups as there was/is never enough local humans with boots on ground and that uphill fight to call them out to join has never been as effective as catching them in crisis and proving the pudding (establishing reciprocity). Few can truly scaffold the sky. Delegate and trust but validate early and often. My best advice.🖖

Beardy Star Stuff 🌹🏴🇵🇸2d ago

@derek I'll admit up front, I don't live a typical American lifestyle. I'm in my mid 50s and when I was in my 20s decided I'd primarily focus on a life oriented to organizing. I viewed that as my primary work though I knew it wouldn't actually pay bills. So, while I do freelance work to feed myself and pay bills, I also consciously limit my exposure to capitalism/debt. No children, never owned a new car, shared housing or tiny housing, etc. I don't do vacations, big expenses, no restaurants, etc.

I live well below the poverty line and always have. I live in a kind of permanent resistance to "normal" life in capitalist America. That's my context.

Folks (my entire extended family) that live the more "standard" suburban American lifestyle will have a harder go of finding a balance and time to do this work. But we find ourselves in a moment where more will need to make that effort. My suggestion, start with neighbors rather than causes... More later when I'm back at computer!

seedsignal 2d ago

@derek @bss Afterthought - #sample you can use to sprout your own - concepts align to permaculture so you can modularize using that to fill in gaps and build out concept bridges to detail your area needs (variability and scalability built in this way).

Lots of frameworks out there, context matters and most are compromised by authority and profit motives so it gets slippery. The noble goal must remain unassailable... harder than it sounds. 🖖🪔