I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. I’m sure a lot of you have. For my part, I’ve been finally writing down my political experience, what I saw, etc…in a way that I think might be able to move some people on the right. But I also agree with this post. People always talk/write, etc…and rarely actually take action.

So, with that in mind, can we talk about what that looks like? Very specifically?

I suppose I’m hoping we can go a step beyond “go protest,” having unanimously agreed that we should all be out en masse to make it clear we’re pissed about…well…kinda everything.

But this is a fairly radical bunch. So, what do you all know about this? What concrete advice/tips/plans/ideas can we dumbass individual Americans learn from historic examples, political movements, etc…? Indeed, one of those questions might be: is this even the place to talk about this? If not, where? Does that already exist somewhere in the aether out there? Communications is always an interesting to me (I’ve wondered whether something like LoRa could be useful to setup in my area).

If I want to start a group locally, are there things I should think about? Practical tips beyond “talk to everyone you know?” Books to read? Etc…? Even if you get a group, it’s easy for it to mean nothing. How do you make it not mean nothing?

  • LandedGentry@lemmy.zipEnglish
    16·
    1 day ago

    Well the first step for a lot of people on lemmy: dispense with the notion that you’ll have some beautiful, massive “general strike.” People romanticize them because of what they’ve seen in textbooks and historical photography. The vast majority have been abject failures and the organizing infrastructure isn’t there. And with the way things are right now most people are just sitting around waiting for everyone else to get to work so that they can take their cue to go out on the streets. That doesn’t work. A general strike requires organization and participation from massive national and regional unions. UAW seems to be cooking up something that’s worth keeping tabs on, but they have definitely not launched anything yet.

    Effective organization requires sustained and expanding action. You have to find a group that is doing good work and help them grow, usually this requires drumming up donations which is never sexy but is always critical. If you’re looking for some “action” then you need to help a small group of people unionize at a single brick and mortar location with a larger organization above you helping y’all financially. It takes a lot of fucking work to do this stuff lol but it’s worth it!