#leftists strategy

[personal-blog243]

People do NOT respond to guilt and shame very well, especially when it comes to political activism.

On one side, people do not respond well to being told that they were wrong to vote for a candidate that wasn’t left wing enough because they didn’t have any better candidate options and don’t have the time, energy, resources, or courage to risk getting arrested or killed for doing direct action. It causes feelings of guilt, shame, and resentment.

On the other side, people don’t respond to being guilted into voting for a shitty candidate out of desperation for damage control. It makes you look like a pretentious snob. They don’t like feeling as though they are being gaslighted into praising mediocrity.

#political discussion #political discourse #resist #politics #political #leftists strategy #swing left #vote blue no matter who #communism #socialism #anarchism #democratic socialists #democratic socialist #democrats #leftist not liberal #liberals #white liberals #liberal #communist #socialist #anarchist #eat the rich #election year #midterms

[edenfenixblogs]

Pretty sure on of my close friends muted or blocked me on everything because I post too much about antisemitism.

Must be nice to be able to look away from your friends’ suffering. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#leftist antisemitism #antisemitism #I wouldn’t post about it so much if it didn’t happen so often #you could solve the issue by not being antisemitic #but pretending I don’t exist sure is a strategy

[uncanny-tranny]

The thing that sucks about misogyny is that it's not just a problem for one group of people or one gender group. If you want to combat bigotries, you (impersonal) have to not come at it from the angle of bigotry as an identity you have, but as a set of beliefs and actions. To be a misogynist isn't an identity like being gay or a similarly deep and personal identity. A misogynist is somebody who believes in and acts upon misogynistic ideas, myths, or any other such thing.

This goes for pretty much any bigotry, and the idea of bigotry as identity does us all a disservice, especially if you turn the bigotry into essentialism. When you essentialize bigotry in a certain group of people, you empower people to keep said bigotry unchecked and uninterrogated. That does everyone a disservice.

#feminism #politics #that's why i hate the 'its in mens very NATURE to be sexist' from rightists and leftists... #...if it is essential to being a certain 'type' of person then what would be the point of them going 'against' their nature? #like as a man it doesn't bother me to hear the essentialism above because it hurts my feelings... #...it bothers me because it ultimately won't work as a strategy to combat misogyny and sexism... #...like my feelings aren't hurt because i do try to combat misogyny - especially in my real life #and i recognize that misogyny affects me and it affects me in very weird ways for plenty of reasons

[guiltyidealist]

It should be a criminal offense if an insurance company is responsible for a delay in a policyholder's necessary health care.

Withholding prescribed treatments, even for just a day, can be anywhere from inconvenient to catastrophic for the victim. Medical providers may not withhold necessary treatment from any patient on any grounds, as it is their duty to provide it-- it should be justly illegal for any "middle man" to interfere with a medical provider's legal and ethical obligation to treat a patient.

Severity of the charge and its legal consequences should depend upon the scope of the offense (length of delay) and its consequences to the victim (impact on the person).

The testimonies of the victim, the pharmacy, and the medical provider who prescribed the treatment should be key considerations for the determination. Additional important testimony should come from the victim's other medical providers, housemates, family, educators/mentors, colleagues/coworkers, or employers.

The charge should become criminal record for the company. The company (perhaps the agent's office) should be fined per day delayed.

Some taxation can be applied; just to pay off the folks who do the filing, advocacy, testimony, processing. A hefty majority of the fine should be compensation owed to the victim.

If delays became a criminal charge on companies' records, then companies would have a strong motive to terminate agents who aren't performing with punctuality. It would become their best financial interest to invest only in timely agents who would, in turn, gain a best interest to invest only in timely subordinates.

I posit that insurance delays would wane significantly, resulting in more timely delivery of treatments to policyholders, and many people's qualities of life would improve drastically for it.

#of course. this is an idea that sticks /within/ the overall capitalist framework. #the purpose is to promote the welfare of the people /while/ they are trapped within the structure #hopefully helping enable them to -- among other things -- abolish and emancipate themselves of the structure altogether #i know that the ''real'' problem is the /existence/ of insurance companies #the privatization of health care. the profitability of health care. #the fact that money is power in our system. the fact that whoever has it is allowed to control the lives and deaths of others #the true solution to the problem presented here is the abolition of the capitalist system that manufactures it. #what i provided is a sort of ''meantime mitigation'' strategy #*sigh* #rant #psych major rants #fuck capitalism #guillotine the rich #health care #insurance #pharmacy #socialism #leftist #leftblr #anticapitalist #ableism #healthism #classism #medical abuse #medical neglect #systemic inequity #accountability

[edwordsmyth]

"The essay is an embodiment of a more expansive intellectual labyrinth that haunts Western intellectuals. It characterizes the Palestinians as “necessary and inevitable victims,” rendering them visible only as archival footnotes in yet another efficacious settler colonial enterprise. Is it not curious, one might ask, that the very sympathy shown to Palestinians appears directly proportional to their perceived inability to confront the uniform machinery of settler colonialism? There is a hidden gratification in witnessing this tragic narrative from afar. Israel’s persistent upper hand serves as a powerful catalyst for Western intellectuals’ feel-good sympathy, a kind of pseudo-solidarity that whispers to Palestinians: “We are with you, but only so long as you remain tragic victims sinking graciously into your own abyss.” One might even argue that this sympathy is contingent upon the Palestinians’ maintenance of their tragic status quo.

There’s a safety in this for those intellectuals: the Palestinian experience, as heart-wrenching as it is, remains comfortably distant, a spectacle to be consumed. This pre-inscribed script becomes an eerie marker of the limitations of critical intellectual engagement with Palestine and the Palestinians.

As a result, when Palestinians dare to rebel and challenge their imposed fate after years of oppression, the responses are predictably schizophrenic. The same intellectuals who once sobbed at our plight are now torn. Many become moral policemen, quickly brandishing the baton of condemnation, but even more importantly, readily “adopting” with full intensity Israel’s curated and sensationalized version of the events of October 7 in the so-called Gaza envelope (the Israeli settlements bordering Gaza).

The collective voice, which once resonated with sympathy, now echoes with cautionary tales that warn against the wrath of the oppressed, which is barbaric, primordial, and awakens right-wing fascism.

The real paradox is in the mistaken understanding of how Zionist vengeance works — it doesn’t simply react to Palestinian actions, provocations, or even their capacity to invoke terror, but goes beyond the conventional realm of cause and effect and seeks to punish the audacity of mere Palestinian existence. Even a Palestinian like President Mahmoud Abbas, who allows Israel to continue expanding its settler colonies in the West Bank and serve its security and financial interests, is an affront to the settlers. All that the Palestinian Authority (PA) has received in return for its security and civil cooperation with Israel is financial sanctions and a hidden desire to get rid of Israel’s dependency on the PA’s security cooperation.

The Dahiya doctrine is evident in Gaza today. Israel has declared that any attack on it that it deems significant will result in the comprehensive destruction of both civil and governmental infrastructure, including bombing villages, cities, and towns back into the “stone age” through wholesale destruction. In other words, any form of resistance, regardless of the target, will be met with no less than a scorched earth policy from the air.

The world has sent a clear message to the Palestinians: there will be no legal respite, no political relief, only limited support for nonviolence, and occasional condemnations when and if Israel is perceived to commit crimes. In fact, there is violence in this insistence on nonviolence by the international community because it is effectively an invitation for Palestinians to lie down and die.

The various layers of Israel’s defensive structure include the geographic proximity of its military installations and its civilian settlements, including the wide presence of military-trained police forces in civilian areas. The wide ownership of guns, specifically in frontier areas like the Gaza envelope, would also be an important consideration for any military planning or offensive operation.

With the available information, we can surmise that the operation had three main tactical goals: capturing Israeli soldiers in exchange for prisoners, getting information or weapons from Israel’s many military bases, and making it hard for any police or military force to easily clear and retake the Gaza envelope (which they would probably do by negotiating over hostages they held in the settlements inside the Gaza envelope).

This meant that fighters set up camp inside Israeli settlements to try to delay the recapture of the envelope. They did this by fighting or negotiating for a long time to free the hostages while stopping civilians from resisting the deep maneuver within Israeli territory. The problem is that growing evidence shows that Israel wasn’t interested in negotiating over hostages and instead prioritized retaking the Gaza envelope by shelling its own settlements, killing the fighters, and perhaps leading to the death of its own civilians.

The Palestinian military strategy aimed to delay and postpone, while Israel’s strategy focused on the rapid recovery and reclamation of its territory. And it is highly unlikely that this policy did not at least exacerbate the extent of the civilian casualties. Numerous testimonies from Israeli survivors indicate that Israeli military and police units may not have exercised caution in the battles around the Gaza envelope. This evidence has encouraged a group of Israelis to write an open letter encouraging their fellow citizens to demand the truth of the events of October 7.

The primary difference, then, between when Israel commits its crimes against Palestinian civilians and when Palestinians do it stems from an international network that legitimizes, clarifies, and codifies the logic behind Israeli military actions. This gives it an appearance of respectability, even when the underlying rationale appears deeply flawed or seemingly justifies the large-scale killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Hamas can remain barbaric, and Israel can remain a strong “democratic and liberal” ally of the United States. The first engages in a mindless act of profane violence, while the second engages in calculated and methodical strikes, a sacred form of violence.

Not delving into the military logic of the attack exemplifies an aversion to confronting the reality of violence and the logics that animate it, an avoidance that is endemic among certain intellectuals. It’s not just about the refusal to bring these topics to light, but about what this refusal signifies about the problematics of dealing with the logic of Palestinian violence, especially in an environment that simply casts it as profane, detestable, and morally degraded.

Perhaps what is central to any moral judgment is that these judgments need to be rigorously subjected to evidence, especially when Israel refuses to share much of the evidence it has. Did Hamas issue orders for the killing of civilians, or was the killing of civilians an excess on the part of the fighters? How many of the Israelis were killed in the exchange of fire with fighters? Did the Israeli military effort to retake the Gaza envelope take into consideration the presence of Israeli civilians? These questions are important, not only because they will provide us with a clearer picture, but because the official Israeli version of events was employed to justify the Dresden-like air campaign against Gaza and the mass murder of Palestinians.

Why wouldn’t an assault on Israel’s primary nerve — its deterrence and military power — not lead to a humbling experience that might open new avenues for a new political solution? While such prospects seem distant in the heat of battle and in light of Israel’s genocidal intent, the actual battle on the ground is what will decide the future.

Skirting their political utility and military logic and confining them to mere “vengeance” ignores the fact that all wars and battles, no matter how horrific, bloody, and tragic, might ultimately create the space for new possibilities — even hopeful ones. This line of thinking also ignores the world as Palestinians experience and perceive it — that is, as long as Israelis live in this assured certainty of their all-encompassing power, the will to change the reality of the Palestinians will remain absent.

And even if the Palestinian resistance fails to snatch a relative victory in this battle, the alternative would have been a slow death.

This is the kind of genuine critical engagement with the Palestinian resistance that we require. It isn’t solely about Palestine’s stance against ethnic cleansing, or its own fight to reclaim Palestine — rather, it is a liberation movement with global resonance that represents a universal struggle.

Perhaps the perception that the events of October 7 were nothing more than an expression of intra-Palestinian necrosis is more an indication of what intellectuals secretly wish for us. But we in Palestine desire and fight for a world that includes us, and a world that includes everyone else. Mourn us if you want, or don’t. Condemn us, or don’t. It’s not like we have not heard the cries of condemnation before."

#abdaljawad omar #frantz fanon #palestine #rebuttal for all the “hamas is bad and have no strategy” pseudo-solidarity leftists out there

[decolonize-the-left]

why do you think everything is propaganda?

I don't think everything is propaganda (math for example) but if someone is trying to persuade you of something with the goal of changing your view/opinion that's propaganda.

It just so happens there is a Lot of propaganda in politics because Everyone wants you on their side so they're Constantly trying to entice you to join them... With propaganda.

And you can propagandize anything.

Voting importance, who to vote for, morals you think people "should" have, etc.

All propaganda:

Another example would be:

Democrats making all conservatives out to be extremists threatening human rights while making themselves out to be the "party of progress"who could stop them even though Democrats were the ones elevating alt right candidates. This strategy is actually why Trump won, but thanks to an amazing propaganda campaign most people don't know that and even if they did, they likely wouldn't believe it.

You know because "Democrats are progressive so that doesn't make sense, you must be lying or misinformed."

Instead non-voters, "stubborn leftists," and Republicans get the blame for the 2016 election. But even republicans are pissed about it- theyre losing their ballot slots to extremists.

I understand the knee jerk reaction to this is "good the Republicans are losing"

But I need you to look around at 2023 and realize the very real contribution and responsibility Democrats have at the elevated extremism.

Look at the effects left in Trump's wake.

Have you ever thought to look at Democrats to blame? No.

That's their propaganda at work.

Democrats are Good at propaganda which is why I call it out. People don't see democratic propaganda as propaganda so they aren't consuming their politics critically anymore.

#asked #answered #a lot of people engage with politics without any criticism or being critical of what they're choosing to believe and that's SO dangerous #for the rest of us #queer #lgbt #democrats #biden #liberals #capitalism #leftist #socialist #joe biden #2016 #trump #pied piper strategy

[samwisethewitch]

I know a lot of us will be migrating away from Tumblr if they do away with the chronological dash, so here's a link to the Anarchist Pagans And Witches Discord server I'm a mod for. Despite the name, leftist witches, pagans, and occultists of all stripes are welcome. 💕

#anarchist pagans and witches discord #apaw discord #discord #discord server #tumblr #core product strategy #witchblr #witch #witchcraft #queer witchcraft #queer witch #pagan #paganism #inclusive heathenry #paganblr #occultism #occult #anarchist #leftist #anticapitalist #mine

[dipperdesperado]

the importance of social technology in social change

TLDR: By retooling, devouring, and innovating our social technologies, we can create participatory organizations that enable egalitarian social change. These organizations should be animated by an understanding of hierarchy, its relation to oppression writ-large, and how to create and employ social technologies that distribute power, rather than concentrating it.

Introduction

We take technology for granted in general (most people I know don’t think much about how water gets to their sink unless it doesn’t work, for example), but this seems especially true for our social technologies. We take things like democracy, laws, and even the nuclear family form at face value and as fundamental parts of reality.

So, what is technology, and how does it relate to our pending conversation? What is the throughline between obvious technologies like a stone axe and my iPhone, and more nebulous ones, like speech and the nuclear family? Any technology you can imagine takes concepts and knowledge and creates a method of applying them to specific goals, objectives, or functions. This doesn’t preclude emergent uses for tools, as you can probably think of using tools in unintended ways. This definition is useful to keep in mind as we realize that the technologies at present, animating the status quo are inadequate. We need something different to make radical, roots-grasping change.

And, for the sake of change, we need a specific way to achieve it. Part of this is technological; we need to figure out models of relating and working with one another that prefigure the changes that we want to see. To create and modify those technologies, we need to figure out which concepts and knowledge we will use.

Prefiguration can be described as “creating the new world in the shell of the old”. It’s doing things in the present that we think will get us to our imagined future. This implies the need to have a coherent conception of what is currently happening, and change will look like.

Currently, we live in a hierarchical, bureaucratic hell. This might best be epitomized by trying to obtain official identification recognized by our respective state. From all of the forms that you fill out, to the additional paperwork needed, to the horrible experience of getting that information approved, there are a lot of issues that this creates, from an experiential standpoint. One of the more under-realized aspects of issues such as this is how these experiences alienate us from the ability to do things for ourselves. Bureaucracy is a way to manage hierarchy’s inherent simplification of reality. A king couldn’t actually run their kingdom themselves, so they create layers of functionaries, under their control, to (try and) manage that complexity.

Along with my opposition, I’d like to propose something. A theory of change, that allows us to do that prefiguration work, leaving behind some of the negative methods of relating as currently mediated and handled. Since we live in a very hierarchical and bureaucratic world-system, constituting a colonial-imperialist, cisheteropatriarchical, ableist hegemony, if we create non-hierarchical/heterarchical organizational forms that allow us to relate in alignment with our values, then we will achieve a more egalitarian world, because of these organizational forms addressing fundamental contradictions in the way that society, from the personal to the global scale, is administered and ordered at present.

Having non-hierarchical organizational forms will allow us to become self-managed and autonomous, gaining collective control over collective issues, and individual control over individual issues. What is hierarchy, though? For our purposes, hierarchy can be seen as the glue that brings oppression together. It binds structures of domination, coercion, and power (specifically power-over) into oppression writ-large. This is what makes the act of arranging organizational forms a pyramid, where value, authority, and decision-making ability are concentrated toward the top. It is not a problem if some friendly games and competitions employ hierarchy in the broadest sense. The issue comes where, in that game, the folks who won got to eat and the folks who lost went hungry. The power imbalance and value judgments are what make hierarchy dangerous.

Alternatively, non-hierarchical structures that prioritize non-coercive, non-domineering principles, that enable positive versions of power-to (the ability to act) and power-with (the ability to act collectively, towards collective interest) have much more liberatory potential at their foundation. That’s what we’re aiming for, social technologies that allow for horizontal relating.

The pieces of horizontal organizations

The foundation of these horizontal, heterarchical forms should be in values and principles that enable relating in that way. Some of these values might be joy, autonomy, radically informed consent, cultivating ownness-uniqueness, and solidarity. These are defined as:

Joy: This should be a group that is constantly looking critically at how we engage with productivity, work, and formality from the perspective of prefiguring spaces of fun, play, and levity -- infusing it into as much of the work as we can. If it feels like a drag, that should at the very least give us pause. While we will not be able to avoid negativity wholesale, we can be intentional about minimizing the moments where it is unnecessary.

Autonomy: Each unit of interest (teammate, team, section/wing, whole) can operate independently from other elements as it desires, without imposition.

Radically Informed Consent: All decisions that include or impact someone should be made with that person (1) in that discussion/process and (2) having as much context and information as they need to be aware of the implications of the decision being made.

Cultivating Ownness-Uniqueness: The group should allow for a cooperative orientation that is based on finding what is best for all involved as individuals, concerning the collective goals. The group should be a tool that cultivates this orientation, rather than existing for its own sake and becoming something that holds power over the people in the space.

Solidarity: People in the group should work together around common interests and affinities, made clear in the joining process, grounded in (1) centering the most marginalized in society and/or our specific context within our spaces, and (2) sharing in the responsibilities of achieving what the group sets out to do.

Having these values as described gives us a shared language from which to judge how we relate to each other using the organizational forms we will set out to describe, to make sure that it gives opportunities to widen the spaces where our organizational aims can be achieved.

The components of these forms, the building blocks that sit atop the foundation, creating the organization when assembled, are the teammate, roles & tasks, aims & domains, the team, assemblies and summits, and the areas, functions, and committees. These are defined as:

Teammate: This is the individual in the structure. A specific person, who interfaces with the other parts of the structure.

Roles and Tasks: This is how the work is distributed within an organization, in line with the foundational principles and the aims of the specific team and organization as a whole.

aims: Objectives of the unit of interest. The thing that the unit of interest is trying to accomplish.

Domains: The range of focus a specific unit of interest has within an organization. What the unit of interest is responsible for doing.

Team: A collective unit within the structure. Multiple teammates coming together.

Assemblies and Summits: Multiple teams (or delegations of teams) coming together to deliberate on mutual aims, across mutual domains.

Areas, Functions, and Committees: Ways to group teams together (or create new teams) to cover specific aims.

These allow for us to have specific modes of relating with each other around specific things that we want to accomplish, from the individual to the organization-wide scale, with the potential to connect with outside organizations.

These values and components are important to create are heterarchical organization, but it doesn’t tell us what the organization will be doing. We know that it’s meant to be aimed towards social change, but what does that actually look like? I think that there are three interrelated things that the organization should achieve for it to be successful at its overall aims. There should be robust analysis, care work, and effective, radical action. These are described as:

Care Work: Embedding the ideas of restoration, rest, healthy engagement, sustainability, and healing into the core of the organizational structure. This can be done through things like healing circles, accountability circles, meeting "non-organizational" needs that deal with the making and remaking of folks (a la childcare, food, emotional care, etc), and other methods.

Robust analysis: Creating mental models that can approach an accurate understanding of the world, along with how to be experimental and learn from those experiments (while not seeing participants as disposable, or coercing folks into things). This horizontal orientation encourages us to be able to catalyze autonomous & self-directed action, rather than make ourselves indispensable to a movement. We should use these forms to organize ourselves out of a role, in a sense, through things such as making sure other people understand how to do what we do, and not hyper-specializing.

Effective, Radical Action: The organization, through the above two functions, should be able to achieve the goals that it sets. It should be successful at the current conjuncture, and these successes should build up to the general goals of the organization. There should be a conception of strategy, campaigns, logistics/operations, and tactics.

For any of these initiatives to be successful, there needs to be a basic security culture. Pretty much any social change org that is directly effective or building towards effectiveness necessitates modes of protection for the people in the organization. We need to protect from state, corporate, and non-state reactionaries. This is worth an in-depth conversation, but basic things like not talking to those forces, being mindful of where and when certain information is shared, if at all, and screening for new members, the intensity of which is proportional to the openness of the organization, and not fedjacketing (claim that someone is the cops) people. This would be paired with collective discussion to establish those agreements, and training/collective study to inoculate folks against bad security practices.

Arranging the pieces

Now that we’ve built up the different parts of our organizations, we can describe some ways to bring them together. I propose three different organizational shapes: phantom cells, networked guerrillas, and fractal teams and working groups. These are differentiated by the ways that the teams within the org are connected and relate to one another.

Phantom cells are the most ephemeral formation that I’ll describe. These are temporary teams created with wide variations towards some goal. They don’t even have any meaningful awareness of the composition of other cells. Actions are motivated by catalyzing forces that follow a general flow of event → action → report-back → action. Something happens that motivates a cell to form and act, that cell publishes information about their action, along with instructions on how to replicate and the ideological motivation behind it, and others follow suit. This repeats and spreads out, through stigmergy. It’s like how social media trends work. All follow a similar format, evolving as they spread until they saturate a space and wane. The goal here is to combine distributed intelligence through information posting, replicability, and inspiration.

A diagram representing phantom cells. Pill shapes with the word team in the middle are spread around on a white canvas.

This form is inspired by Tiktok and the SHAC campaign. If we could have groups of folks who: (1) find concrete goals & replicable methods for finding connected goals in specific contexts, (2) create compelling narratives around acting in line with those goals, and (3) encourage easily replicable actions, consistent pressure, and sharing the results so that it spreads. This allows for action to become highly distributed, where unity isn’t based on allegiance to specific organizations, movements, or formations. This type of operation is most useful for trying to achieve protracted, quick, decisive, small actions against a target.

Networked guerrillas are cells (or teams) of folks that have a well-rounded skill set, and who work consistently together. I imagine it being like a team for an RPG (role-playing game) campaign where each character is in a different class. This group should have a relatively high amount of self-sufficiency, to be able to achieve aims within their domain without much outside assistance. Each cell is animated by a general alignment of principles, vision, and values. Cells are also designed to link up with other cells, of this type, to accomplish bigger goals and complete bigger actions. There might also be a bundle of cells “in the middle” to help coordinate resources between cells and provide additional, more specialized, and contextual resources. Ideally, there is a rotation and continual morphing of the core to not become a failure point. This is why it’s important to have the cells be as self-sufficient as possible. Every connection is an enhancement of capability, rather than a necessity. The relationships between the cells can be organized like a mesh network (many-to-many relationships between the cells), star (one-to-many-to-one relationships), and a chain/ring (one-to-one-to-one relationships), or some combination, based on the needs of the organization.

A diagram representing networked guerrillas. showing a form that combines mesh, start, and chain/ring.

Fractal teams and working groups work through a kind of fractal, heterarchical confederalism. Essentially, it flips the hierarchical nature of authoritarian federalism by having power flow from the lowest level upwards, rather than the other way around. It starts at the lowest level, the team, and we confederate upwards from there to encompass more general aims and domains, using assemblies, assemblies of assemblies, and summits. This structure also operates on the principle of autonomous collaboration, where people who are impacted by and/or are doing a specific set of tasks are the ones to decide how that task is implemented. This is meant to minimize the amount of power-over within the structure, while still fostering modes of engagement between different scales of decision making. At each level, there would be assemblies that provide the space to share information and discuss plans, and for potential working groups to meet and freely associate and dissociate as necessary. Decisions shouldn’t be made here at these higher levels of the hierarchy, as that leads to a form of power that isn’t always deliberative. Folks would execute whatever plans they see fit on the ground, based on self-organization, informed by the information that is shared within these more open, popular gatherings. The trust is put on folks to be self-directed around their needs, getting help and providing assistance in a mutualistic way, rather than a top-down way.

a diagram of the fractal teams & working groups. teams send delegates to assemblies, and assemblies send delegates to assemblies of assemblies or summits. delegates gather information and context at the above levels and come back to their team to provide context and give information to the team. They also will share the decisions made by the teams, to the assemblies and summits.

All of these forms would need some kind of intelligence apparatus. Intelligence for us will be information that allows us to achieve objectives better. We gain this information through research, investigative journalism-style methods, and espionage. It is pertinent, practical, and informative. These apparatuses will gather information (what we might usually think of as intelligence), and prevent/impede opposition from doing the same (counterintelligence). This is not something it seems like social change folks are intentional about very often, but is an important part of building, refining, and achieving the aims laid out at every scale, from strategies for wider social change to specific actions.

The basic structure of this intelligence apparatus is a specific unit of interest would (s)elect/delegate an intelligence handler to work within that unit’s domain. This handler is one part of an intelligence cell. The cell would be a compartmentalized team for the sake of mutual protection, containing a handler, analyst(s), and agent(s). Handlers are the cell coordinators, recruiting the other roles as they see fit. They act as the direct link/contact to the agent on the ground/in the field, supporting them on their missions with whatever they need. Handlers also support analysts with collaborating on research work or anything that they need. Handlers are the glue of a cell, supporting everyone towards their objectives. Analysts are the folks who make the information gathered by the agents usable. They sort and organize the information, making things like reports and presentations so that action can come from or be informed by the information. Handlers may support the analysts with those tasks. Agents are the crux of this cell—they gather the intelligence. They should be a generalizing specialist, where they understand the breadth of the context in which they act, even with a specific specialty in the type of intelligence they gather.

For these purposes, there will probably be a combination of focus on open-source intelligence, signals intelligence, and human intelligence. Finally, we have the auditor. They are also elected by the unit of interest (the one that placed the handler). This is a way to make sure there isn’t any tomfoolery happening within the cell—the auditor can look over any of the information within the cell, and compile an independent report for the sake of the unit of interest.

A diagram of the basic intelligence apparatus.

The basic intelligence process would go as follows: Information would be split or categorized into four main areas: strategic, campaign, logistic/operational, and tactical. For each of these levels, there would be a repeating loop process of setting goals in relation to those areas, gathering the information, analyzing it, figuring out how to use it, and a method to evaluate the process. Information can be gathered by agents or anyone else in the organization, anonymously. This helps bolster the capacity of information gathering.

So, we start by asking, what do we need to know to achieve our aims? Then, we ask about where we can find that information. As we’ll probably receive more information than what is usable, we want to ask about what information found is important, timely, and accurate/verifiable? After that, we want to ask how we can package and disseminate the information, along with an understanding of the audience(s). That leads us to review what we’ve done, integrate any changes, and start the process over. This is not to say that teams can’t do intelligence-gathering work themselves, such as scouting or information synthesis. It is just useful to have capacity specifically built for that work.

How these forms relate

Finally, we want to look at the relationship between the organizational forms, and how these forms change, depending on what the specific organization does. We can do this by understanding how things look through the classifications of overt, covert, and clandestine.

Overt organizations act out in the open. They operate in a mode where what you see is what you get. Phantom cells might operate as front-facing aboveground collectives of folks who have a very specific focus, with the intent to popularize and virally spread action around that focus, through building (para)social relationships. Networked guerrillas might make more intentional, long-term connections between cells, leading to a more tightly bound network. This could look like the mesh model. Fractal teams might have highly accessible and legible teams and assemblies with centralized information pipelines, creating an easy way to get involved with the movement. This point is important when we’re thinking about how to make the movement accessible.

Covert organizations act in secret, operating on the mode of plausible deniability. Phantom cells might use mainstream channels to share their ideas but operate in a way that obscures their identities. Networked guerrillas might have the cells be related using a star model, with many connections compartmentalized by those shared nodes. Fractal teams might hide membership and focus on the intake process because this formation is the most vulnerable to infiltration. Maybe this formation isn’t useful outside of the overt context.

Clandestine organizations are fully underground. Phantom cells might only spread action through hyper-encrypted or low-tech methods. Networked guerrillas might have no awareness of who or what the composition is of other teams in the network, and any connections between cells might be mediated in ways that maintain anonymity and prevent infiltration. Fractal teams likely would be a great weakness in this context.

Looking at all of these forms, across different modes of operating, we should not “pick” one form or the other in a dogmatic way. Each form should see the others as providing something of value towards anti-authoritarian ends. In other words, fractals should not decry networks or phantoms for their seemingly chaotic structures or methods. Phantoms shouldn’t shit on the other two for not being effective enough. Aligning people and actions across these horizontal forms will allow an ecosystem of forms that reinforces the ability of each to succeed. Overt groups can act as an auxiliary force for the covert and clandestine groups, and the covert and clandestine groups can create spaces for the overt groups to construct the world they are all working for.

By having principles and ethics that are sound, exploring what organizations need to do, and creating structures that enable those ethics and principles to be realized, we can have social technologies that allow us to more easily accomplish the social change that we’re seeking.

#direct action #solarpunk #social revolution #social relations #socialism #anarchism #anarch #anarchocommunism #anarchist #organizing strategy #organizing #insurrection #council communism #councilism #libertarian socialism #anarchy #leftist #leftism #anti state #antistate #anticapitalism #anti capitalism #organization #organização #organización

[resistancemarxistblog]

asking u cuz u seem at least a few notches above ur average tumblr “communist”. what (if anything) works of kautsky are worth reading?

The Class Struggle, The Social Revolution & The Road to Power

Will add that Kautsky made some hard breaks with Marxism through the 1910s and 1920s (this is why Lenin and Luxemburg criticize him for), so late Kautsky and early Kautsky read like two different people sometimes.

Also recommend Mike Macnair's Revolutionary Strategy (he derives a lot of his politics from Marx, Kautsky and Lenin).

#kautsky #karl kautsky #socialist #socialism #communism #communist #communist strategy #socialist strategy #class struggle #revolution #social revolution #road to power #workers power #soviet power #lenin #leninist #leninism #marx #marxist #marxism #karl marx #leftist #leftism #leftwing #left wing #anarchist #anarchy #anarchism #anarchist communism #anarchist communist

[whalesfall]

“Judy Grahn, the great lesbian poet, was once asked what she might regret about her pioneering work as artist and activist. She said she regretted all the women she had not been able to sleep with and to love. You can't help-in these days when we duck stones thrown by those who have been washed by the blood of the lamb, those without sin-being struck by the enormous generosity of Grahn's statement and by her confidence that her queer loving was a contribution she could make to the lives of oppressed women. Some might nervously titter at this, as if Grahn were mistakenly making something grand out of the trivial, narrow queer sexual connection in the context of wider political issues of violence against women, etc. But by making our queerest erotic responses visible, in sexuality and in resistance to war, racism, economic deprivation-in all aspects of the struggle for a better world- we can contribute to the liberation of everyone.”

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (editor), That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, "Dykes and Fags Want Everything: Dreaming with the Gay Liberation Front with Ferd Eggan"

#queer theory #leftist theory #Lots of voices in this one; a bit jarring; a bit uncouth; a lot of it really really interesting #(Going back to old books I haven't finished because my brain is a disaster. Anyways. This hit.) #quotes #mattilda bernstein sycamore #that's revolting: queer strategies for resisting assimilation

[kitebird-hockey]

.

#FYI. if you are doing something where you have reason to believe you will come into contact with p*lice. e.g. pr*testing. #1. good 2. if you do not have organizing experience- talk to people who do. reach out to your local leftist organizations. #but do this BEFORE you start pr*testing. this is helpful so that we do not have to scramble to e.g. #give you Arr*st Training 101 remotely #find a friendly l*wyer willing to work weekend overnights for an unknown number of potential clients. #etc etc #oh and 3. for the love of god have a comms strategy

[zanathan-aisling]

why are so many of the "blogs like this one" for my own post like, joking-stalinist-urls-from-ML's-2/3rds-of-whom-reclaim-tankie-at-least-as-a-joke blogs

#not even complaining. i don't TRUST the more 'auth-y' governmental communists but i agree with their beliefs mostly. but just. why.sdflklggs #it doesn't feel like i follow that many people or say very much Like That....... #('believe their beliefs' insofar as central planning may very well be necessary for 'true communism' and shit. and not all of their #strategies for doing so are terrible or anything. as i've commented wayyyyy long ago - feels like yesterday- i'm like. #equal parts mutually-exclusive-communist-anarchist-and-anarchocommunist all three approaches when treated as distinct have their uses #zealous bipartisan in the realm of leftist infighting)

[potuzzz]

TLDR: A good, effective communist these days should be doing everything in their power, even dirty shit, even straight up being a capitalist, to Play, and to Win, The Game here in the imperial core.

` ` `

(No longer TLDR)

` ` `

I don't even want to open the can of worms that is Caleb Maupin, but a quote from him that I deeply resonate with, and that I think all im the Western Left should resonate with, is "out of the movement, and into the masses."

Here in the United States especially, the situation is so dire that we need to put on our War Hat and prepare to (potentially drastically) reduce our moral, ideological, and ethical standards for ourselves and our comrades.

The current methods have proven disastrously ineffective.

In war, if you can afford it, absolutely you should do the right thing. You should avoid civilian casualties and critical infrastructure, you should treat POWs kindly, you should loudly and patiently give enemies a chance to surrender, to tend to their wounded, to evacuate non combatants. Etc., etc.

However, we can not afford it. The current methods have failed us. We are behind. We are losing The Game, the dog eat dog game that this world is under a capitalist hegemony.

We do not have the power to dictate the rules of engagement. That isn't to say that small acts of kindness are not important, they are, but as a matter of policy, of doctrine? Mask off today. Scorched earth if need be.

We need money, we need power, we need numbers. By any means necessary. It is that simple.

If you're a comrade, go get you some money. Go get you some power. By any means necessary.

Another favorite quote:

"Revolution is no place for silk gloves."

Every successful revolution and socialist country has had periods of great struggle, where corners both material and moral had to be cut (certainly not to the extent of their enemies, nor the propaganda their enemies painted of them).

China had a period of ideological hardline, the Cultural Revolution. It was a disaster for them! To survive to play another day, and to play the long game, they then shifted towards opportunistic and shameless Dengism. And, by following the code of Socialism By Any Means Necessary, we arrive at where they are today under Xi: implementing incredible reforms that DO speak loudly to morals and ethics, that DO spend that little extra bit of cash or time or effort, just to do THE RIGHT THING...because they can afford it NOW, only AFTER the winnings of cold and calculating Dengism.

Again, we are not our enemies, and we never will be. Even in war, communist forces universally do not commit the amount of atrocities that capitalist or especially fascist forces do. We're softies. We care about people and mark-ass shit like that. But if, in those military conflicts, these softies across time and space didn't say, "Okay, I will kill a man to protect my home and people and thus socialism. I don't have to enjoy it, but I have to do it," they would have gone extinct.

We are at war. It has been here for a long time, it is just made to be obscure and indirect. It will get hotter as time goes on. It is a Cold War right now, but the consequences in the long term will be the same.

We are at war, and I think on a global scale, the war is over. Save for something truly heinous like Nuclear Armageddon, capitalism has lost. Socialism has won. It's just a matter of waiting for the rabid dog to die, minimizing the damage as it thrashes about, and for exorcising the poison out of all the bite marks it has left across the world.

However, on a much smaller scale, such as the United States, the future is not so clearly bright. I feel like our sins are great and they will come home to roost. I feel like this limb will be in many ways amputated from the rest of the world. Oh, they're gonna build a Wall all right. Just not facing the direction US Americans think it will.

` ` `

I disagree with @txttletale here but make sure to check out this blog it's great innit.

#txttletale #politics #communism #pragmatism #praxis #political strategy #western leftists #marxism leninism #tankie #anti tankie #socialism #psa #leftism #political discourse #imperialism #capitalism #revolutionary #american fascism #channelling #fortune telling

[orossii]

leftists suffer so immensely from the tendency to terminate critical thought based on whether or not a certain idea is culturally characterized as right wing or not. i saw some people on twitter suggest that being opposed to exposing children to age-inappropriate sexual content under the guise of promoting LGBTQ rights or feminism is wrong because it’s a talking point that’s frequently used by right wing reactionaries, and like. sure. but where leftists get extremely alienating to normal, everyday people and end up ultimately pushing them to the right is that instead of taking a stance that takes into account why so many people are so invested in safeguarding children from adult sexuality (one being the prevalence of child sexual abuse that a disturbingly high percentage of the population, esp women and girls, have had some level of personal experience with) and coming up with a reasonable solution to that problem that both protects children and de-couples peoples perception of gay rights and feminism from predatory behavior, the left chooses instead to go hard in the other direction by suggesting that it’s actively a good thing for children to be exposed to adult sexuality in the form of drag shows and sex ed curricula that promotes BDSM to 14-year-olds. if they’re not doing that they deny that it’s happening at all despite the right being all too eager to capitalize on the abundance of evidence that it very much is. just because YOU have decided it’s a form of thought crime to read what the right/center/heterodox left is saying about your cause and believe that questioning your worldview is violence, that doesn’t mean the people you’re trying to win over aren’t engaging with those arguments. you will need to know how to engage with what they’re seeing in an honest way that doesn’t make you look like you have something to hide, and if they have serious questions that you can’t answer without resorting to attacks on their character maybe that’s a you-problem and not a them-problem

it’s fucking embarrassing seeing this shit coming from people who self-ID as marxists. this is a big part of why post-epstein so many of the people rallying against child sexual abuse by the ruling capitalist elites, an issue with massive mobilization potential that’s just being completely dismissed by the left for the most part, are being herded toward right wing political impotence. this applies to so many other points too. serious marxists need to cut it the fuck out with the hardcore personal identification with leftism and realize that so much of what’s considered ‘progressive’ in the west is coming not from the working class, but the ruling class in the form of academia, big pharma, the military, intelligence circles, and the NGO industrial complex. capitalism is extremely flexible-- it can easily re-shape itself to be perfectly in-line with hyper-sectarian liberal identity politics when convenient and then quickly re-configure back to conservatism following the inevitable right wing cultural backlash. theoretically it can go on like that in cycles until world imperialism implodes upon itself. lots of people who consider themselves ‘progressives’ are enthusiastically supporting the US-proxy war in ukraine right now. the only thing that ultimately matters to the ruling class is capitalizing on whatever ideology allows them to proceed with business as usual for the imperial war and debt machine, and so-called progressive liberalism has been a fantastic boon in that department. we don’t win until we stop using ideology as a shortcut for moral superiority and start organizing with reality in mind even if we find it personally uncomfortable to reckon with

#womens and gay/gnc rights and racial justice are important mind you but those are achieved via materialist strategy and not baseless dogma #if you try to achieve any of the above solely culturally w/o targeting the economic base #you're gonna fall flat on your face #leftists tend to think of themselves as more moral and enlightened than the masses and their elitism is their downfall

[nzcronerd]

me thinking about literally any ship from disco elysium: this too is dialectics

#now it's cindy and liz... #you know. a member of a criminal gang and a lawyer. complete opposites #but they both want a world that's free of exploitation... they're both want a better socialist world #so in this case they're the same #so they're basically two sides of the same coin of leftist strategies idk...

[bleuberrygliscor]

i know its 90% venting at the bleakness of american politics but like...

it really fucking blows to know that most people are probably not gonna vote this year. i cant wait for the fallout of that.

#rem rambles #last time trump was elected i was spit on and called a nigger to my face at work. #lets see what happens this time. surely not worse than that. #like fuck joe biden. i will personally beat him to death with a rock. i hated him last time. i hate him now. #but the swiftness that people are like 'no actually i'll take my chances with the republicans who have been flying nazi flags and actively #putting forth legislation to eradicate trans people and flirting with the klan and pushing for genital checks on kids' is...staggering. #like i see the strategy you think youre doing. as if democrats dont get off on losing constantly.... #its not moral strength to sit down and let the worse motherfucker win just to say ''haha see! you need me! you should be nicer to me.'' #if that was the case the democrats would have picked it up with hillary losing. but they didnt. obviously. #get local. start supporting local politicians that are more leftist than what we got. but by god to not expose people in red states #to even worse shit. do not encourage those bitches to visit my goddamn city AGAIN. #like what do you even think will happen outside of negative outcomes for people who arent you? like some republican will tell israel to sto #again i know its venting. so let me vent too. because holy shit is it wildly tone deaf to use the minorities that the republicans are #targeting as a fucking bargaining chip with people who dont care about us anyway. #as if saying ''im willing to sacrifice native americans to show democrats that i mean business'' will even work. #these people are so far gone that televised genocide will not move them. but you think digging your heels in will. absurd. childish behavio