this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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ITT:
Everyone thinking that the only two options are being quiet or being violent.
Strikes are currently making those in power very uncomfortable, and are resulting in genuine progress for workers.
In my area, people camping out in thousand year old trees has protected them time and again from being illegally logged.
Black Lives Matter protests were loud and made the powerful uncomfortable, and despite media narratives it wasn't "violent protesters" that made the powerful uncomfortable.
It is true that any form of protest that is loud and inconveniencing enough to actually be productive will be met with state violence.
It's also true that some working for progress do use violence. But make no mistake, it's not guns that made those in power uncomfortable when it came to Malcom X and the Black Panthers.
The most radical and intimidating (to those in power) things the Black Panthers did were to give free food to schoolchildren, and free healthcare at their People’s Free Medical Clinics.
Building community and mutual aid is subversive.
Building community and mutual aid makes those in power uncomfortable.
This. Both the government and the major corporations depend on being able to extract wealth from real people getting what they need. If we build dual power structures, help one another out and cut the owner class out of the transaction entirely, we weaken them. Growing food in your garden is revolutionary. Clothing swaps are revolutionary. Cutting the old lady next door's lawn, then eating the soup she made is an act that strikes at the fundamental underpinnings of the power structure set up by those who think that they should be entitled to our labor because they've been arbitrarily designated as the "owners" of things. We can and should remove them from the equation entirely.
If you wrote a book I'd read it.
Why wasn't I taught about the free food and medical care part of what they did?
You were quietly taught that armed black people were scary. That’s what they wanted you to remember, not what they armed themselves for.
Ugh.. this just makes me feel all sorts of awful. I struggle to find the exact words.
"Lied to" are two good ones.
Just remember it is not your fault. Society has so deeply propagandized Americans over the years that I don't know if it's even possible to fix it.
Shit, at least you were taught about them. Never even heard about the Black Panthers until later in my adult life on a random reddit comment.
Small mutual aid for local communities grow out into large social aid organizations that have political power. Politicians can make them redundant by unemployment, healthcare and pensions, or try to nip them in the bud.
Politicians can try.
That can't stop us from trying though.