Military and counterinsurgency experts worldwide are so concerned that we could be in the early stages of an armed insurgency that they are now openly expressing these concerns to the public, and yet we still have a largely dilettante “Left” banking on *politicians* for “change.”
Right-wing militias outnumber left-wing ones by the hundreds.

Two months ago, @AP reported that the FBI did 3.9 million background checks on gun sales in June alone.

They also said:

“Each week in June is now in the top 10 weeks for background checks.”

apnews.com/8ddad3189eb886…
Stop trying to hold on to the idea of a “normalcy” that is never coming.

Stop trying to wait on messiahs or “leaders” that are never coming.

The window for us to do something preventative and regenerative in pursuit of an eco-socialist vision is closing rapidly.

We must build.
Please see our pinned thread to begin exploring the strategical frameworks that we have been putting forward for years in preparation for this moment.

The key word some of you all are missing in the first tweet of this thread is “banking.”

The claim that is made in response to these points is always “electoral politics is one tool.”

Okay...

So what do you have to say about the other “tools,” and what is your broader program?
We’ve been saying for years that the question around “electoral politics and direct action” is a question of balance.

We‘ve also been saying that things are very out of balance.

So much so that if we were to move into a stage of elevated destabilization tomorrow, we’d be toast.
The truth is that most of the “Left” does not have a cohesive or coherent program or politics, and are thus still unable to contextualize specific strategies or functions of particular institutions within a broader approach for systems change (see below).

The quote shared above speaks to a synergy between (and coalescence of) various strategical structures and institutions (commonly explored via Left movements throughout global history).

Holistic approaches like these can only be coordinated by those serious about systems change.
Self-defense at the individual and/or neighborhood level is going to be important, especially as this crisis deepens, but there is a distinction to be made between that, and building up alternative socioeconomic institutions that can sustain communities AND more advanced defense.

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More from @BlackSocialists

6 Sep
Something the “Left” desperately needs to understand, and quickly:

1) The future of organizing is going to be more spontaneous and decentralized (whether you like it or not).

2) The goal shouldn’t be to organize others, but rather to help others organize themselves in new ways.
To point number one:

Much of this is tied to how we’ve been conditioned under Neoliberalism, how we reflect this conditioning in our outlooks or approaches, the designs of the tech we use to organize, and the hyper-individualization and atomization all of this (and more) brings.
To point number two:

This is not only a point about strategical adaptation, but a point about strategical advantage too; plenty of Black revolutionaries have stressed the utility of creating infrastructure conducive to self-organization, and decentralized infrastructure as well.
Read 16 tweets
16 Aug
We can’t let our rallying cries for change and our lists of demands sit as mere appeals to the very institutions that are oppressing us.

We must rally *each other* and make demands of *each other* for the building of *new* institutions that can actually challenge the status quo.
What does “JUSTICE FOR [INSERT NAME]” really look like?

Who decides what is “just,” and how?

What does it mean to be concerned with justice versus freedom?

Ultimately, how are we getting closer to these things by just appealing to a system that is inherently unjust and unfree?
We have to build new institutions that aren’t reproducing the economic and social relations that got us into this mess, but that are instead rooted in the logic of the world we want to see...

And we have to connect these institutions globally in order to build a parallel system.
Read 4 tweets
3 Aug
We must be clear about what it means to not just “organize,” but to organize for revolutionary systems change specifically.

The ruling class is not really intimidated or challenged by reactive activism or charity.

They are intimidated or challenged by you making them obsolete.
Many still haven't conceived of organizing approaches that deal with labor, the land, our economic circumstances more broadly, or the nuts and bolts of how to build economic institutions that can serve as the foundation for new political power and/or systems of self-governance...
Are we doing what we’re doing just to make it feel like we’re doing something revolutionary?

Or are we trying to do something revolutionary?

We must be honest with ourselves.

Serious efforts for systems change take serious (and immense) planning, and at an institutional level.
Read 11 tweets
7 Jul
Donald Lee Cox was one of the core leaders of the Black Panther Party.

He was given the title “Field Marshal” due to his experience with weapons.

Here are some final words from his autobiography – and one of the most revealing works on the Party to date – “Just Another Nigger.” Donald Cox of the Black Panther Party speaks at the United F
“The major weakness – one that inevitably leads to failure – is Lenin’s idea that a party should be structured according to the tenets of democratic centralism.“
“Under utopian conditions, with everyone being more or less an angel, it would probably work; but given our present stage of evolutionary development, with all our human strengths and weaknesses, it is just not possible to pull it off.“
Read 33 tweets
2 Jul
Know that a majority of the “leaders” people are looking to for salvation care for little more than popularity contests and their personality cults.

These people are staring at themselves and their followers in the mirror with egotism and vanity as the world burns around them.
Some have built up their followings by talking about how the world is burning.

They’ve got all of the rhetoric to speak to the fire, but no concrete methods to share for how we can put the fire out, or practice.

What’s worse is that most of them aren’t even looking for methods.
Ella Baker and many others tried to tell us over and over again.

The “stan culture” paired with (and exacerbated by) the individualistic designs of these new digital mediums through which we communicate have the potential to distract us into our demise.

Read 4 tweets

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