Welcome again to everybody. Make yourself at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
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I have the opportunity to get therapy and it has now led to some heavy introspection to think about how I got to this point. I had to take the day off today because of this. On the one hand it is good to finally get therapy, on the other hand it is tiring.
I’m also feeling let down with party work as basically nothing of value is coming forward. Just a meeting now and then, no real activist or other organising stuff. I’d love for us to start leading by example and set up some direct action stuff in the city but I’ve already said this a few times without getting a real response.
I spend the weekend in my hometown and that means, for me, spending time in the middle of a blue collar, working class community. I have trouble linking the people that join our party with the typical working class people I grew up with. Or at least the side of the party I am active in. Mostly educated, straight out of college leftist type of people. Which is not wrong per se, but I feel like we are starting to get that type of person tunnel vision, you know? I personally never gratuated college and through blue collar work managed to get where I am now and sometimes our party group feels like losing track with what keeps the working class busy. My dad, working a blue collar job for 30+ years now, does not see the need to sign the umpteenth petition for example. And neither do I feel the need to ask people to sign the umpteenth petition if I had to be honest. We need to do more.
Just a rant and I’ll probably figure things out but if you can’t reach the working class en masse after more than two decades of right wing policies I feel like you are doing things wrong.
And also, with trust in political parties at an all time low it seems, how much credibility do you think to build up when to them, you seem like just another party asking for votes?
Get out there and show how organising can bring change. Turn that ugly run down piece of land in your neighborhood into a park. Hell, maybe squat an empty building but without the anarchist pissing against the wall tactic. Do something.
I don’t know where you live, but where I do, many usually uneducated workers, peasants, and petty bourgeois think it’s normal to throw rubbish everywhere. Even educated peoples, which are usually well-off seem to have the same problem, so while building and planning such projects, which in my case is a communal garden, take it as an opportunity to make such basic concepts normalized and encourage more community building along side political agitation. In my experience, the youth are usually the most prone to radicalization, so focus on planting seeds there.
Hope the best