ORGANIZING

How the fuck do you organize? Every meeting I go to, people discuss what they're planning on doing and then some argument breaks out. Then in the end, no concrete action has been decided on. What are the best ways to do meetings and set dates for protests or events? How do you network with other local organizations? How do you structure a meeting so everyone can feel like they participated or had their time well-spent? How do you deal with people who are arguing too much?

if you're in the US you gotta break out of doing shit that doesn't work

try shit that's out of the box like idk

do a leftist open carry march or something

partially true, but sometimes if you just live in a reactionary shithole, nothing works.

It's a classcuckery problem. Tell them the same thing you tell Holla Forumsyps; read Bordiga.

in US organise around basic fucking needs (that given the reactionary neoliberal hellzone the US is, are denied to many) like healthcare and housing

Rules, procedures and protocols. Speaking lists, open and closed discussions, moderators, specified resposibillities that are elected and have dates till when something specific has to be done, leaders/head organisers that are the central coordination but dont do all the work.

For coordination with other groups both sides have to have people that are resposinble for the communication and carry the issues into their respective groups and make the initial organisation for get togethers.

This is not easy and can be quite exhausting. All of it has to be learned and a tradition needs to be developed so things can go along smooth.

Some super basic rules: enough coffee and good food for everyone(extremely important, for bigger meetings have people that are resposible for keeping everyone happy and fed). No drugs during the sessions, but enough of them afterwards. Frequent breaks and lists of topics that have to be discussed, lists of topics that get moved.

A written statement of intent and self understanding that the group has of itself if you want to have a long running group is also necessary.

I have quite a lot experience with non political groups and know some people in active political groups and cooperatives. The basic shit is the same everywhere. Dont be afraid to ask for help or to contact specialists that can come into your group! This stuff has to be learned and is more complicated than it seems at first. Especially if the group is also a circle of friends and close social relationships you will need a whole host of other tools and techniques to deal with the inevitable social drama, many groups can survive coupples breaking up, fights between friends of propperly handled.

Totally forgot something.

YOUR IDEOLOGY DOESNT MATTER AT ALL!

Leave it at the door, you can read all of Marx and be the most educated leftcom ever, but you still know jackshit about keeping groups organised and running. This is a skill that has to be learned in practice and learned from targeted literature and not some amazing philosophy and economic works.

Pick a core, inclusive issue that appeals to everyone to remove the potential to idpol. Focus on this objective. Leave other objectives to other organizations and movements.

For instance, see trade union organization - includes everyone in a workplace or even an entire industry.

I recommend Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals as reading matter.

Robert's Rules of Order is popular in US church groups, but it may be too formal and complicated. You need to be strict about the start and end of the meeting, have a clock in the room that everybody sees, use a better voting method than plain plurality (e.g. average ratings of zero to three stars or something like that), and always create some document with the gist of what happened (rotate that task) for people who couldn't attend (maybe also available for interested people who aren't members yet). You need a general outline of what the group is about, and some generic rules (no smoking, drinking, shouting), two pages, and like a third of a page about what the specific meeting is about.

Have a simple rule about proxy voting. Like, a person can fill out two ballots (and no more), if that person is listed as somebody's proxy and that somebody was at the last meeting and is now absent. Don't make these lazy indirect votes a too attractive option.

don't organize into a party. focus on small cells of affinity groups and direct action against porky instead. large, formalized organization only makes it easier for the authorities to crush you.

Even affinity groups from a given size need to organise propperly. Especially when you become older inefficient arguing becomes a massive drag onto the motivation of everyone as no one has time for that anymore, bigger groups sizes also become important to maintain a minimum of abillity to act.

i don't see how bigger groups wouldn't have the issue of arguing. and at least arguing on a smaller scale gives you more of an opportunity to find common ground quicker.

...

In reality participation comes and goes, issues get resolved for a while and reappear. People get active or have to concentrate on their own life for a while. Having a bigger group allows you to allways maintain a core of active people. Useless arguing is not linear with group size, propper organisation can make bigger groups way more informal(as issues get resolved propperly) and still effective with less arguing overall.

The most effective groups are ofc small groups of completely likeminded friends that can deal with their issues consensual and without drama. But that never lasts and has its own restrictions. Really sucessful organisations manage to have a wider group that consists of closeknit groups of friends that still are tied into a wider thing.

thanks anarchist

Yep, that.

Something like the Prison Industrial Complex in the US.

Yeah that's why the tiny anarchist keep getting crushed while Marxist-Leninist parties throughout all history have posed an actual threat to porky's rule, in many cases even taking power.

fuck off you liberal scum

Come join the action front

and look at the human suffering caused by Marxist-Leninism

also the anarchist organizations in Catalonia were large scale, formalized organizations, which is exactly what i said was the problem.

I think you need a more general organisation that has sub groups that focus on specific issues. This issue based activism has done no good for the left.


Anti-organisation anarchists are scum, your individual activism will never change anything.

I like that in theory, but I think in practice that leaves too much room for liberals to infiltrate and focus on completely fabricated non-issues like the "gender wage gap" or "cops murdering blacks", which then allows anyone even vaguely on the right to write off the movement.

The Prison Industrial Complex is one of the nation's biggest problems, and something that I really do think that you could get the vast majority of burgers behind, regardless of political affilitation. I believe it could be used as a sort of gateway drug to actually raise class consciousness in a way that isn't overtly leftist, as it's something that once you look at the statistics, along with the corporate and political connections, gives you a "Jesus fucking christ, what are we doing?" moment which is powerful and can be redirected into tackling other major issues.

Yeah, once the movement grows it just often becomes really hard to maintain a socialist outlook and liberals invade.

not against organization, just formal organization

Thats sane, but there arent many actual differences between formal and informal organisations. How they work in practice internally still determines how well they function. How formal your organisation is just one of many deciscions that shouldnt stop you from having a good organisation that can survive people leaving and joining.

Simple: don't.

this meme needs to die

why are 90% of anarchists completely retarded?

...

top kek

because they're socialists or capitalists who like the aesthetic of chaos and revolution. they don't want to live peacefully in an anarchist society, they want perpetual revolt against the state. Im not at all interested in any revolution or reform.

Well, it depends on what sort of organizing you're making and what community you're targeting. My only experience with this has been subpar student activism, and in that experience I've learned that study and debate groups that are parallel to the main meeting are the best sponge to absorb and contain those tensions and conflicts.

If this doesn't fit within the overall design, try relocating it to social media, but remember to have strict standards, otherwise it will also descend into chaos.

Try to divide the meeting into stages, never start without an agenda and a few points to be discussed and never leave without a phase where a resolution will be decided by whatever voting mechanism you guys have.

We try to keep the same place, day and time always, meeting two or three times a month. If for some reason many people can't attend we just cancel instead of changing place/time. There has to be a certain security and predictability as far as those things, even if most of the voices you hear will be asking for a more adaptable schedule, because otherwise people will just stop showing up.

In student activism this shit happens pretty organically, particularly because in my country that crap is often tied to larger political parties. So I can't help you there.

But I would use social media and target local left-wing communities for recruits. I think Shaun King did that.

Don't make it too short or too long, and make it clear that no matter what, at this exact hour we'll stop and move to the next stage, and at this exact hour we'll start wrapping things up to end the meeting. Allow people to make statements and speeches but don't have more than X speakers per meeting.

And again, clear steps and procedures. When I started being involved, I'd go to meetings where it wasn't clear what exactly we'd be doing (debating? voting on something? listening to new proposals?) and as a result no one was prepared. The main speaker would improvise everything and, when it required people to step forward, everyone would just look down. They need to know what they're in for so they'll prepared ahead. Have a mechanism to deal with everything, including expulsions.

Like I said, a debate group, if it fits within your overall structure. If it doesn't, focus on procedures, limit the number speakers and have rules for debate and engagement. It's also very important for you to have people who will act like neutral judges to help enforce things. Keep these people out of the main debates and give them the task of guiding the meeting and enforcing the resolutions.

Sorry that I couldn't be more useful, my experience with this shit is limited and, 90% of the time, not worthy of being a template for anything.

I think this is useful advice.

That's a first

kek

organization needs some structure ideological and in leadership/delegation, a plan of action, division of tasks, a good communication network, way to recruit new members and get funds, and so on…
Debates and meetings should have a meaning and the conclusions of it should result in a new plan of action, in something concrete, or we can conclude that the discussion was obsolete

they're evolving

Top-Flop™ is the leftypol OC voting method for a group picking one proposal out of several competing ones and also for elections (but single-winner only).

I've been trying really hard to get involved with my university's socialist student group. they hold events quite regularly and are very organized.

the problem is that everybody in it is really weird and incredibly awkward, sort of pretentious, and basically are just no fun. I've been bringing my friends (who are also socialists) who are regular people like me to some of their events and they are totally turned off by these socialist people. They're really just awkward nerds and lousy to be around and they really bore regular people.

I feel like they really have the organizational stuff in place in terms of having the capability to reach out but they totally alienate people from socialism - they do tabling in our university every week for example and people constantly come up to me saying how embarrassing and weird the socialist student group is (i study polisci and philosophy and so everyone knows im a socialist so they bring it up every once and a while.)

Should i suffer and join this group and ask to run the tabling and reaching out and stuff? Is it worth trying to get involved to make it more accessible to regular people who could possibly be introduced to socialism? Like even the monthly magazine they put out looks like shit - say what you want about Jacobin but at least their magazine looks professional. They make socialism seem boring and fringe. Anyone have similar experience with local leftist groups?

Different people have different ways of interacting with each other. Maybe splitting is the answer, and I don't mean the actual group here, but getting them to have two types of meetings, very formal and less formal and noob-friendly ones, making it clear which is which.

All this advice about organizing is nice and all, but really, what do you actually do? Distribute leaflets? Make one of those small pickets? Edit a newspaper? What?

This.

Nothing rustles my jimjams more than a bunch of college kids going around trying to ""educate"" other people into communism. "The only reason other people disagree with me and my political views is because they're uneducated dumbshits! The proles need to go read a fucking book!"

...

When your ideology is complete shit, your meetings will be complete shit

I think you just weren't lucky. My local orgs are full of really normal dudes. Some nerds, but not too many.

Instead of giving up, just go ahead and make a new group made out of your friends.