Has there been a serious attempt in recent years to restart the Pioneer club in the US or elsewhere in the west...

As for revitalization, Im in a scoutsgroup, but you would need some way to make a viable scouts group in urban environments that isnt just a glorified daycare and also shed the lame image scouting has today.

Yes, but communist.

Well, we could bring back marksmanship as an activity, and we could focus more on physical fitness and doing something to keep kids' grades high. Scouting has lame dad written all over it, but if we took the weenie factor out of it, we could make kids like this shit really mattered. I don't know, but I think it's worth a minute of thought at least. The problem is really visualizing what an American Pioneers organization would look like.

So I would have some suggestions:
Modernise the uniform. From my experience the antiquated, silly looking uniforms is what turns most people off from taking scouting serious.
I would suggest a more modern, militaristic uniform, as opposed to the older uniform.
The second thing is the theming and activities. Many modern scouting groups have turned into glorified daycare for the young and an excuse to hang out and shoot shit for the older. The inebetween of the old and young is where most members quit, when they feel they are too old for the traditional tying knots and making fires, but arent allowed to do their own thing yet. Especially in urban environments, its hard to create activities that will speak to a large group of youngsters.
Theres probably some more things that need to be addressed, but I would like to hear what you think of this.

I'm dutch but we got the same image problem here. Scouting really has turned into lame dad activities. The most fun part of scouting is when you get to do your own shit with some friends, like sailing or building your own fire and cooking, without adults making you do lame shit like learning knots or singing songs.

Also can you be bothered explaining this whole eagle scout and boy scout shit?
Why do you have ranks? Are you really obsessed that much with ranks and badges? Why are men and women segregated?

Modernizing the uniform is good, but you don't want the public at large thinking that this is some kind of children's militia. That has Kony 2012 written all over it. I think modeling things more after the JROTC uniforms might work, although we could keep the older Soviet-style uniforms and simply issue field uniforms as well, which would be a lot better for actually doing scout shit. Also, for group leaders we should have actual standards. Fat scout dad is a shit look.

For urban kids, that's the real problem, but maybe we could focus on more fun shit, like playing paintball once in a while, or doing actually fun shit like rappelling or first aid, as well as learning how to swim (blacks in the US have historically not been taught how to swim).

I think tying knots is good to learn, but they should be coupled with activities that have a purpose more than just learning a know. Like when I first learned rappelling, I had to learn to do a Swiss seat, and that was both fun and terrifying. As for singing songs, I think that should be kept to a minimum. Most scout songs are lame as fuck.

There was a thing I was apart of for a few years called the Young Marines. I know I know. But it's more militaristic organization may be what is needed.

Eagle scouts are guys that have made it to the end, with all their required badges and skills. You can actually get E3 rank in the Army for that as soon as you enlist. Men and women are segregated no longer in the Boy Scouts because women bitched hard enough, but in the Pioneers, there is no separate clubs, but of course, we can't have teens and pre-teens fucking around when they're supposed to be learning and growing, so they would need a degree of separation.

Look gay as fuck mate.
Why do we need those old uniforms? The main reason they got all the lame bits and pieces on them are to indicate ranking, most of which were abolished in our scouts groups, leaving lots of attachment places with nothing to put on them. If you want to make a leftist orginisation, a more minimalistic, utilitarian should suffice. Which is why I like the newer soldier uniforms better. Less "official"/"ceremonial" features, more utalitarian design.
We really do not need rank insignia on our shoulders, or badges on our chest pocket, or silly looking hats.

Just my two cents. Most of us in the netherlands are ashamed to be seen in public in uniforms due to how silly they look (as well as the stigma attached to scouting).

Definitately

Yeah, I think we should bring more of that in, just not go overboard. It's a delicate balance between a cool scouting organization and the media thinking we're training child soldiers.

Well thats what scouts have always done, and is sorta what we would so as well. We would train children the necessary skills for conflict situations such as survival, first aid, etc.

Just about the only time singing should be done is for a good cadence while running IMO

Those are the new summer uniforms, modeled after the blue ASUs. The older uniforms had a coat, and they were green.

Maybe just a white shirt, the red scarf, the cap and trousers/skirt should suffice for the dress uniform, but have a field uniform as well, which would be the one most often used.

Maybe ditch scouting's authoritarian structure for something more democratic. boy scouts are the epitome of uncoolness in American pop culture. Yeah, we need something that functions as a wholesome alternative to mainstream culture but we also need some sort of edge appeal. Maybe a focus on culture jamming pranks and agitprop happenings, the alt right was popular among kids for a reason, you know. There was a scouting adjacent youth group in Germany that actually played a part in the anti Nazi resistance, the Edelweißpiraten.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edelweiss_Pirates

See, I like running and marching cadence, but most of the ones I know are inappropriate for children. Maybe the teenage boys would work, but these niggas can't keep a secret. My favorite one used to be the Yellow Bird. We would have to make new ones.

Could you care to give an example?
Would a uniform even be necessary beyond some guidelines?
Any jeans, sturdy shirt and a red scarf should suffice tbh. Lax uniform rules would also increase accessibility among the impoverished.

The young marines thing I was apart of was open to kids as young as 10 if I remember right and there were quite a few catchy cadences that they used.

Well, the military in general is authoritarian out of necessity. However, we could pick team and squad leaders to be rotated every once in a while to teach leadership skills. The whole point is to get them working as a group. But most of the authoritarianism comes from adult leaders that don't want to let scouts do anything cool. I really don't see the harm in letting a few small teams go do land-nav or even night land-nav as long as we're properly cordoned off. I find that if you treat young teens like adults, they'll behave like adults for the most part.

Yes, but it's more of a psychological thing. Being in uniform, or simply carrying the symbol of the organization around (like a red scarf, for example), sets them apart from their peers. It makes them exclusive, and if that club is seen as desirable, then others will seek to join. This is why women fuck men in uniform.

I wouldn't go with jeans, but you are right in saying that an easy to purchase uniform would be best, of course, if we got external donations, we could subsidize some of them on a needs basis. Really, most of the way to make a uniform look good is to simply wear it correctly, so I don't think it will matter if we just go with walmart polos and slacks for the dress uniform and a BDU-like set for the rest of the time.

Old JROTC uniform related

didn't the uniform depend on which 'branch' it was cause my schools group was navy and I think they looked different.

What are the medals for? Learning to tie knots? Having a bake sale?

Yes, it does depend on that, but most branches seem to be Army anyway. Big Army is big. The pic at the OP is the pioneer uniform, which is just a white shirt, blue skirt/trousers, and the scarf. The cap is probably optional, and I'm more partial to berets anyway.

Those are JROTC cadets. They're probably for physical fitness, grades, and other such things. Remember, those aren't scouts. They're trying to be US Army officers.

maybe the YPG could function as a model, I don't know much about their internal organisation, but they seem rather efficient and they appoint their officers by internal elections. YPG brigades have a high degree of autonomy and leaders rotate depending on the circumstances, they can be appointed and recalled by the base at any time. Instead of older leaders, we would have facilitators/supervisors. Never underestimate kids. We need to Emphasize freedom, creative engagement and self determination. Kids today spend most of the day trapped in alienating authoritarian environments, their only escape, however illusory lies in the sphere of consumption. We need to offer a third option. Maybe we should go for 'Free Youth' or a similar name.

Looks unnecessarily complex tbh.

I would say the BDU-style uniform would be better for full time. I dont see why you need a seperate dress uniform, especially something as antequated as slacks and polos. Maybe this is just a cultural difference between western europe and america though.

Sounds a bit free-love/hippy/degeneracy eseque. May give the wrong impression given the past track record of scout groups and paedophilia.
The rest I would agree with.

Yes, but YPG is made up of adults that have already been trained to do this. They aren't just random kids. The US Army enlisted corps is actually pretty autonomous from the officer corps. If we give up more control to junior leaders it would work, but I worry about hazing, which young teens tend to do. We want to avoid that, so mostly it would be one adult platoon leader, with a senior pioneer or pioneer graduate, followed by four senior pioneer squad leaders, with two junior-level team leaders. This is modeled after an infantry platoon, but if we want to make it more scout-themed, we could have one scout section leader with a junior section sergeant, followed by three teams with a team leader and assistant team leader. The adult would only dictate the intent of the activities, but the leaders would take care of the details as they saw fit. When I was a recon scout in the Army this is how we did it. Even the most junior guys could put up a plan if they had the brains for it and it went all the way to the troop commander, from which the best plan would get picked. Very close-knit and very autonomous way of doing things.

It is. I was just pointing out that we could make dress uniforms look good. The pic at the OP is my favorite uniform, though. It's simple, cheap, and distinctive.

Well, I think it's simply, again, to set them apart. Many groups use BDU-like uniforms, but dress uniforms would be for special events like graduations or award ceremonies. It's all about the psychological effect. This is what sets them apart from their peers.

We need to differentiate ourselves from 'squares' such as the boy scouts and the army cadets, why not go for a more self aware DIY look that draws on local countercultural traditions? that was a huge part of Nazbol's appeal. We have to recover whatever was useful in scouting/pioneers while going beyond the usual authoritarian implications. Yeah, we have to instill discipline, but also a democratic mentality. It'snot only about military stuff, though that might come in handy eventually, but about organisation in a more general sense. We could find ways to support local strikes, fight against the privatisation of education, etc. We cannot limit ourselves to the values of the old world, we have to create our own.

Well first, because I have no idea what you're talking about. Sorry, but I'm not the smartest guy. I have a grunt brain.

I think that's better left to the older teens. Remember, this is also about keeping local youth out of trouble with the law so they can become class-conscious professionals.

But seriously, please do explain more explicitly. I'm not understanding a lot of this.

programs like JROTC are explicitly designed to support American militarism, a leftist youth group would have to operate on a different basis.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_Reserve_Officers'_Training_Corps#Controversy

Yes, I know, but I don't think anyone here was suggesting that they model this group after JROTC.

That's the problem. Who would want give in their children to some socialist organization? There are just too few radicalized people in the west who would accept this. If anyone started this in any western nation, I doubt that we would get any members at all, and even if we did, the whole would probably just blow up into a huge controversy and die after that. It would beneficial to establish a DoP before starting to make plans about this whole thing. Or at least starting this up while it isn't connected to any communist party with large support would be very foolish.
If we really want to reach out to younger people and radicalize them, at least with start with the ones that are old enough to do things without their parent's permission. Although then that wouldn't be too similar to the actual pioneers (joining them and participating in it was a compulsory thing from 5th to 8th grade). I also think that messing aroung in the woods doesn't help the socialist cause too much. We should be instead focused on spreading propaganda and some sort of activism no fuck you stupid leftcom im fed up with you and your kind go away reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Now we have arrived at a concept which has nothing to do with pioneers and is just a simple socialist youth organization so
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Well, inner-city kids don't really have a place in traditional scouting orgs, and if we can keep these kids out of gangs and trouble, I'm sure most parents could be convinced. If we make it good, then others might start to think that socialism isn't so bad. It's all about that perception.
Well, it was technically voluntary, but the Pioneers are what we call a feeder organization.
That's the thing. It does help because it de-stigmatizes socialism, and it's good for the kids, so even if they don't become socialists, they'll never think of it as some kind of threat. As for activism, scouting orgs do activism all the time, it just isn't highly political. Any kind of community service we can have kids of that age do is a positive.
/thread
Yeah, but that's already political, thereby attracting only kids that are already socialists. The aim is to spread socialism and keep those receptive to these ideas into the next step until they become adults. That's how it's supposed to work, at least.

Honestly, you'll be accused of that no matter what you do. If you're openly leftist and you're in charge of a group of kids or teens there's a 99% chance they'll scream indoctrination before you've even opened your mouth.

As long as the parents and children do not consider that to be the case, then I don't think we'll have problems.

I don't think you really know anything about the infamous nuclear wasteland filled with nothing but pure ideology, the United States of America.

I do. I'm part of a very conservative family, but they've lately been looking at socialists with more kind eyes than the Trumpist right.

I have regained faith in humanity

I'm starting to think that this is the decade where socialism becomes acceptable again in the US and the western world at large. Young people today did not grow up afraid of communism.

I think the point is to build it all at once. There are plenty of socialists out there that have not come out of the closet. If we make it something you can do throughout your life, then it becomes normalized. Yes, we need to get adults first, but we need to include the youth soon after. This is how we build movements. Maybe we need to start small, but I think the time is right to switch from just protesting to actually going out and doing things that the community enjoys and that are conductive to life-long commitment to socialism.

Your ideas seem pretty good, but I still fear that this would without a proper socialist movement backing it.

So what kind of activities could you organise within the inner city that don't cost a lot of money?

Ruck marches are pretty cool, soccer, football, paintball, and you could also have study sessions to get kids to keep their grades up. You could also do barbecues, or movie nights. There's all sorts of things.

Paintball is expensive as fuck though.

Just spitballing. As I said, actually imagining what this organization would look like or do is much harder to envision than what effects it would have if it worked out correctly.