Helped start a far left discussion/education group in a southern state capital that has grown to 30 people from January. Format has been a once weekly meeting where a different volunteer gives a talk on a topic they pick (had everything from encryption to the bread book to anime nazis to gardening to Lenin’s letters) followed by everybody talking it over, gossiping about the news and local concerns, grabbing drinks, etc.
We think it’s time to take things public. Currently reserving a regular meeting place at the local library and working on ideas for flyers, our logo, and strategies. Goal is to just act as a nonsectarian place for the local far left to make connections, learn from each other, and marshall strength for activism. Currently majority anarchists, followed by DemSocs, misc socialists, radicalizing Berniecrats, and a couple Marxist-Leninists. No idpol, disputes, or right wing sabotage so far, and we hope to minimize the risk of that in the future. Have any advice for us?
Cameron Barnes
which state? been looking for a group like this in georgia
Mason Richardson
Watch out for Trot and #Resistance hijacking attempts. Have a plan for if the local KKK-wannabes decide to drop in and start shit. Come up with another one for dealing with reporters and what approved people will tell them if anything, and make sure everybody is aware of it so they don't start running their mouths.
Blake Cruz
Not in Georgia, unsure if I want to reveal what capital city it is before we've kicked it off. Plan is to post a leftypol thread with the meeting time and place when that happens. If you have any friends or acquaintances with similar views, it isn't hard to start a small regular meeting together. Ours snowballed before long just through friends and friends-of-friends, mostly from the local university, recent protests, the local punk scene, and pissed off plant workers.
Connor Hughes
Please be in Montgomery. I commute there for work.
Jason Brown
get a concealed carry permit.
Asher Bailey
user, that sounds like the neatest shit on the planet. I live in Milwaukee and there's fucking nothing up here. I don't have any particular advice, but I hope the best for it.
Jordan Hernandez
Hey, me too.
Wanna start shit?
Joshua Perez
You have reading group that doesnt just consist out of students? Consider me impressed.
If you get bigger and organise more complicated stuff remember to write down desicion procedures soon and dont fear speaking about problems in the group in dedicated situations(!) also dont stop from seeking outside mediating help because of false pride if things go south.
Jeremiah Baker
Have practical meetings as well as ideological (fun) ones. The practical ones, since you're starting out, should be focsed on gathering funds and finding recruits. Use the fun ones to bring recruits in, have like a collective dinner, maybe watch a movie and then debate, things like that.
Once you've got more people, you can regionalize further and have a central committee with the most dedicated comrades from each region. From this central committee you can start to make action plans for the regional collectives to follow.
Just keep going like that. Once the regional collectives are big enough, you can start to have collectives based on place of employment, and that's when the real fun starts.
Luke Ramirez
I don't know, but I wish you well
t. fellow southerner
Jeremiah Harris
Are you in SC?
Austin Lee
Start a Dixie Worker's Party. We can balkanize the US and make the south socialist.
Jonathan Stewart
So far looks like we're on track to go public in mid July to early August.
Thanks for the advice; do you have any ideas for sources of funding? Fundraising in an otherwise hard right area will be tricky.
The other founders weren't college students, which I think helped a lot. We're thinking about how to reach out to some professors in the future, given that we have at least one Anarcho-Syndicalist and a few generic Marxists in the faculty.
Can you recommend any good models/ideas for decision procedures and generally keeping a group going? None of us have experience with running something like this, just been winging it so far and either gotten lucky or had good instincts.
Good idea. I do, and am hoping to convince some of the others to get theirs. One good thing about being in the deep south is that guns practically spontaneously generate in your closet, so many folks are already armed, but plenty aren't. Thinking about maybe having a range day in the future.
'fraid not.
Jeremiah Diaz
Don't be too obviously left with the name and media.
Connor Campbell
user check out the Philadelphia Redneck Revolt and SPUSA chapters, we have a similar thing going on where were trying to build an anti-idPol multiracial front a la the Panthers and the Young Patriots. Nothing really up on social media yet but if you hit us up it would be great to cooperate and trade strategy and whatnot. I feel you on wanting to remain secretive rn and thats for the best, we have had some sketchy looking people staking out our meetings before. But if you ever feel comfortable about it would love to cooperate just please dont mention you were recommended contacting us thru the shithole that is Holla Forums, were having success convincing people that anti-IdPol is also antiracist and antihomophobic and I dont want any connection to a Nazi internet hive
Kayden Edwards
So make it. Organize, you faggot.
Christian Richardson
Please be in Louisiana.
Justin Davis
Where you at in Milwaukee?
Cooper Morales
East side, around Brady St.
Logan Ortiz
West Allis.
We don't have anything here. I talked to some guy but he said we'd have to go to Chicago.
However, there is a ton of shit we Milwaukeeans and Wisconsinites have to figure out ourselves because we are in the middle of such different agendas right now.
I work a lot but if there was a way to organize, I'd be gamed.
Caleb Perez
Im surprised there's not anything even around campus/in Madison, especially with our rust belt prestige. Then again, the Milwaukee metropolitan area seems to be the cessocean of the Midwest
I don't anyone in the city, much less anyone willing to meet up sadly, but I'd be down for anything that forms.
Cooper Harris
Not sure where you all are exactly but heres the SPUSA map. Darker red means more members
Henry Hughes
Why is Maine so woke?
Ayden Johnson
HAIL THE PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF MAINE
Charles Scott
I second this
Caleb Long
i third this
Jack Perry
We really do need more Holla Forums organizing in the US. Theres so much potential right now and away from college campuses even an openness to anti-identity politics. Sure people are still concerned with anti racism and anti sexism and good they should be, racism and sexism are idPol. Just understand the distinction yourself between subjective identification and material circumstance and be smart in explaining your issue with idPol and we could get some shit rolling.
Noah Collins
tampa dsa is really great if youre on the suncoast of florida
Asher Barnes
I fourth this, as I live in the south
Dominic Reyes
Europoor here. This sounds awesome. Hope it works out
Jonathan Morales
anyone live in or around atlanta?
Aaron Kelly
Ha haha. Go ahead. You are fighting a losing battle. Dont let any good ol boys find out what youre up to or youre gonna get your ass whipped. Stay out of MS. Fuck off back to Commiefornia faggot
Ian Peterson
yeah not like the south is filled with working class people suffering from neoliberalism or anything right lol
Cooper Garcia
go back to the McPlantation and suck your bosses dick some more why dont you
Adam Cooper
Remember, Jamal is the source of all your problems! Your whiteness is compensation enough! Good prole.
Jack Morgan
Look up the origin of the term "redneck"
Nolan Miller
What area in GA?
Jaxon Long
Milwaukee mustered up a 50 person black bloc pretty recently so there must be something somewhere. They used to have a WWP affiliate there but no longer. There's a redneck revolt in madison but they don't seem to be doing anything. There's also one in Fond Du Lac although that might be further than Chicago. There's also the whole gamut of regular marxist and anarchist groups - ISO, SA, IWW, DSA - in madison.
Bentley Green
Wow, the activity around Birmingham is new to me. We have a DSA there too.
Landon Bell
Fuck it, we're going public soon enough anyway. We're in Louisiana.
Debated this, but ultimately decided not to try hiding our ideological bent - we want other socialists, anarchists, etc to know whether they can find folks, and this city has no real left organizational presence beyond local Clinton dickriders.
Will do. Have any tips for explaining why a group from across the country is contacting you guys without mentioning leftypol?
Wow, you're so intimidating. Quaking in my boots in terror here.
Jacob Mitchell
the alabama section of the communist party usa in its heyday should be the model for communists in the south
Carson Bennett
Anything I can read about it?
Kevin Cook
I guess I'm the only commie in the Backwards State
Lincoln Rogers
Please be a legitimate Southerner and not some Yankee or California transplant cuck. Our region has a history of exploitation of the working class enough for a Communist movement to arise organically on its own without the need for outsider involvement.
Joshua Ramirez
Should we get involved with SPUSA and find a way to meet up with Angela Nicole Walker or should we look at the other groups and start there?
It's still not going to be easy because there aren't many meetings and such in our local are.
Luis Cook
Problem with taking it public is even a privately held group can't guarantee that some fucking idiot from /lol/ didn't manage to put on a real good act and infiltrate. It's happened many times before.
Colton Hill
Where are the sources you getting these from.
I did a heavy search about 2-3 months ago and Milwaukee had nothing going on for it event wise for that period of time.
Blake Gray
Shit bro I'm in NOLA and I'm interested in joining the group. Will yall march in the French quarter?
Mason Nelson
Shieeet Forgot to take off my shitposting flag
Jaxon Clark
Could just say youre reaching out to different orgs around the country to share strategy plan together and it wouldnt be a lie.
Jonathan Morgan
...
Josiah Baker
You are one of the few. We bash commie skulls here in MS
Justin Bennett
Seize Jamestown as a symbol of revolution, Comrade
I know you do. There isn't even a communist party here that I can seem to find. Hell, I get dirty looks and beratings for admitting I don't go to church.
Kayden Ortiz
NoVA bro, what's up? Is that anarcho mutualism or just a shitposting g flag?
Sebastian Clark
Wrong part of Virginia. DC is closer, and they have a huge DSA chapter already.
Lincoln Jackson
Totally Mutualism, but I'd be down to network with some non-Anarchist socialists to get some not-sectarian shit goin'
Jayden Martinez
Same here. We need to get socialists and workers organized. Too bad the only left wing groups in NOLA just do pride shit
Joseph Davis
DC has plenty of decent leftist shit going on, but anything south of the beltway is dead in a sea of Clintoncucks and Trumpets