What I meant to say

What I meant to say is lets dive deep into dreaming a new future, and taking every little step to make that future real. Let’s orient to this—building a new world in the cracks that are quickly turning our ground to shattered glass.

I don’t want to shame anyone in to feeling like they’re not doing enough to usher in a new world, but also I want to say Do more, it will feel better if you’re doing more (unless you are already one of those martyring yourself to social change, in which case, do less).

My sister Caty reminded me of when she was a teen and first read Alexander Berkman’s the ABC’s of Anarchism and how it made sense of a world where nothing made sense. Me too. I don’t know where I would be in this life if I didn’t have this basic philosophy as my North Star. As Berkman states “I consider anarchism to be the most rational and practical conception of a social life in freedom and harmony.” Even Marx and Engels saw Socialism as a way to get to anarchism, not socialism as an end goal itself. When I was in my late teens and started studying anarchism, the daily obsessions/depressions of social life and self-hate became less important. There was a bigger focus, outside my tiny bubble. There was something to live for and work towards.

When I was in my late teens and started studying anarchism, the early 1900s (when a lot of what I was reading was written) seemed so long ago it might as well have been cave-man days. Now that I’m in my 50s, the early 1900s seemed like they happened practically yesterday, and that terrifies me. As we are seeing the rise of oligarchy and authoritarianism across the globe, and in the United States, we would be delusional to think that it will necessarily right itself somehow.

What is happening in the world and in the United States is terrifying. I say Do something, anything, form a reading group, strengthen your in-person friendships, and I mean, do something, anything, but also start to think strategically if you’re not already. And by strategy, I mean strategy for building collective power and building counter-structures that can replace the State or capitalism dependent structures that we all currently we rely on for survival.

Most of us are so alienated, myself included. But I feel more alive when I am doing things that orient me to a new world being fought for. Not going to protests and listening to the same old speakers, chanting the same old chants (although sometimes I do go to protests)—but doing things that feel strategically sound. To know what feels strategic, I need to know what we’re envisioning as a sustainable future.

The anarchism I grew into believed in bio-regional agriculture—that is creating a food system that is not dependent on exports and imports, and is not dependent on industrial scale farming, but rather focuses on crops adapted to each region, growing for the communities the farms are in.

We saw cities as a potentially beautiful part of human culture-sharing—a place for disparate peoples to come together geographically to share ideas, learning, art, crafts, cultures—but the modern city is more about profit and consumption. So how do we create cities that are realigned with an ethos of mutuality and cultural celebration.

The anarchism I grew up in believed in direct (not representative) democracy as a legitimate form of organizing, and so I like projects that help people get more skilled at collective, democratic decision making, although everyone seems to be so mentally and emotionally unskilled and reactive at this point, it is hard to sit through any meetings at all.

We believed mental health problems are largely social problems, and can not be solved individually, but rather need to be addressed both on an individual and larger social level.

I still believe all these things.

I was informed by the call to build movements rather than narrowly focused protest-sabotage type stuff. And sometimes I wish I had heeded my elders’ advice/critique and had just stayed in one place, one city, one town—because social movements are built with direct contact with real people in real geographical communities, and I have moved so much this kind of deep-rooted connection is hard to find. But not impossible.

This is when I come to the Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection. Because when I moved to Pittsburgh, I thought I would plug right in to a group of people who were doing activism in a way that made sense to me. I had been so long in rural America, I just had this fantasy of what living in a city again would be like. Instead, I made a huge mess trying to rescue a building-based group of artists and organizers who had turned on each other like crabs in a barrel, and were eating each other alive, destroying what could have been a remarkable collective project. I thought as an “outsider” I would be a good middle-person. I was wrong.

So taking some time to reflect. In these urgent times, how can I “contend with the urgency…with effectiveness, sustainability and strong connections…(while also embodying) grace, joy and accountability even when the external forces of division and inequity are relentless?”

And same with you. What do you have? What do you need? What is your vision? Where does it lead you?

This is what I meant to say.