IDEAS FOR WHAT TO DO BEYOND STREET PROTESTS

I know Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out are active in southern California rn. I was on a training call of people working against recruitment that was nationwide. This was probably 6 months ago.

aptronym@autistics.life

FREE CAMPSITES (USA)

https://freecampsites.net/

#homelessness #camping #SurvivalPrep #communitysurvivalnetworks

aptronym@autistics.life

@vervain
and then what

did it lead to action? did it build a community? a network of any kind?

a training call 6 months ago does nothing if it doesn’t lead to coordinated action

that is why i (a veteran) do not work with VFP. they are a resource pit.

this is not to say that the training call is useless. but VFP is notorious for wasting resources on marketing campaigns disguised as activism. your training call has to lead to a coordinated effort, a community network that shares skills and resources to challenge the status quo, otherwise it is marketing and nothing more. they do those training calls so people will give them more money and prestige without posing a legit thread to the status quo.

aptronym@autistics.life

@vervain

what could we do with $743,000? VFP isn’t really doing much with this obscene amount of money.

nonprofits use these funds to perpetuate themselves. they cannot make meaningful progress without risking loss of their funding sources.

how much does it really cost to organize counter-recruitment efforts that really only need solid community networks to function?

counter-recruitment needs community solidarity in order to be effective and that is basically free. it also requires building networks for resisting social atomization, alienation, poverty, exclusion - any counter recruitment effort must take action to meet the needs intentionally left unmet by capitalism so as to make enlistment attractive. people enlist because they lack opportunity, belonging, purpose, hope for the future. what could we do with $743,000 that VFP has failed to accomplish for decades?

vervain@sunny.garden

@aptronym

Thank you for taking your time to point this out. The people I've met locally are doing some good work, including building local relationships. But you're right about the money, and I didn't even give that a thought.

aptronym@autistics.life

few people consider this fact, and few recipients of so-called “mutual aid” are prepared for the day they receive a form 1099 in the mail or worse, a letter notifying them that they’re being audited. when you get audited, the onus is on you to prove your innocence. the IRS has plainly admitted on multiple occasions that their “limited resources” prevent them from going after wealthy tax cheats who can afford to defend themselves, so they “stretch” their budget and pump up their numbers by going after working class poor people who cannot defend themselves.

crowdfunding survival needs is not mutual aid. it is definitively NOT. mutual aid builds interdependence. crowdfunding only continues to feed the system without posing a threat to it. and as our individual financial resources continue to dwindle, people will not make their fundraising goals. and they will be in deep trouble and they will not have the benefit of a mutual aid community to act as a safety net.

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/money-received-through-crowdfunding-may-be-taxable-taxpayers-should-understand-their-obligations-and-the-benefits-of-good-recordkeeping

#mutualaid #crowdfunding #irs #taxes #recordkeeping #SolidarityNotCharity #interdependence #communitysurvivalnetworks #safetynet

aptronym@autistics.life

keep this in mind when considering ideas for ways to resist neoliberal fascism:

https://autistics.life/@aptronym/117306494109366171

#neoliberalfascism #mutualaid #communitysurvivalnetworks #socialconnection

aptronym@autistics.life

we are facing new horrors that cannot be fought using the weapons of 20 years ago, or 10 years ago, or even 5.

we cannot rely on the solutions that may have worked in the past, especially those that were given to us by the same system that is killing us now.

we must start thinking outside the box NOW or people will continue to die who could have lived.

https://autistics.life/@aptronym/117473908765206011

#neoliberalfascism #mutualaid #socialconnection