First Gathering

So, last Tuesday we had the first meeting for people interested in forming a radical community collective. Although there were only 5 of us who actually showed up, we has a productive few hours sharing dinner and discussing our visions for the future.
Now you may be asking, "why in the world does Boone need another group of people trying to save the world? There are enough already!". I agree. However, I would like to suggest the reason why none of these groups have succeeded yet. Sure, here in Boone we have all kinds of groups and NGOs working on all sorts of issues, ranging form environmental sustainability to domestic violence to feeding the hungry. But that's what's wrong- they are all issue based organizing, working on a specific issue, as opposed to community based organizing, which is holistic. These groups have surely succeeded in helping to make Boone a better place, but they do not address the systemic roots of the problems that they attempt to solve. I would like to suggest that the only way to addresss the systemic roots of the problems of our society is through an entire community working together to create a new way of living and interacting with one another and the environment. The various NGOs in Boone right now suffer from a lack of cooperation, to the point that many actually end up competing for resources and press coverage. Student groups are also doomed because students are necessarily a transient population, and most do not consider Boone a place worth investing serious time and energy into, because they are just going to leave after they graduate, and go do "bigger and better" things. Most students here do not know the first thing about the town of Boone, its history or the people who live and work here to make it possible for us to come and get an education. The university and the town are at odds, competing for space and differing economic interests. Boone is in danger of being eaten alive my huge corporations and greedy "developers", to the point that one day it may not be distinguishable form any other stop on the highway.
This is why we need radical community based organizing working towards true environmental and social sustainability (both of which necessitate the other).
So, our little group of people got together to talk about these things, and how we can actually start to create a community of people who are dedicated to radical sustainability in Boone. Our long term goal is to be not just another organization, but a nexus, a point of intersection for all of the other groups, in order to form coalitions, share resources, breakdown stereotypes, and form a collectively created vision of what we want Boone to be like 10, 50, 100 years form now.
We decided that it would be best for us to do some reading and discussion together, in order to educate ourselves on some political philosophy and form some common ground from which to work. We feel that it is very important for us to have common understandings about what is wrong with our society and what the best way to go about fixing it is, before we jump into more serious organizing projects. Our first readings will be form John Holloway's Change the World Without Taking Power. He takes a neo-marxist perspective on our current economic models, and emphasizes Marx's concept of fetishization, linking it to identification. I'll be sure to post the results of our discussion at the next meeting.