Third Time Better be a Charm

I keep starting to approach my paper, even forcing out 3-4 pages, and then realizing I was going at it all wrong. The first time, I started to discuss Neoliberal Capitalist Globalization and the havoc this world system is wreaking all over the world. It felt wrong, forced, and abrasive. The last thing I want to do is sound like just another neo-Marxist complaining about the fate of the workers and railing against exploitation. We've all heard that before, it's nothing new, and everyone knows that it is a necessary but insufficient critique of our society today.

So I ditched that approach and instead started to focus on community. What is community? What is it good for? How is it disintegrating?
But I again found myself making broad generalizations about the world and all us sorry suckers in it. Plus, how do I know what community means to all peoples? I don't, and it would be awfully presumptive of me to argue for a specific mode of community orgainizing which would liberate every group of people on the planet (as if they all feel they need liberating...). It was depressing, detached and worst of all boring.
No way to start a paper about the thing that makes my life meaningful and drives me to keep going and struggling against all odds.

So, I'm starting all over agiain. Again. This time I want to try to approach the subject from what I know best, which is my own experience. I'm going to talk about my experinces with student and community organizing, my travels to Mexico, and why I feel like community really is the end-all be-all answer.

Hopefully I can convey the intense passion I feel about these things and infect others.

Update:
We have dropped the community collective for now. There may be summer reading group in our future though :)

Is Boone what I thought it was?

Is Boone Ready?
Is Boone a conducive environment for working towards radical community sustainability?
Have I been seeing Boone for what it is, or what I want it to be?
All these questions and more came up during a conversation with a friend the other night. Yes, organizations here fail because of a lack of community, but is it really possible to forge a community in a place where at least half the population is transient, and that segment of the population is mandated to grow by the North Carolina state government?
ASU, the source of the transient population, has the town at its mercy by the decree of the state. They don’t want or need to cooperate with the town that has to put up with tailgaters, house parties and impossible parking. It follows that if a group working towards community sustainability, in spite of rather than with the help of ASU, really wanted to work towards creating a balance of power and a mutually beneficial relationship between ASU and the Town of Boone, they would have to go up against the state of North Carolina, not just Boone officials.
Boone is a college town, and it seems that it will only be more so in the future.
Once I let go of the absolute moral and ethical correctness of staying in Boone no matter what, all of a sudden my horizons exploded with shimmery light and soaring eagles… I can go anywhere… and not feel guilty for leaving Boone behind! I finally understood why so many people leave Boone for “bigger” places with “more opportunity”… it’s because there are bigger places with more opportunity. Lots of them. Places where the kinds of radical community sustainability projects I want to pursue are actually a viable possibility, and may actually already be going on. There are radical community collectives all over this country making beautifully liberating, lasting change in their communities.
Don’t get me wrong; I love Boone. I have never been in any other place where you can go to the town council meeting and talk to your representatives and actually be heard, and not only heard but listened to. There are many opportunities for community organizing in Boone that would be impossible in most other places. The overall mentality of the town is surprisingly progressive, and the abundance of natural resources make Boone perfect for agricultural and food independence projects.
Bit is this the place for projects sincerely dedicated to radical community sustainability?

Outline!

i. Intro
a. What is the problem?
i. Neoliberal Kist Globalization
1. Definition of
2. History of
3. Fracturing of social fabric (or maintaining & widening fractures)
4. Individualism/ identity
5. Capital concentrates- unequal distribution of resources
6. Oppression/ Injustice (social and environmental)
7. State maintenance of Kist power
ii. Fractured communities
1. Define community
2. Restate why Kism fractures communities
3. Why are communities important? Why should we defend them?
4. Community as direct action against Kist domination
5. Define Radical Community Organizing

ii. Radical Community Organizing
a. Goals of Organizing
i. To foster sustainable community/ resist and pose a threat to Kist oppression
ii. Solidarity with other communities in resistance
iii. Grassroots/ popular movement
iv. Give people the opportunity to participate in “decentralized, collective, and cooperative forms of organization.” (Knoche 289)
v. Increasing community agency/ control over every aspect of their lives, increasing “local self-reliance” (Knoche, 291)
vi. Mending the fractured “Social Fabric” of the community
b. Criteria for success?
c. Picking Issues?
d. Operation- “For organizations committed to the long-term process of radical social change, the way they operate is more important than any short-term victories that might be realized.” (p.298)
i. Bottom- up organizing structure, direction from below- “Decentralize as much as possible” (Knoche 299)
ii. “Have a political analysis and provide political education” (Knoche 298)
iii. independence from govt. , corporations, or NGOs
iv. “Reach out to avoid isolation, but keep the focus local.” (Knoche, 300)
v. counterculture (challenge hegemony of Kism)
vi. avoid outsourcing
e. Tactics
i. Direct action- “We must defy the rules of the system that fails to meet our needs.” (Knoche, 303)
ii. Collective/ cooperative action
iii. Decide on clear, measurable goals/ demands
iv. “address different targets simultaneously” (Knoche, 304) . “Globalization has complicated the question of targets immensely. Institutions that adversely affect local communities are more and more likely to be large, with tentacles extending nationally and globally.” (p.305)
v. “avoid legal tactics” (Knoche, 306) . “Our legal system is set up to protect the interests of private property. Using it to fight those interests is obviously problematic.” (p.307)
vi. “have fun” (Knoche, 307) the experience of liberation and joy are foundational to defining success
III. Boone
i. What is a Boone?
ii. How is Boone fractured?
1. ASU vs. Town
2. Students vs. citizens
3. Student organizing vs. community groups
4. Developers vs. Residents
5. Affluent center of town vs. impoverished outskirts
iii. History of community organizing in Boone & surrounding area
1. Cove Creek Sustainability… (Boyer)
2. Rise Up Community Collective (interview Elizabeth!)
3. Mountain Keepers
4. Our Collective/ Reading Group
5. Current Town Council
6. Restate why Boone needs Radical Community Organizing
iv. Is Radical community sustainability possible in Boone, a place where at least half the population is transient?
v. If not, what are the alternatives?
1. Student organizing, building student power
2. Alternative/ independent publications (Magpie)
3. Education about Radical Community Sustainability and why it is needed, so others can go on to other communities and act/ organize
4. Involvement in local govt.

Second Meeting... Failure?

No one else from the first meeting showed up. Our only other attendee was a wonderful person I happened upon, and who seems genuinely interested, though they left after a cup of coffee, and we decided to postpone the meeting until a later date.
A deep, depressing resignation and frustration set in. Where were all the people who just last week sounded so dedicated and interested? (It was Taco Tuesday and our friend's birthday at the Boone Saloon). They are the most radical, creative, motivated people I know in Boone, and somehow they all found a reason not to come.
Is our approach wrong... are we going about this the wrong way? We want to operate on consensus, and the consensus of the others in the group was not to meet.
Perhaps I am over reacting, and it was just a fluke that no one else showed up. It is hard to not get frustrated, but we never thought this would be easy.
I understand that it is easy to forget that the majority of the world is somewhere else starving to death and watching as their own children die unnecesarily after leading a short and desperate life. That happens other places, what do we have to do with that?

Just because we "do no harm" does not cleanse our hands of the blood of the millions who die so that we can afford to simply do no harm.

Does it take desperation for peple to come together and act? How bad will it have to get before Americans will realize that their liberation is necessarily tied up in the liberation of the "other"?

I don't want to see it get any worse, but I am sure it will. We are hurdling fast into uncertain and desperate times. I just hope we have enough tools and know-how by then to survive and create another world where we can truly count on one another.

Reveille for Radicals

The other day I picked up Saul Alinsky's Reveille for Radicals, and despite the fact that he wrote it in 1949, I have found it extraordinarily relevant. It was reprinted in 1969, in a time of rapid political upheaval, similar to today. However different America is today from 60 or 40 years ago, we are again in a time of crisis and in desperate need of clear voices which inspire us to action.

"...the answer to all of the issues facing us will be found in the masses of the people themselves, and nowhere else."

This has always been and will always be true. The top-down systems of power relations that our world operates on today deny the fact that true answers and change come from the bottom up, from those who are most exploited and oppressed. It is from below that mass popular movements are fomented and radical change enacted. Those below have the most interest in change, are the most pissed off and the most disenfranchised. Therefore any group attempting a project of radical community sustainability must necessarily be constituted by and exist within broad popular support bases. It must include all manner of people from all classes, creeds, colors and genders. This means that our little circle of mostly white college age kids must grow to include immigrants, farmers, professors, workers, mothers, the elderly etc. etc.

As it is now most of us rarely come into meaningful contact with anyone outside of our immediate circles of friends, professors, bosses and co-workers. Boone is a very segregated place. Junaluska, a historically black community, is tucked away behind Queen street, and many students have no idea that it exists. Our immigrant/ migrant worker population is practically invisible downtown, many of them living in the trailer parks off of Bamboo St. or by the Loyola St. Community Garden. Just beyond Boone, in the mountain hollers, exists a crushing, pervasive poverty which drives many of the people who live there to endlessly toil in demeaning jobs that barely bring enough money to live a desperate life. And we are heading into times when even those jobs will be even more far and fewer between.

It is necessary for us to educate ourselves on all of the various populations of Boone and the surrounding communitties. Who lives here, what do they do, what do they think about eachother, how do they live? Sure, we can go and research census data and gather all the demographics we want, but we will still be just as far from understanding the diverse and proud communities that comprise Boone. What we need to do is get out and immerse ourselves in these communitites. Not because it is a good organizing strategy but because we have a genuine interest in the lives of our fellow citizens. We must learn to listen, first and foremost. Listen to their daily existence and stories of the past, their visions of the future. We must share time and space and dreams. And then hopefully relationships will emerge. Relationships of trust, mutual understanding and compassion. That is the stuff of a true community, and what makes human existence truly meaningful.

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.

New Year, New Visions

So, I have returned from Mexico and I am currently trying to graduate form ASU. For my senior seminar class we are required to complete a sizable thesis project, so I decided to basically continue the studies I have already done in Mexico, and see what can be applied here in Boone. What does radical community sustainability look like in Boone? More specifically, what should an organization working towards radical sustainability in Boone look like?
Perhaps I should begin by defining some key terms.
Radical: By radical I mean getting at the systemic roots of the issues our society faces today. I believe that the problems we face are systemic, not just structural, and therefore require radical systemic change. Our society is now based on the world system of neoliberal capitalist globalization, and we all know how well that's going. I see this world system as a system that necessarily must go in order for humans to live a dignified life in harmony with the earth in an ecology of liberation.
Community: By community I mean a group of people who share a common heritage, vision of the future and plan for how to make that future come about. A community is also made up of relationships of trust and equality, and the people of that community strive to live in harmony with the earth that they inhabit and all of the other living creatures there. (see past 2 posts for more on community). I must stress that this notion of community is a process, not a static state of being that we can one day achieve and say "OK, now we are a community". This definition is utopian, and therefore any group of people engaging in these processes is already a community.
Sustainability: We have all heard this word over used and under appreciated for its true meaning. By sustainable I mean truly able to sustain itself over time. Or world system right now runs off of inherent contradiction and destruction. I think we need a world system that only consumes as much as it produces, and only produces as much as it needs. These production methods also honor the ecology of the earth and are beneficial rather than destructive.

So, radical community sustainability is therefore the process that a community of people engage in towards systemic change in order to create a world based on a sustainable culture.

Any suggestions on these definitions?