The Panthers did free before school breakfast and after school babysitting and all sorts of actual community building like that. The PSL does protests and craft events and that’s it. I guess providing consistent services is an order of magnitude more difficult than organizing marches but it just doesn’t seem like the marches are getting us anywhere.
My excuse? I’m getting a degree and training to become a white collar tech worker. The mindset is a mixture of hatred for the violent, imperialist country I live in and still chasing the bag. The cope is that I would reach a comfortable position and “donate” my money to people who are actually useful to society to do the work. It’s rather pathetic because the western, capitalist notions of “charity” and individualism have infected me in ways I don’t know how to recover.
It’s unfortunate that fascists have claimed the “good times make weak men” bullshit, but I find it to be true. Relatively good times, created by a the murder and exploitation of millions across the world, have made me complacent and complicit. It has made me lazy. It has made me weak.
Much of the militant left actions are being done in exploited countries in the global south. They have to witness the the violence and exploitation imposed upon them by people like me and they either fight back or perish. I’m not saying I would automatically be like them or that I would be a successful organizer if I was working alongside them, all I know is that my priorities and mindset would change. And I’m not even working for the MIC or ever plan on it - I work for customer service on a computer, and I still truly mean it when I say “violence and exploitation imposed by people like me.”
I’ve worked manual labor before and currently have family in manual labor. Nothing has made me more hateful of humanity than when I worked there. Sometimes it was the coworkers. Sometimes it was the customers. But primarily it was the physical and mental toll, and I never stayed long enough to “organize.” Yet it was the only times where I felt everyone around truly understood what it’s like to experience the bullshit dealt by glorious capitalism. Now I’ve been spoiled by getting paid the same or even higher wages as a warehouse or outdoor job while sitting in front of a computer for 8 hours, and everyone is too comfortable to rock the boat.
I don’t encourage anyone to fetishize poverty, but you have to be aware that escaping it can do great harm to your mind. It’s the labor equivalence of paying off all your debts and your credit score drops. Labor aristocracy brainworms are real. The PMC brainworms are real.
Why would any person do more than necessary? Isn’t one of the goals of communism to achieve self-determination for all? If there are no options available to you that allow you to pursue your own interests (e.g., living without violence), are you at fault?
I’m angry at this system, which prevents me from self-determination, which prevents me from living such that I do not cause harm to others. But I’m not angry at myself, I’m neither lazy nor weak, I’m powerless to determine my own life.
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