What have the alternatives to electoralism looked like on the ground for you? DSA, PSL, acronyms still yet unearthed?
I did a zoom thing with the PSL one time. I said I was intrested in doing something actually useful.instead of fucking around with pointless elections and they got upset about it. I didn't do another.
I've heard good things about Food Not Bombs although personally there aren't any chapters near me so idk specifics
Start one. It's extremely do-able with just a few friends, seriously, and it's a great way to develop revolutionary consciousness among the people who do it. I've noticed people on this site being dismissive of FNB, and calling it "charity," which I think is a bit myopic. Participating in food not bombs inevitably radicalizes people, in part because you'll almost certainly get hassled by cops when you attempt to serve food to people. It also helps you and your friends develop very useful, practical skills - sourcing food, cooking as a group, feeding large groups of people, having conversations with strangers, dealing with the pigs, etc. It's a great way to do strike support as well - the chapter I was involved with would show up to picket lines with big pots of soup and fresh bread, and we were always very well-received and appreciated. There's some deep human magic about sharing a meal with people that breaks down artificial divisions, and allows for deeper connections and the kind of interactions that build real solidarity.
Along with everything you already said, the difference between charity and mutual aid is that literally anyone can come eat FnB food, including the cooks.
You can just start doing one. I don't think there's any official network or anything. If you give out free vegan food and call yourself Food not Bombs then it's a chapter
I don't think joining political parties engaged in electoralism really counts as an alternative to electoralism, does it?
I think joining an org that does all sorts of political work: mutual aid, solidarity actions with strikers, political education, and yes sometimes elections counts if you're not looking to do electoral work.
Like, most work DSA chapters do is not electoral, and if you're bored of doing electoral work there's plenty of other stuff you can do in DSA.
just seems like electoralism light (tm) to me, but maybe there's literally no other mutual aid orgs in somebody's area other than the political parties
Don't really feel like advocating for one group or another when I don't know specifics about anyone's local chapters, so instead I'll just go through some types of direct action that I've seen and hopefully these descriptions can be useful in evaluating anything going on in folks' areas.
One-Time vs. Ongoing
A one-time event (such as a protest) tries to draw out as large of a crowd as possible to do something. It requires minimal thought or effort from participants and maybe some logistical work on the part of the organizers. Attendance will typically be limited to the type of person that enjoys the event format itself and anyone who is particularly agitated around the aim of the event at the time it occurs. It is difficult to build momentum for further action from one-time events. Even if you string multiple of the same one-time events together, they can realistically be treated as independent to one another and attendance will grow and shrink based on a number of factors that no one could truly piece together. However, this is not to say they are all bad. They can be a good place to make initial contact with members of your community who are willing to, at the very least, show up to something (which is a prerequisite for revolutionary activity). The smaller workload also keeps the bar for entry much lower on the organizing side which can help build people's confidence in their ability to lead something.
An ongoing campaign (such as the meetings of a socialist organization) tries to keep people coming back over time to work towards a broader goal. It requires, at the very least, consistent attendance from participants and potentially lots of logistical work on the part of the organizers. Attendance will (ideally) slowly grow as more people are brought into the fold and will consist of those who agree with the broader goal as well as any other requirements necessary to achieve that goal. It is easier to gauge momentum in an ongoing campaign, but that also makes it easier to become demoralized if momentum shrinks or stalls. It is very easy to feel restless, especially in early days when there's a lot of big-picture questions to answer and not a lot of "actual" work to do. However, if you can overcome the slog, ongoing campaigns are a great way to make and deepen the connections needed for larger and larger actions.
Side note: electoral efforts are essentially a one-time event (everyone going to tick some boxes) with the workload of an ongoing campaign which is a big part of why I don't like them. You can spend so much time and energy on an election cycle and you get very little meaningful data at the end. Even if you claim that the election is one small part of whatever you're doing, there's always small deadlines to hit that will distract you from anything else. Best to avoid.
Material vs. Ideological
Material efforts are centered around some specific material thing. Whether it's winning better conditions or pay in a labor strike or increasing people's access to food through FNB, there is some physical benefit that people are working towards. These are a great way to bring people together and the more universal the material benefit (everyone needs food), the more people you can effectively engage with. However, the stakes tend to be much higher with material efforts. People can lose their jobs in a strike effort and that takes careful consideration and planning to avoid or to mitigate the effects of. If you flake on someone who is counting on you for food, you've just caused a massive amount of harm to the people you're trying to help. Material efforts should be treated with the utmost care and if your group isn't ready for the consequences of failure, you probably should keep this stuff on the backburner.
Ideological efforts are centered around some political idea. Cops r bad or landlords r bad are just a couple of examples. These are going to be much more limited to the people that already agree with the idea and it can be a lot harder to bring people into them. However, the stakes are much lower and these efforts don't require as much careful planning as material ones. There are also opportunities to turn these towards material outcomes. If a landlord is being shitty to a tenant, you already have a group of people ready to participate in an action against that landlord that could benefit the tenant.
Explicitly Socialist vs. Nonpartisan
There's a lot of value in an explicitly socialist organization. Being able to talk things through with your comrades and plan long-term campaigns is a necessity for any serious socialist. A socialist org is a great source of accountability, whether in terms of following through on commitments or just reading that long text that you'd never get through by yourself. However, there are a lot of things that don't make sense to keep under the umbrella of an explicitly socialist org. If you want to help provide food for people, do you really need to be a tried-and-true commie to participate?
Ultimately, it's valuable for every socialist to participate in BOTH an explicitly socialist org AND one that doesn't follow a particular political doctrine. This allows the socialists to work across multiple organizations and try to link their efforts when appropriate. It also gives anyone who doesn't explicitly identify as a socialist to get involved under whatever issue strikes their fancy. This has the added benefit of giving more people regular contact with socialists and, if those socialists demonstrate good lines of thinking and a desire to put in the work to get shit done, they may become more amenable to socialist ideas over time.
There's a whole lot more I could write about, but I think these are some good starting points to think about any organizations that exist in your area or about any organization you'd want to start someday :heart-sickle:
This is so fucking rad, thank you so much comrade for the effort, reading practical ways to organize like this is my blackpill antidote
Just go on Instagram and look up (your city) mutual aid. A great way to find your own skills that you can contribute and work it into a larger structure. Offer to make canva posts to fundraise for unhoused ppl other comrades reach out to. If you have a car you can move unhoused ppls stuff when they get evicted or deliver supplies.
I feed politicians dying a violent death to NeuralBlender and post the results on Twitter.
