Ah. What is to be done?

Yes, we're in a lull for leftists, but it's at a higher level than 2017, which was at a higher level than 2014, which was at a higher level than 2009. Libs don't count, look at radicalisation and membership levels. So many more communists around now. things will radicalise again as the economy gets worse (bad for Biden) and the election draws closer. "This is the most important election ever" has more or less run its course as a slogan for dems.

And yes, it is more likely the third world will supplant the west slowly, but revolution is possible in the core. Do you really think we're in a worse state than 1840, when a cop could just walk up and shoot any worker who tried to strike? When early Socialists were exiled and killed for just talking about Socialism? We have so much room to move, and implementing McCarthyist methods will take the state time.

Things are not as bad as they look. This isn't 1993 or 1849 or 1906. We aren't all fleeing to China in a container or watching our friends give up the fight and dissolve their orgs. There's a lot of hope and a lot of promise.

So What Is To Be Done?

Making a rigid 5 year plan for revolution and leading by a Vanguard Party isn't Marxist. It's utopian and Blanquist.

The strategy is to organise, train, grow and agitate while waiting for conditions to turn towards crisis again. Small fights do this and that's why they're important. I keep pointing out that in 1903 the RSDLP had 5000 members. In 1905 they played an important secondary role. In 1917 they ruled Russia. A small disciplined cadre that can insert into the masses and turn their concerns into a political program is key. It is the only method that has ever worked, going back to the Levellers.

Union work is and always should be central. Even a failed national strike, like the rail one, will radicalise. In fact, learning how to radicalise via the failure of moderate efforts is a key tool left orgs need to learn. If you're not agitating in the workplace, the mutual aid, protests, book club etc don't do much. The Labour movement is the central pillar, which is why all the laws are against it.

Also, these heightened contradictions don't make the news. You may feel strikes are not organised but in the USA labour activism is at it's highest since the 1930s. Also, the PR battle isn't as one sided as you might think, most people I know might have some brainworms about Mr Beast or something but are otherwise angry, frustrated, and ready to break shit if given proper political direction. The mainstream media has low viewership and the streamer crowd is too fragmented to obtain message control over.

Which is the job of your org (You do belong to an Org, right?)

Finally, mutual aid, unions, city councils, the occasional succdem senator etc help by setting up seeds of what will become dual power institutions as the State looses the ability to do things, either due to agitation in a crisis or simply due to capitalist collapse.

So much to do, but none of it is exciting and clearly directed, none of it is certain, and much will turn out to be useless. But it must be done.

Socialism isn't losing the battle of ideas, it's just capitalists saying that over and over.

You don't call it socialism and most boomers even get on board in my experience

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Basically just do local mutual aid and organizing and wait for the collapse of the US. We can't cause it, but we'll need to be ready when it happens. There is, to be clear, no path to communism in the US as it stands. A lot of things completely out of our control will have to change first. So all we can do is prepare for if and when those things do change.

you more or less listed out what a bunch of parties are, generally speaking, doing. key problem that is usually run into is the many kind of 'lacking's, i.e lacking money, time, coordination, planning, communication, teamwork, etc so on and so forth. those lackings go quite literally up and down all levels of political organizations as quite a lot of the issues comes from a lack of experiences and a lack of skills that comes necessary for all the shit that comes from building and running an organization. These usually can be sorted out by growing the collective pool of bodies that contribute actively to whatever work's needed or designated and by gaining experience over time through active participation in whatever work's needed or designated.

In regards to 5 year plans, those are primarily relating to economic planning. Now this doesn't necessarily mean you got to own a factory or run a state in order to make a 5 year plan. An organization can create a 5 year plan with the goal of increasing member employment in designated key industrial sections for the purposes of integrating and radicalizing. Something I believe the Wobblies call 'salting'. Further plans are more for larger groups as they have more to be able to execute tasks set by the plan.

TL:DR

I know the answer will be something like "organize"

How do you wanna make a 5-year-plan in today's world? 5 years ago nobody knew what a coronavirus or who George Floyd was and Russia hadn't invaded Ukraine yet, all of which could easily turn any plan into ash.

There is no single plan. Different orgs and individuals have their own strategies and ideas, which is often why those orgs exist at all: they think the best thing to be doing is, say, doing mutual aid while teaching theory, or doing party building (where everything else they do is just a way to build the party), or helping form unions, or bashing fash.

In addition, orgs are small and rarely have influence beyond the city level. They are also usually disorganized, full of pointless infighting, and an incredibly frequent tendency to create sexual harassment and assault and then fuck up responding to it. There is often no project to jump into or point others to. This leaves one option: creating that space and work yourself. Easier said than done, but also the only option.

The only way to solidly answer your question is for yoi to read theory and history, formulate an understanding that you feel solid in, and then do praxis based on that. For example, if you think a lib-to-left pipeline is most important because we need mass in order to resist the onslaughts, you might spend your efforts on baby leftist spaces. On the other hand, if you think settlers in the imperial core lack revolutionary potential and will be overall lethally dangerous to you, you might hide your beliefs, funnel money to AES/parties overseas, and do some hardcore direct actions.

You can jump right in and do organizing before the reading, of course. Just prepare yourself for the possibility that you will substantially change your opinions and come to believe that your organizing was pointless or even counterproductive.

IMO getting experience with labor organizing, pro-trans organizing, or tenants' rights organizing will not be anything you regret, so those are good options.

Finally, returning to the question: there is no plan. The left in the US is anemic, frequently ignorant and reinforcing of oppressions, fractured, and generally reacting rather than being proactive. If you think there should be a plan, you will probably prefer a commie org, but even that can be a crapshoot (popular frontism with CPUSA, reacting to e.g. Trump by supporting ).

Number 5 is the only thing you can do as an individual. That is what will prepare you to undertake Number 1: being able to help your neighbours, and plant the seeds for your community working collectively instead of in opposition to one another.

In the absence of those two things, your efforts don't amount to jack shit. At best you're joining a socialist book club with some LARP aspirations. At worst, you're keeping some feds employed.

Shit posting. Shit posting is my plan.

Latching onto here, because I have been in doomer mode for months, just muttering to myself that "the fash win as always".

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