It grounds you. It humbles you. It forces you out of the insular lives we're all leading. It gives you the ability to relate to the people who should be the focus of your politics, to actually speak their language in a way that they understand, instead of speaking in code like a political weirdo, a perishable skill.
There are studies claiming that a quantifiable drop in empathy for the poor and working class is correlated with increasing wealth. Wonder is there a similar effect correlated with increased education, even political education?
It gets you offline for a moment. It gives you some intergenerational solidarity. Some inter-class interaction. Just some fucking interpersonal community activity outside your friend group, which a lot of people have the ability to avoid currently and which was crucial to any succesful left projects in the past.
Even running errands for vulnerable people during a pandemic is something, there's probably an org doing this in your area. There are people out there that aren't totally unreachable and this is a great way to connect with them.
Yeah, generally agreed with a lot of the arguments and am often an Amber stan, just wanted to point out one of the benefits of mutual aid programs they didn't cover and that maybe isn't considered enough.
What do you like about Amber? I’m genuinely curious and not asking in an antagonist manner. I just don’t get sit, she comes across as class reductionist to me and it bothers me quite a bit so I’ve never really been able to get into her. Maybe I’m being too harsh or something.
I agree, I loved the episode when I watched it but I found myself in the "dunking" mindset as opposed to the "building revolution" mindset. Which I think is so emblematic of online discourse. Jacobin does reasonably well in that regard often, but the dunking still occurs.
oh shit oh fuck he's behind you look out Amber
:kropotkin-shining: :amber:
her ex punk cynicism is too thick for anarchist santa to penetrate
Twisting peoples' words to get a cheap own is boring and you should stop doing it.
ironically amber wouldnt even agree with you here because she's a misogynist
I am a woman myself and recognize that amber has a track record of saying and doing sexist, racist and transphobic shit. It’s not imagined and amber actually seems pretty proud of this persona
I don’t know the extent to which OP twisted her argument / words though. But that would not change the fact that amber is racist, sexist and transphobic and obviously kind of wants to be, which is my main point:
it’s ironic to cry sexism to defend someone who is often against marg. people using their identity politics to explain or justify their worldview + for that someone to be so poisoned by idpol that they go out of their way to be unnecessarily contrarian and mean when identity is brought up. You can still cry sexism but it’s still kinda funny
You're 2 irony levels too deep, this is a genuine OP.
I don't disagree with a lot of the points made in the pod, just that there are positive aspects of mutual aid they maybe didn't consider.
Amber was on a Jacobin pod cancelling mutual aid.
If this is genuine, you should slow down & listen to what people are saying, rather than just reading the title of a YouTube video.
I listened to her criticisms of mutual aid & responded to a comment by comparing her criticisms to an article I read from an ML perspective.
If I misrepresented her position based on the last twenty minutes of the video, please lemme know. I can finish that third of the episode if you think I missed something important.
What do you mean? Heard the pod and read the entire thread here yesterday. Maybe I missed something, or you did.
At no point did she "cancel" "charity. She just pushed back on a bunch of the myths surrounding the political role of charity.
The episode literally started with her saying that charity is good thing, and that people do charity because they are generally good & care about others. But charity is not a path to political power, even when you call it mutual aid.
Feel free to post about your experiences doing charity. That's fine. I did several times on the old subreddit. But there's no reason to misrepresent people. It makes conversation much more difficult.
C'mon now, I used the word cancelled there as shorthand, a nod to the thread yesterday.
You're clearly too deep in irony yet not online enough. That's (an attempt at) humour too, in case it's misinterpeted.
You’re clearly too deep in irony
None of this is steeped in irony? I'm being about as genuine with my response as one can be, to the point you're saying I'm being humorless.
If you want to have a genuine dicussion, but misrepresent people, that needs to be brought up. Saying someone "is cancelling mutual aid" definiely has implications in a genuine conversation. That coupled with with lines such as:
Wonder is there a similar effect correlated with increased education, even political education?
It gets you offline for a moment ... just some fucking interpersonal community activity outside your friend group
It comes off as a dig.
You're acting like the reason people are criticizing mutual aid is because they don't get outside. Anyone active in Left-wing organizing - which seems to be most people here - has been involved in countless charity operations. And yet, our Left-wing movement in this country is incredibly weak. That's the conversation that is being had.
It comes off as a dig.
No shit, I was gonna include in the OP that all sentiments referred to me as much as anybody. Didn't think it was necessary.
We're all too online. I could be wrong on this, but it would be surprising if most people here are active in Left-wing organizing or countless charity operations. I'm not.
Hey, maybe I should have been more explicit in the exact meaning of every point, let's move on.
Don't assume that everyone is "too online." I've only been here for a few days, and there has been more conversations on the specifics of organizing & organizations within the US than any other platform I've been on.
I don't care about having exact perfect communication, but you were intentionally mud-slinging. It's frustrating to talk with people about the strategy of the Left in the US, and get met with "have you considered charity you online nerd?"
I'm coming in with a bit of baggage because I see this happen on Twitter too. I'm sorry about that.
But wait, OP said Amber is "cancelling" mutual aid but having watched the video, the content of OP's post itself is largely agreeing with her critique from the video, NOT slinging mud at Amber. Sorry this is getting pedantic I just feel like you're both in full agreement lol
I was using "mud-slinging" as a synonym for "dig." They said this post was meant to be a "dig" at "too online" Leftists, including themselves.
The communication breakdown happened because OP said there is value to doing charity, but no one was disagreeing with that. I read their comment "Amber is cancelling mutual aid" as a continuation of a trend on the Left to intentionally misrepresent any criticism of our current tactics and strategy.
This has absolutely gotten too pedantic. I just want to talk about strategy and tactics without getting "log off" as a response.
Is true the yawning void is momentarily closed when I actually do something irl.
What you said would be true for any kind of organizing you get involved in. I thought the thrust of their argument was that there are better strategies to purse which we know do work. They point to Jane McAlevey's interview and the postal service contract campaigns. I would say though it is not clear to me how I can get involved (outside of leaving my current job and becoming a nurse or post office worker or retail store worker, etc). Actually I need to look up this postal service stuff, it wasn't clear to me if that was a national thing or restricted to Philly. If you also saw Jane's interview she stresses on the importance of strategically deciding which avenues to pursue vs not. That requires some cold blooded reading and analysis. You probably can do those things in a mutual aid group too but I imagine these groups might not be flexible enough (ironically) to centralize and pursue specific agendas.
I would agree with you that if this is the only sphere of organizing available to you have at it (for instance this is the case for where I am atm - even if I might prefer some democratic centralism :) ). If you can use the resources of your organization to later make strategic choices that would be awesome (also probably not as mutual aidy anymore :) )
Edit: Ok I looked up this postal worker stuff and this happened last september. Huh I really thought they were talking about some upcoming contract negotiation this September. https://www.apwu.org/fighting-today-better-tomorrow (if I am wrong please correct me)
Edit 2: Oh wait never mind the contract is expiring this September : https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/01/labor-union-contracts-expiring-cba-negotiation (huh better figure out how to get involved in some of these things now)
