may the flame that burns inside us burn everything around us

Smaugust day 5 - "Small."

Very, very small.

An abandoned theater in Rochester, New York. Formerly a pornographic theater, then just a facade after the Walgreens next door gutted it to use as a warehouse. The Walgreens with it's shampoo and baby formula and half of the store locked in cages; the contradictions stare into you. You go because it is the nearest pharmacy, close in walking distance for you and your disabled loved ones.

The Walgreens shuts down and it too, is now just a vacant facade, next to a vacant facade. You stare into the large windows meant to advertise it's contents, now only showcasing absence. A wide open space with torn up floors. You think about how perfect the location could be for low income housing, for squatting, for anything other than standing as a constant reminder of the city's failures to her people. The parking lot is empty, save for the occasional cop car, to ensure no one uses the lot or the building for anything at all. The cop ensures the space will stay as useless as himself.

They add letters to the theater's marquee; a reminder and encouragement of surveillance. "If you see something, say something. In progress call 911, over and done call 311." They board up the doors, ensuring that the space will stay in it's intended form: empty, useless, an eyesore that reminds everyone of their place. The freshly boarded up door has been emblazoned with a message from those who lack.

Pictured above is Rain, an artwork by Thurlow Small Architecture, hung from the M Street NE underpass in the NoMa neighborhood of Washington, DC. It’s one of three artworks in a series commissioned by the neighborhood to beautify the area.

And by beautify, I mean drive out the unsightly homeless.

Local law states that the homeless cannot encamp on, in, or under public art, so the NoMa Parks Foundation identified three underpasses uniquely situated out of the elements and targeted them for their installations. Now of course, it doesn’t completely deter souls seeking shelter, but it does empower law enforcement to harass them and drive them into more hidden, less comfortable crevices of the city. Out of sight and out of mind.

Part of socializing and having friends is being a good listener even when you don't actually give a shit about the subject.

Your are hurting other people's feelings when you bluntly respond with "Anyway..." and then change the topic.

It can not always be about your preferred topic.

You have all watched some of the worst crimes against humanity be livestreamed to you for years. Do not compromise with this.

That’s how we lose and we all get killed. YOU need to be social if you consider yourself a revolutionary and not merely a sympathizer. How are you going to organize the masses without leaving your house and encouraging others to do the same, because it’s discomforting, potentially risky and won’t be easy? Revolution is risk. If you wanted to avoid risky social interactions, you wouldn’t go down the path of being a black sheep by calling yourself a communist revolutionary.

There’s risk in socializing, there’s also risk in organizing and you can’t organize if you can’t socialize! Socializing with your coworkers and neighbors, building connections past alienation, and discussing shared conditions and grievances as workers and tenants is the practice and your homework for organizing a union, a vanguard party or a people’s army.

I’ve had to overcome social anxiety in order to achieve goals greater than myself. This is a skill, not an inborn talent. Challenge yourself because ultimately what we need is to build the conditions to meet the moment, those final series of crises, and that includes at a very basic level that doesn’t exist in places like the United States is community.

You as a communist should be someone who (if able) can be relied upon by your peers. You should be concerned and investigative. You should genuinely care about the lives and the conditions of those around you, because people can smell a salesman.

As a communist you’re not trying to sell somebody on an advertisement for your lifestyle brand, you’re trying to organize people to realize their own capacity for creating social change and leadership. You need to at least attempt to be charming, charismatic, educated, humble and selfless.

Combat your own anti-social tendencies. The ruling class wants you isolated, alone and alienated not only from labor but from humanity itself.

We are trying to win a new future for global humanity in the face of our ongoing climate change induced mass extinction event and the resurgence in fascist and far right politics globally. Take it seriously. Engage with what the masses around you are experiencing, immerse yourself amongst their ranks.

You already are a proletarian and a tenant likely, you’re around workers and tenants all the time, but you haven’t broken the capitalist programming that has told you to resent other people for wasting your valuable time and peace which is money lost, to fear social risk and failure so much you avoid socializing altogether, and prevents you from gathering in too large a mass of your class comrades in the explicit interest of the bourgeoisie’s counterinsurgency efforts.