hii. asking you since you are a radical, idk um revolutionary or the like. well, i haven't even touched any of lenin's works. but regardless. how do you live with yourself thede days? i don't know how i do, looking at the devastation of it all. in tehran, iran, to cite a recent example, reading about the fact that its raining oil and the water canals are jammed with oil and the entire city being set on fire. i had my first real scare when a family member of mine was stuck in the gulf arab states and i just idk how the people of lebanon and palestine and sudan and yk have been holding on. what even is the point of college, rhetorical question, nothing i know. i don't live in america and the amount of people around me who are liberal careerist money hungry and just so so uncaring is higher. theres no org here. i've been trying to find likeminded people with little success. i know id feel better if i were doing something. i'm ready to die for it atp because we will die anyway and our comforts are built on others suffering, so whats the point of being a sitting duck. but for now i just move on and attend lectures and all
yeah, the world is fucking scary rn. but that also means that everyone around you is also looking for things to alleviate the fear as well.
most ppl are gonna put things out of their mind, distract themselves, and lean into pleasures and comfort seeking.
i think my first suggestion is read marx, lenin, mao and kropotkin. the Communist Manifesto, What is to Be Done?, On Practice, On Contradiction and Combat Liberalism, and The Conquest of Bread are all really good, digestible and exceedingly hopeful and give good rundowns of the basic concepts and expectations of actually *being* a socialist.
next, its important to identify real, important problems that you can find in your area. some basic questions to ask are:
who is being marginalized?
what skills do i have
are there any working or oppressed ppl who need help?
can i do anything that can be used to recruit others into expanding that
who would be willing to help me
what are the practical problems to actually starting to organize
how can i integrate what i learned in these marxist texts to these Things To Be Done
some things may include
organizing around food sovreignty, such as collecting food and finding places to grow your own to help disconnect ppl from relying on
another may be trying to purchase, stockpile and distribute hormones for trans people
maybe community defense against police or ICE if youre in the so-called US
get creative, think hard about real needs that people have, not stuff like protests (alth protests can be good advertising, doing them is not a goal unto itself), or electoralism (elections are a dead end for organizing outside of the state)
the next thing is to find ppl who you can trust to show up, to not snitch ever, to put in the work, and most importantly, ppl who can recognize when something is not working, or when they fucked up, can reorient, and fix it going forward
this is not easy nor should you expect it to be. but what it is is a path forward, a way out of hopelessness and despair, and towards a way to change (and abolish!) the systems that put us in this position to begin with
good luck, and remember: a lotta people have been where you are. you are not alone and never will be, and people just like you are also waiting for people to step up and figure a way out. you can be the person youre looking for.
