Roundup 2/9/2021
Lefty Squatting tactics update, Righties Organizing, America's Treasonous Elites
Welcome to the Contextual Insurgent Project by writer, analyst, and activist Erin Smith.
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Updates on eviction/squatting actions
Across the nation, activists are already deploying a variety of tactics to keep tenants in their homes and to find homes for those without. Sometimes, as in Washington, D.C., this looks like tenant organizations and legal education. Other times, eviction defense involves facing off against the police.
Always, the goal is the same: get people into homes and keep them there.
The economic fallout from the COVID response has been dramatic and wide-ranging. One development I’ve previously warned about is leftist groups using housing insecurity and homeless populations as a cover for squatting/occupation/barricaded encampment actions as well as broader organizing, and this recent piece from Portland-based lefty journalists Laura Jedeed and Shane Burley (author of Fascism Today) gives a fair overview of their evolution. Granted it glosses over the more controversial actions I’ve covered, but it does explain a bit about the networking and logistical work happening that makes the former possible.
It’s a lefty piece in a lefty outlet so treat it as an unreliable narrator, but definitely give it a skim to get a glimpse at the pieces of the machine that often don’t surface in the MSM.
Righties Finally Learning the Value of Teamwork
Why was there no effective resistance? Was submission so ingrained in these people, or individual courage so lacking?
The answer in both cases is that it was not courage that was lacking, but organization. This concept glimmers through Solzhenitsyn’s description like a fleck of gold in the pebbly shallows of a stream: He imagines a group of neighbors, a half-dozen perhaps, lying in ambush downstairs for the secret policemen. He specifies a group of neighbors. He specifies collective action. One courageous man resisting alone is a suicide. But one courageous man leading a few of his friends can put up a fight.
I will freely admit to a slight wince at the title of this American Greatness piece (I’m generally a bit allergic to people tossing around the ‘militia’ label) but I completely changed my mind once I dove into the substance of it. This is a legitimately good piece with solid analysis and worthwhile advice, and the author clearly grasps the same handicap the right labors under that I’ve repeatedly talked about: the tendency to extol atomized alienation as individualism and conflate teamwork as collectivism.
What is that point I always make? That the ironic thing about individual rights is that protecting them requires sustained collaborative effort from a likeminded group of people? Remember my podcast about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott titled Courage is Not Enough, where I covered the years of preparation, training, and teamwork that went into pulling it off? This guy gets it, and if you’ve followed me for a while and listen to my podcast covering tribe building and affinity groups his arguments will sound familiar.
One point I would still like to make is to remind you that his suggested COA (while viable) is a choice and not the choice; getting active has many onramps, and if his specific suggestion doesn’t strike your fancy don’t allow it to undermine his larger point about finding ways to build a trustworthy network of likeminded people.
America’s Treasonous Elite, China’s Growing Hegemony
A trade consultant told Friedman: “The need to compete in a globalized world has forced the meritocracy, the multinational corporate manager, the Eastern financier and the technology entrepreneur to reconsider what the Republican Party has to offer. In principle, they have left the party, leaving behind not a pragmatic coalition but a group of ideological naysayers.”
In the more than 10 years since Friedman’s column was published, the disenchanted elite that the Times columnist identified has further impoverished American workers while enriching themselves. The one-word motto they came to live by was globalism—that is, the freedom to structure commercial relationships and social enterprises without reference to the well-being of the particular society in which they happened to make their livings and raise their children.
This Tabletmag piece is long, but an absolute must-read as well as a thorough breakdown for understanding almost everything around the current domestic and international political realignment. Trust me: if you’re interested in knowing how and why globocorps and politicians are selling us out to China, take the time to spend 20 minutes or so reading and digesting this piece.
That’s it for today, but this is the first full week post-revamp so expect more written content from me Thursday, as well two more Daily Dispatch podcasts Wednesday and Friday. My goal with the changes is the give you more consistent content formatted to easy fit within those 30-45 minute gaps working people find throughout their day (i.e. commuting, cooking, working out, etc) and as always I appreciate all feedback.
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-Erin
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