what to do

[Gordon Fitch]

kelley:
> ... 
> More controversially, I propose that we put greater emphasis on projects
> that both give people concrete assistance and serve as springboards for
> further political activism. Examples might include squats, cooperatives of
> various kinds, community currency projects and some of the less costly
> types of "alternative services," like those offering information, contacts,
> referrals and a place for people to gather. Such projects can't provide a
> substitute for government services since, numerically speaking, their
> impact is only a drop in the bucket, but they can serve as a "cultural
> core," in Frances Fox Piven's phrase, of a movement that may eventually be
> strong enough to win services that are tax-funded and distributed as a
> matter of right.  ...

This sort of thing is already being done -- Food Not Bombs,
for example, or the Anarchist Free Food Initiative.  It is
not a praxis which has caught immediate fire, but let us say
it is smoldering in the underbrush, and there seems to be a
little bit more smoldering lately than awhile ago, at least
to my anecdotal eye.

I disagree that "such projects can't provide a substitute
for government services", however.  There is no reason to
believe the bourgeois State is eternal.  That being the
case, we can start looking for its replacement here and now
as well as any other time.

Gordon