How can we build left organizations that are _productive_. Not mutual masturbation societies where we organize in order to protest, engage in street theater, hold cyber sit ins, show antiwar film festivals, or create artists collectives for mutual aid/support among musicians, writers, artists. Rather, I mean productive in the sense that within the course of daily operations, we _help_ people in whatever small or large ways we can.
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This is a very important question.
I've participated in several 'community aid' style organizations - one that was truly lefty in orientation (an effort to secure affordable housing, basic services and a self-propelling mutual aid infrastructure for homeless and working poor individuals/families) but most of which were more generally do-gooderish in purpose and structure.
In my experience, a lack of resources and a needs driven mission creep are the chief obstacles.
Certainly, this is a super-mundane observation but it shouldn't be overlooked because the resource/needs problem can lead to decisions that dilute efforts differing from merely helping people prepare to assume (or re-assume) their place within the American white collar/blue collar/no collar work matrix. Nothing wrong with getting people jobs of course - as things stand, we all need to earn money to live. But you would hope a left org would try to accomplish at least a little bit more.
Here's one problem I've witnessed...
Effective efforts attract demand and the demand always exceeds available resources of time, personnel and money. The strain can lead to appeals to mainstream philanthropies for funding. With the funding comes a sea change in political orientation and theory of action. In the twinkling of an eye, you're working for an organization whose model is to deliver aid from on high to the groundlings. The focus becomes how good a person you are instead of creating the framework of a lasting system for people to use and build on their own. It's only a matter of time before the corporate style meetings and obligatory fund raising dinners for wealthy donors drive out most of the original team.
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I'd be very interested to read any posts about left leaning assistance orgs that have entirely avoided or adeptly navigated this problem as such models should be shared, duplicated and improved upon.
.d.