Disorganized Thoughts on Anarchist Organizing

some highlights

"It’s not that I think people are fundamentally power seeking. I don’t. It’s something with cultural variance, but at least in my experiences (especially in workplaces & activism) most people actively avoid power. They accept it only reluctantly, when circumstance forces it on them or the rewards are too great to ignore."

"More abstractly, I want to think of success in terms of increasing freedom. It’s not a zero sum - my freedom does not end where someone else’s nose begins. Sometimes it does, & sometimes somebody needs to get punched. Sometimes that someone is me. Sometimes freedom is realizing that my needs can take a backseat to a collective good. Other times it’s insisting that the severity of my need outweighs the collective’s. It’s building social trust to where we can discuss situations while assuming good faith, where the give & take happens without fear of advantage taking or domination."

"I went on a date with someone who had been a bank teller during a robbery. She was robbed by an older black woman, armed with a piece of paper (“but she could have had a gun!”). She later learned the woman was trying to pay her sister’s medical bills. My date told me how she rode along with a police detective (“ACAB but I felt a camaraderie with her when she told me she was a lesbian”) to identify the suspect who then spent 5 years in prison. My date felt deeply traumatized by the whole experience. I ended the date, telling her as gently as I could that I was entirely on the side of the bank robber & privately thinking that I had just met a monster. The truly terrifying kind that sleeps soundly at night in a comfortable bed with loved ones nearby."

I'd recommend reading the whole thing. it's not long. I'd be keen to see more personal reflections of how others organise. it's more valuable than what some may think.