By Paul Boden, Western Regional Advocacy Project
We could write a whole article on the shit storm that has hit at the federal level and then reel off reactionary oppressive measures that local and state governments are imposing in response to the massive numbers of people they know damn well are going to be dying, suffering, hurting, living in the streets — and be mad as hell.
Suffice it to say, 2025 America has implemented the long-planned and inevitable work plan of neoliberal governance in the USA. America’s “Banana Republic” pilot projects, which used the profits of commercial enterprise and the ruling class to exploit and colonize South and Central America, are now complete. Trump is the personification of Reagan’s Revolution and its mantra that anything the government does for the public good without a profit margin for corporate interests is socialism. Clinton’s Contract with America privatized welfare and cut 300,000 disabled people off benefits. Hope VI demolished or sold off over 500,000 units of Public Housing and replaced them with vouchers for the private housing market, where people only have 4-6 months to use before being forced to turn them back in if they can’t find a landlord who will accept them. Bush’s compassionate conservatism solidified the mantra that tax breaks for the rich are economic stimulus and social benefits are evil. Obama’s TARP mortgage company bailouts pushed that concept to its heights: People lost their homes while banks and investors got bailouts, all in the name of saving our economy. And these are just a few examples.
It’s a progression that in hindsight makes perfect sense, and each step in the path generated big time opposition. And yet the train kept rolling.
If we can learn anything from the massive numbers of people who have lived in our streets over the past 40 years as neoliberalism has progressed, it is that this shift to profit over people is killing us all.
We need a dramatic shift from the I (the unhoused, elderly, tenants, immigrants, trans, etc.) to the WE (humans, people, us, everyone). While we also acknowledge that sure as hell
some of us are much more targeted, attacked and hurt, we also know that this is not their shit to fight on their own. We build power when we collectively identify and call out the racism, ableism, sexism, and all forms of oppression being instigated. It’s not up to individuals to fight oppression by themselves, and we can’t change the system that are oppressing so many people by focusing on one issue area. If we continue to do our organizing on a single issue, we’re not going to change the overall system of oppression.
In this intense environment, the “tried and true” systems of “effective” community organizing, litigation and legislature strategies need to evolve. In every flyer we make, every t-shirt, protest sign, demand, press release and training we do, we need to be sure we are talking about all people that are getting fucked throughout this process. Local organizing can still reflect the day to day priorities of the work they are doing while we shift our strategies to build collective power.
There is a reason we got stuck in the quicksand of single-issue organizing: The nonprofit corporate structure created during the War On Poverty in the 1960’s in order to “help” people—a structure so many groups rely upon now—was not created to build power. Our money is their control button, and keeps us beholden to the foundations and Government funders who make the rules.
Our communities can no longer afford to let foundation funding priorities drive our organizing priorities. We need to seriously examine our strategies and tactics, keep what works and be fearless to challenge the constantly changing foundation funding priorities and nonprofit regulations, as well as the prevailing systems of representation to mitigate the horrible damage that is absolutely going to impact so many people today. We need to employ tactics that can get us off the same old and into a new approach to fighting back for the long haul.
If we look at this framework under a new lens, we see a whole bunch of shit we can’t do. But there is still a lot we can do.
We can be as freaking inclusive as we want, we can do documented outreach in our communities to guide our campaigns and litigation, legislative work, we can have gatherings that are creative, inclusive, and just a freaking blast to attend.
We can broaden our ability to truly build power and deepen our understanding of systems of oppression from a universal perspective. We can make a bunch of new friends as we connect with communities that are fighting oppression in the same fearless spirit of love, coupled with a very direct “Fuck You” to those who believe fascism makes America great again. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
Thank you to Alastair Boone for editing and contributing to this story.
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