“In addition to our patrols and confrontations with the police, I did a lot of recruiting in pool halls and bars, sometimes working twelve to sixteen hours a day. I passed out leaflets with our ten-point program, explaining each point to all who would listen. Going deep into the community like this, I invariably became involved in whatever was happening; this day to day contact became an important part of our organizing effort. There is a bar-restaurant in north Oakland known as “Bosn’s Locker”; I used to call it my office because I would sometimes sit in there for twenty hours straight talking with the people who came in.
At other times I would go to City College or to the Oakland Skills Center..anywhere people gathered. It was hard work, but not in the sense of working at an ordinary job, with its deadly routine and sense of futility in performing empty labor. It was work that had profound significance for me; the very meaning of my life was in it, and it brought me closer to the people.
This recruiting had an interesting ramification in that I tried to transform many of the so-called criminal activities going on in the street into something political, although this had to be done gradually. Instead of trying to eliminate these activities..numbers, hot goods, drugs..I attempted to channel them into significant community actions. Black consciousness had generally reached a point where a man felt guilty about exploiting the black community. However, if his daily activities for survival could be integrated with actions that undermined the established order, he felt good about it. It gave him a feeling of justification and strengthen his own sense of personal worth. Many brothers who were burglarizing and participating in similar pursuits began to contribute weapons and material to community defense. In order to survive they still had to sell their hot goods, but at the same time they would pass some cash on to us. That way, ripping off became more than just an individual thing.
Gradually the black panthers came to be accepted in the Bay Area community. We had provided a needed example of strength and dignity by showing people how to defend themselves. More important, we lived among them. They could see everyday that with us the people came first.”
How much longer until the utopic Solarpunk future where Capitalism is dead and we all live in ecologically sustainable high-tech forest cities? Asking for a friend.
Until we make those ecologically sustainable high-tech forest cities ourselves. It’s going to take a lot of us to do it though, so best to spread the word (and gather native tree seeds).
And, like, get started now. Then our “weirdo houses” will be the only thing functioning when everything falls apart!
The only reason why we don’t live in a solarpunk world right now is because no one has bothered to make it yet.
We’ll have to make it ourselves, and we’ll have to help each other make it. That’s why it is solarpunk.
Some resources to consider creating or joining or doing:
Repair cafes - create or join your local repair cafe! Repair stuff, learn how to repair stuff, teach others how to repair stuff.
Map of Makerspaces - make some things! learn how to make some things! teach others how to make some things!
Community Garden Map (note that this is US-only, and not a complete list) - join a local community garden
Learn some basics on passive solar design - clever use of the sun can create extremely energy efficient homes and buildings. You can use these principles to save on energy bills, even if you’re renting.
Free USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning, 2015 revision - cut down on personal food waste! Learn how to safely preserve food. Very useful if you suddenly harvest / purchase for crazy cheap in season / dumpster dive a ton of perishable food.
Donate to One Acre Fund, which provides training and capital to farmers (making them more productive and pulling them out of poverty) in various east African countries
Donate to Bridges to Prosperity, which provides technical expertise, money, and volunteers, to help local people build and maintain their own footbridges in extremely isolated rural areas
joining r/solarpunk, and sharing links/ideas/art/music with the community. Also, upvoting stuff for greater visibility. There’s over 900 members!
So if you lived in a society where you had to secure your communication in order to be yourself around others, here are the apps that could help you do that.
Signal let’s you securely text and make phone calls.
Onion Browser allows you to surf the web without leaving a trail.
Duck Duck Go isn’t super secure but it won’t record your searches like Google.
ProtonMail is a email client that lets you email other secure email accounts.
Periscope allows you to stream live video.
Semaphor is there so you can securely make group chat rooms.
American privacy laws allow you to use these all. So that’s pretty cool.
Because we’re currently living in the prologue of a cyberpunk dystopian novel, imma reblog this.
FYI the feds can crack Signal when they’re sufficiently motivated, which means the rest of these are probably also done. Not to say you shouldn’t use them–you should–but don’t go around thinking you’re immune to snooping.
True. These things delay, put up barriers that make you harder to follow and it takes more work and time to decrypt your messages.
That’s useful if you wanna pass on information that only needs to be hidden for a short time but if you need communication to stay secret forever no matter how hard the state tries, don’t use the internet at all. There is no encryption that is going to stay uncrackable forever.
