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Greetings Good afternoon, good evening My name is time to Seizway Shimaringa And this is a special edition of Ritwerp here on the Black Liberation Media Platform. Now, even though this is a special edition, like we always do, in the beginning please like, share, and subscribe. Like, share, and subscribe. Like this video, share the link, subscribe to Black Liberation Media if you're not already a subscriber. And if you are already a subscriber, be a subscriber to Ritwork and now also Cooperation Jackson's YouTube channel. It's called Jackson Rising on YouTube. Please subscribe to all of these media platforms. These are black folks doing what we can on this platform. doing the best that we can to create our own media to keep you informed with the information that you need. Again, like, share, and subscribe. Special edition of Rootwork, in conjunction with Cooperation Jackson, we are presenting the build and fight formula. The build and fight formula is both an argument and a proposed methodology on how to build eco-socialism from below, meaning through the self-organized activity, and institutions of the working class and oppressed people. The principal architect of the build-in-fight formula is Brother Kali Akuno, co-founder, co-executive director of Co-operation Jackson, which is based in Jackson, Mississippi. And Cooperation Jackson, of course, is committed to building a solidarity economy in Jackson, anchored by a network of cooperators and worker-owned democratically self-managed enterprises. Collie is no stranger to the platform. Been here many times. We appreciate him. And now, Cooperation Jackson, and we have entered into this partnership to bring this educational series to you and your friends. So again, like, share, and subscribe. So I need to stop talking so much and let our guests, Callie Akuno, talk to you all about what is the build and fight formula of Cooperation Jackson. Thank you so much, Collie. Always a pleasure, Tandi, to be here, especially honored to be here tonight, to start off this kind of educational series. We are planning on doing this. This was it the second Tuesday of every month. So please be advised, let your friends know, your family know, you know, your fellow cooperators and comrades to join us, tune in. And as we go along, you know, we're going to be asking questions. We're going to be looking for feedback, pushback, because what we're going to we are going to go through, we make no pretension that it is the answer. We think it is part of an answer. And it helps to kind of maybe ground some of where we need. to go, particularly in these perilous times. Hold on. You want some pushback. You want some smoke? Oh, yeah. We want, we want the smoke. We want to smoke, you know, because look, it's not smoke for criticism's sake. Let me be clear about that. Right? We want to construct a new world. And we have to struggle with each other to get the right to do that. right so you know correct theory should lead us to better practice well we have to sharpen up our tools and we have blind spots you know we don't see or hear everything it's not possible for one individual one human being one organization to do that so that's why we want feedback to sharpen things up that's how we've kind of come to this and arrive at this in a number of different things and it's what you're going to you know hear for me is quite literally born as as much failure as it has been a little bit of success that we've been able to garner. Right? But it's learning from every mistake, learning the best possible anyway, learning from your mistake, learning from every failure and trying to iterate at each point how to do better, right? And doing intense criticism, self-criticism and deep reflection on, you know, these are the things that we need to do. So this is what this is all based off. So yeah, we definitely want. and appreciate, you know, feedback. It doesn't mean we can get all to it, you know, respond to every point or be able to get to it, you know, at every, you know, immediate instance. But believe me, we take it all in to reflect because this is part of the study practice, study process that we have to be involved in. So definitely get us up, you know, and be on the lookout. And believe me, you know, the feedback we get will inform what we're going to be doing throughout the rest of the year, right? That is how we've been building this and we've been working towards this, you know, for a minute. So we're going to try to keep this to an hour each time. Okay. And any of you all heard me speak, sometimes that could be a challenge. So my comrade, time is going to keep me on point as much as possible. So today we're going to go through, you know, a few kind of early points. to just kind of articulate a framework. And just I want folks to know, you know, kind of the basic outline is this intro is really trying to make a case, building an argument on why this particular set of practices, principles, and positions could lead to a revolutionary transformation. Okay. And that's in why it's particularly, we argue, grounded in the history of this moment going forward. based upon the concrete conditions that we are facing and based upon what people are already doing in the millions, right? Because we have to start, we argue, with where people are at and then build upon that, but then try to fill in gaps, but also to make some arguments, right, that need to be made to push us all further along the road and ask, you know, gives us to really think critically, why are we doing what we're doing? How could it be better? How could it lead and aggregate to us building? and amassing more power, us ending certain social kind of relationships between particularly those of exploitation. How could it lead to all those different things? So. Okay. So what is the building fight formula? So yeah. So first to lay out the argument. You know, I want to just lay out off the top. Like, this is premise on a notion that concretely, y'all, we don't have much time to enact a radical transformation that we don't. need on this planet. Right? The the capitalist system is killing this planet and killing it rapidly. And so we are going to have to get rid of it before it gets rid of us. So I want to state that very clear. Now that's in some respects, many respects, most respects, easier said than done. But one of the critical shortcomings is that is, you know, most people, have gotten to the point, particularly over the last 40 years, where it's easier to envision the end of the world than it is to envision the end of capitalism. So we want to challenge that. Like up front, we want to challenge that and we have to challenge that. Okay. And the first kind of premise of the argument is that profound radical transformation is possible. And we want to back that up. You say, well, you know, prove it to them. We want to back that up with the critical analysis of the last like 15 years, but the last five years in particular. And to really highlight to folks that we've already lived through some profound transformation. Now, it wasn't necessarily sustained. It wasn't always consciously, you know, directed, meaning something that we in our, in the masses agreed to and deliberately wanted to do that. It was somewhat spontaneous in relationship to the conditions. But we've seen a great. deal of transformation. Now, what do I mean? I'll go back to basically, you know, let's go back to 2011. Okay. Okay. Now, we can go back earlier, but I'm picking that as a kind of an arbitrary date. And one of the one of the things people asked me to to cite in this is some of the sources. And so one of mention here, I want folks to check out a book called If We Burn, right, which is an analysis of the 2010s. And why all of the social revolution, the social upheavals, I should say that occurred during that decade, did not lead to a revolutionary transformation. And in many respects, wind up installing the exact opposite. So if you look at Egypt, if you look at Syria, if you look at Tunisia, et cetera. you know what happened with the the arab spring but then also if you bring forth you know what happened here in the united states was part of that same motion right from what happened in tahrir square to to the indignados to occupy right that wind up leading you can make a clear kind of case in following history that wind up leading to the mass uprising that we saw at least the former character that it took uh at a george floyd rebellion that happened in 2020 but also the response, which is now kind of being born out by Donald Trump and the rise of the MAGA movie. If we learned by this Blevins. That's right. B-L-E-V-I-N-S. Check it out or check out some of their videos. And it's not necessarily that you have to agree with all of their analysis. I certainly don't, but it's an excellent kind of just documentation of moving through that decade to you see how these. these events pick up on each other how folks are learning from each other you know internet through social media right through the past communications channels how they accelerated time how folks try to copy each other and what they were doing you know sometimes to great effect you know sometimes to ill effect right and then how the distortion of the media I think he cites a well good case in terms of Hong Kong and some of the protests that happened there trying to you know that what they call the pro democracy movement we can argue because that's what it was or not. But in terms of the tactics that they employed, one of the things I think he does a good job of highlighting, both in his speeches and in the book, is how they, at a certain period of time, some of the key actors pivoted towards acting to elicit the greatest response from Western media and abandoned what their people had already gravitated towards. And so they became more isolated and more small as a result. So critical learning. But some of the tactics. that they wind up developing there and how to avoid gas, you know, how to use gas mass, how to deal with some of that. We wind up incorporating some of the for rebellion here from folks making direct connections. Also folks making direct connections, you know, what happened like with Ferguson some years before from the Palestinians, right, to just bring this home in this methodology. But the critical piece I just want to say real quick in and then move through is that if we look at the profound the nature of how those uprisings transform society, polarized it, if nothing else. That is a profound transformation that we are living through. That means more space is actually open for us to experiment with, and we need to recognize that and be cognizant of that because the ruling class forces in and now, the last during this period, we need to be clear. They do not have concrete answer. This is not like the end of World War II where they laid out the Britain Woods program that wind up restructure in the world. The steel structure is a large part of the world that we live in. But that was based upon a clear vision plan, right? And a clear understanding of they had control of the various organized forces that they could deploy to enact their program. They don't have that now. They're trying to institute that now. I'm just particularly citing the United States. They're trying to do with Project 2025. So they try to do with Project 2025. So they try to develop a level of cadre. But they don't, believe me, they don't have that all worked out. It's not all crystal clear despite the chaos that Trump is trying, is unleashing on this society. Believe me, it ain't all worked out, right? And they are, you know, shooting darts everywhere, trying to see what sticks, trying to see what holds. But the difference between us and them is they have command over the state apparatus and a command over all the institutions and instrument of capital at their disposal to kind of failed and then pick up. Whereas we, there's more, you know, we have to more get it right kind of the first time in order for the transformation to take place. And we need a bunch of luck. So the critical piece is to understand that the space is open. And then there's a second part of this I want folks to kind of understand in terms of this argument around the possibility of, you know, radical transformation. being possible and potentially being on the agenda. Now that is really going to depend upon us, and that's what we're going to get into. But I want folks to just go back to another episode in 2020, right, which is the beginning of the pandemic. And this is one I tried to say that I'll reiterate it here. You know, I'll go back to to make a connection. And in 1992, you know, there was the Rio summit. So the first big international climate change summit. And this occurred right after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Block, right? What most folks our age, you know, would call kind of the core of the socialist world, the socialist experiment. And it collapsed, leaving only China, you know, in the main, Cuba, Vietnam to a lesser degree, being kind of the last major kind of socialist projects, you know, operating under that vein. Well, we were told on the heels of this conference, on the world scale, that yes, climate change was a serious issue, but that the global economy was too complex for there to be any immediate, you know, answers to the crisis of carbon emissions. That it was too complicated. That the scale was significant, right? That's a lot. Yeah. Fast forward to 2020. And the political necessity of grinding the global necessity of grinding the global. the global economy and global trade to a halt comes into play on the account of the COVID pandemic and deal them with something that they didn't quite understand, but knew that it was spreading like wildfire and they had no ability or no means at the early stages to fundamentally contain it without containing the flow of goods and of humans migrating or moving from place to place. So they restricted travel. They basically said we're only going to allow essential services, the essential workers to come, the essential services to be open. They basically ground global commerce to a halt. And guess what, y'all? Climate emissions, methane emissions dropped dramatically in the course of months. So much so that we saw nature within the course of just two or three months, things rebounding, deer coming back to the coyotes and stuff. like in San Francisco and LA, you know, the animals were just coming back to spaces and places that they had long since vacated, right, on account of, you know, the human interaction there. Right. And guess what? They stopped this, right? And then it wasn't for a long period of time. They stopped it. And the world system didn't collapse, right? The sky didn't fall, right? What we learn from that and what we have to deduce from that is, radical transformation can take place if there is sufficient political will to do so. And for that very brief moment in time, I say it lasted about six months at max, there was sufficient political will. Now, there was a reactionary move against it, and we're still living in part with that reaction, right? But it demonstrated, and this is just one of many examples, it demonstrated that change can happen. It can happen in a profound way. and it can happen quickly. So I want folks to just move from that and saying if what we witness in our own lifetimes should open up our imagination to envision the possibility of capitalism coming to an end and it coming to an end on account of our organized activities and deliberate and consequential action. So the critical thing moving from there, is that we also then have to kind of deal with the next piece. We have to deal with kind of understanding some of the dynamics of the system itself. This is the second critical piece of this argument. Okay. And there's an article, again, citing a source. There's an article that myself, two of my comrades, Doug Norbert, Brian Dr. Lerley, we wrote in 2001 called Shifting Focus. And that's an underscrowing argument here, right? And that was, you know, organizing for revolution, not for crisis avoidance. So I want everybody, if you haven't read that, you pick that up and look at it. Because it's a subtext to many, much of what is going to be laid out throughout the course of this series. But I'll just summarize it in a couple of critical points here. For this one, I'm actually just going to read to make it quick. You know, I hate, for those you know me, I hate doing that and I hate PowerPoints. But I think it's important, right? So just start with this notion that we need to be clear, that we need to be organized and building for a revolution, not reform, and crisis avoidance. Just as a piece that, this is fundamental. Now, what does that mean? Let's get into that. There's a point two, right? The deepening crisis humanity faces is not rooted in human nature, as many will argue, right? Most of these arguments are based upon that. Right? It's included in the economic and social systems humans have created and have, you know, developed and have evolved over time. Mm-hmm. A relationship that distinguishes the different types of economic system that have structured most of, you know, human history, is that between producers and the appropriations of surplus labor, which, you know, and is monetized form is surplus value. Now, what I'm describing here is the evolution of class-based societies. just to be clear. And how they've always had these kind of distinctions, right, between like landowner and surf, right? Lord and peasant. And in our area, the dominant one being between employer and employee, right? Boss and worker. And that, and the last version of this, the capitalist version, or is the former producer inappropriate of surplus value, right? Be clear about that. And that we need to be clear that we need to be clear that we need to, from a revolutionary perspective, that we need to reject all of these different forms of hierarchy and domination. That's a simple piece that we need to be clear upon. And where that leads is understanding that dynamic and that relationship in present era, you know, between capital and workers. There's another way of putting between employer, employee, between boss and worker, right? Between capital and workers in the main, dominant fees. We need to be clear, and it's the third point. I think perhaps the most critical point for this particular error in purpose and this argument. What we fundamentally been getting trapped by time and time again, I would argue basically since the Great Depression, is an argument primarily amongst the left over which form of capitalist rule we should be fighting for. Primarily because we don't believe the radical transformation I was speaking to earlier is on the immediate horizon or is possible. Yeah. And so we wind up getting into a bunch of arguments about can the capitalist system be reformed. And can we help to usher in those reform? Mm-hmm. Right? Without critically, you know, making a distinction that number one, you know, and we're trying to put this in a global perspective. We want folks to understand very clearly because then it helps to arm us in different ways in terms of fighting back. I want us to be clear about that. Mm-hmm. But there's this notion sometimes like that fascism is something different than what we understand is bourgeois democracy. And I'm not saying that they are the same, but they sprung from, they spring from the same root. And that root is capitalism. Okay. And capitalism will employ based upon various conditions, right? It will employ different forms of governance in order to replicate itself and reproduce itself, right, and to protect itself in order for it to sustain. So there's some periods in time, right? right that we are we're kind of coming to the tail end of that me and you probably a good chunk of our audience you know were born in the 1960s and 70s and we caught the tail end of what one could call social democracy right or like the welfare state now the neoliberal order that they ushered in in the 1980s is largely eviscerated most of it not completely gone i mean they're working on that now so when you hear this argument about the republicans talking about they're going to destroy the Department of Education. Are they going to destroy ultimately, you know, Social Security? They're trying to complete that neo-liber revolution of privatizing everything. Right. But just keep in mind that those things that they existed were still within the capitalist framework, right? So security and all those benefits, they still allow the appropriation of our surplus value. They just tacked a certain amount and then distributed a certain amount, but it left the rulers in place. Right. They didn't go anywhere. And the rulers never completely agreed with that program of being taxed, right, of being regulated, and they had fought back. And in this recent iteration, if you look at Trump or Irvine or Bodie, you put it on the global scale, they fought back to reposition themselves, at least in the current era, where they are now calling the shots and dismantling this old area. And they're ushering a new phase, kind of a neo-fascist phase. Well, neo-fascism is just another variant. of the capitalist system. Now, I'm saying that because, you know, we need to get past fighting about with each other, particularly forces on the left, fighting with each other over which variant is going to be better than the other because we've now, I think, safely can say in the last century and a half, live through enough variations of this to know that if we don't kill it, that the other form, its opposite form, will just reemerge. So like if social, Social democracy doesn't actually move towards the abolition of capital and in his undermined. Then it inevitably leaves the capitalist class and its enablers and supporters in place to build a reactionary movement that over 10, 20, 30 years will come back, right? And move itself and usher itself into power. And that is where we're at. So we have to figure out how to end this thing. Now, the critical piece of what we first articulating, this is the kind of the third point. is that starting with where folks are at, right? We have to end this deficit kind of mindset that we have a mindset that we have and analysis that we have. And what do I mean by that? Please. We are constantly are, you know, in this notion that we do not have enough forces. We do not have enough people. And if you mean, enough people who are clearly in line with a particular politics, program, and worldview, you are absolutely correct. If you're thinking about it strictly in kind of a vanguardist way of moving social revolution, then you are correct. However, if you look at what people are engaged in that has the potential of transforming social relationships in a non-capitalist way, we see that there are millions of people just in the United States alone, but I would say even more outside, who are engaged in practices that if sufficiently coordinated, could lead to a radical transformation. And what I mean by radical transformation, like this is, this is the piece we'll get into later, but they're within the cycle of capital. And if you could probably bring that one up, the one that says David Harvey, you know, just to go to us to get people to understand a tundice ways a little bit and this cycle of cycle of capitalism David Harvey that one I'm not seeing that which is a it's a graphic no I know that but which one is it I have I think it's David Harvey in the in the in the in the thing itself or Harvey is in the the the the title While Tondy is pulling it up, comrades, the, the, just a little kind of one-on-one. So there's- You're not talking about METCHO-Chief Exchange and Commodity Exchange. No, not that one. That is one by David Harvey, but what I'm getting to that is that there's the dominant typical form of how we understand capitalism to move as a circulation. There it is. Okay. Okay. But, you know, this circulation, without going into deep, because we're already at the 30-minute mark. Yes, sir. We are trying to up in this particular valouration of surplus, labor, and surplus value. And we're going to go through a part of this, so folks throughout this course understand this, but then also an argument of how we take. take initial concrete steps through the practices that are articulated in the solidarity economy as a basic means to integrate a way to move past this. And to get to a spot, wherein that we aim our collective endeavors towards the production of exchange values, use values, right, not commodities. And that we now possess the technical means and capacity. to move in ways that previous generations could only, you know, dream of. And this is the folks to understand that the computing capacity, how capital wants to use it, as you listen to Peter Thiel. Capital wants to use it to basically subject labor to total domination and control. There's another version of this wherein we could utilize all of this is kind of the wealth of human ingenuity and the human ingenuity and the, the accumulated kind of expression of humanities intellectual growth, we could use it to transform society within our means to make our labors and endeavors easier with the context of appropriate technology. What I mean by appropriate, things that are socially appropriate, that don't require a great deal of waste or excess production, too much extraction from the earth, and then things that are produced based upon need, not just based upon endless commodities that often just wind up in a trash heap somewhere because they don't produce the amount of profit that their producers want and so they find of different ways to dispose of them or they do you know plant obsolescence instead of making things that could be durable for a generation they make them to make sure that they fit a cycle of consumerism wearing things you know time out or break very calculated in intention my car my iPhone my laptop All these different things. They can make them a lot doable. They can make them a lot better. There are certain dynamics of the market where they choose not to. So this is part of the cycle of what we're going to up in. And what we're arguing for is that if we take what millions of people are already doing in the engagement of certain key solidarity practices that we can create our own, you know, kind of value change that then up in this and move us towards production, towards values in our future. communities and that we would argue we have enough critical mass already that we could be major catalyst for this for the development of eco-socialism from below, but it requires, and this is the piece, it requires a greater level of political clarity, intentionality, democratic coordination, right from below, and concerted, planning to eliminate excess waste but to also meet the human need that exists. Because believe me, right, there is no reason why in 2025, with all the excess production of just food alone, that there should be any human being on this planet who goes hungry. Shouldn't be not one. Not one. Not one. That is a problem not only of distribution, because some people will leave it at that. That's one dimension of the problem as it presently exists. But ultimately, we have to figure out how to socialize the means of production and put all of us in a democratic practice of being able to access common goods so that we can meet our common needs from the collective pool of what humanity has produced. And the solidarity, the practice of the solidarity economy are the anchors to that. That is the argument. And then what we present as the formula are steps, a set of steps, you know, what we call the kind of the practices of position and the practices of maneuver. And the first part, we'll go through the practices of position. And that's taken from Gramsci, very intentionally and deliberately. So folks, Antonio Gramsci, present notebooks for those who've never read it or don't understand, you know, want to know what the sources go back and look at that for this particular piece. And that's about how you deal with hedgmonic and counter-hegemonic, dominant and non-dominant forces and how the non-dominant forces can organize. themselves to form a new both cultural view, world view, and practice that distills kind of in an anti-systemic practice to underscore, undercut, and ultimately destroy the dominant kind of perpetuation of ruling class ideology and practice. So that's what we are trying to aim with here, right, in these positions of maneuver. And what we're articulating with that. And then this is what the next couple of pieces that go over is we're going to break down in detail, you know, using PowerPoint, all this different stuff. How do you practice mutual aid and how does mutual aid and social reproduction lead to gathering enough information about the concrete needs that then we can then leverage that and connect it to doing a concerted level of planning around autonomous food production through a scale of program of meeting all the different community, small-scale farms to large-scale farms of independent farmers and producers, tied them together to meet particular needs. But then we also have to figure out how the massive workers into appropriate, basically, the means of productive, turn that into cooperative enterprises and link with each other to put all of the tools and all of the collective property into a pool that we could use to meet our collective needs. That's what the worker self-organization pieces come in and we're going to talk about within that. how we take the cooperative side, the trade union side, the workers center side of what is concretely going on now, how to better kind of link that together in strategic way to utilize as much power. We'll break all of those down individually in that way. Let me jump in real quick. I don't want to take you off your focus too much, but this building fight formula, practices of position, practices of maneuver, this is going to be done in conjunction in partnership with other organizations, correct? Oh, absolutely. None of this of what we're talking about is a, is, could be done by one organization. Okay. None of this, you know, and why we say we're starting part of the making the argument of starting what people are doing. Okay. Because we don't have, let's be clear, what the large part of this argument underscore, we don't have the political parties of the 1930s or even the 1960s. That's not what we're at, right? And if we look at, at least in the United States, in, in, most of so-called Western world is profoundly different in the global south, where in the global south, you still have, you know, organized factions of the left in terms of political forces there, particularly in Latin America, who can and are moving on things. And we'll talk about how that kind of relates. But in our kind of U.S. context, you know, we don't have political parties that can move tens of thousands, if not millions of people into a concerted program. But what we do have, right, we have, millions of people who are involved in projects where they're doing, you know, farming in their communities of various scales. It's just not coordinated, right? It's not being planned to meet the basic caloric needs of our community. So most of it's done, you know, to meet kind of personal needs or small-scale needs. And I would say, like, even in cooperation, Jackson, we're doing, you know, trying to do a level of scale to reach about 25,000 people. Of course.
But Jackson is a city of 100. 60,000 to 180,000 people, give or take. So, you know, we have to figure out, coordinated with other folks in Jackson, how to scale up production. And that doesn't mean cooperation Jackson is going to do this. Our role is to just be a catalystist to say, hey, if we do this, this is what it can lead to. Right. We can move from food security, ultimately towards an element or aspect of food sovereignty, at least on a local level, so that we can meet the caloric needs and we could end food as a, weapon, but more importantly, right, we could free up more people's time, right, from having to pursue the endeavor of wage, labor, wage employment, so they have more free time to do more of what they want to do, and you can kind of reduce folks' wheels. Now, there's a system that has to go and that's what this formula is saying that these practices have to be coordinated in conjunction with each other. Otherwise, they're just kind of isolated endeavors that may make some things of our of our lives a little bit easier. But if we don't deal per se with the broader dimension of like land decommonification and the collective stewardship of land, which is an anchor of what we need to go for towards food sovereignty, we don't deal with that and deal with kind of collective housing solutions, right? You're still leaving folks subject to all the predatory things of the market and the need for ways to meet the market kind of necessity. that's been structured within the capital system. So it's trying to be comprehensive within the framework of what people are already doing. And what I mean by in and in this deficit piece is that if you take the whole of all of different organizing efforts that are taking place just in the United States alone, like in the housing arena, right, for health and reproductive justice, right, for workers' rights, if you aggregate that all, together, there's a lot of people working on a lot of stuff. Yes. A lot of people, millions of people working on stuff every single day, but because we don't have a framework to unite it coherently, right, and one that's co-constructed, right? And so this is an argument for co-construction, not one that just kind of impose something from above because we've seen, you know, time and time again that has its advantages, but more disadvantages than advantages. So a co-construction of how to do that. do we get people to plan and coordinate with each other to aggregate power, right, but to also transform the system by getting out of those, you know, that cycle of MCM, right, money, commodities, money that is premised, the capitalist society's premise on, which forces us all to be, you know, chases of a wage or another old way of saying to be wage slaves and be dependent upon that to earn our livelihood. It's either that. If we don't, don't build an alternative or be thrown out in the streets or go hungry, right? And remember, this is in a society which produces an overabundance or world system that produces an overabundance of all the material goods that are necessary for all of humanity to live well. I'm seeing a couple of questions in the chat. Let me just a quick reminder. If you come here to play or not serious, you will be booted out of this chat. Now, y'all know I'm tech spice. I see, tech divergent. It might accidentally hit ban user as opposed to just deleting your comments. So be careful what you put in the chat. One of the questions that we do have here, if you want to tackle it now, because we are at 442. And you did say you wanted to keep it to an hour. I'm sure folks wouldn't mind hanging out, but let's see what we can do. Michael Nugent asked, what about these arguments about techno feudalism or that capitalism is in terminal decline. I've been hearing that for 40 years. change is legit? And do they change how we fight who the revolutionary subject is? Great question. Great question. And I've been thinking about doing a particular set of series just upon this from my vantage point. And let me riff off a comment that you just said, Tundi, right? That you've been hearing that for 40 years. Well, it takes that long for the system to actually, if not longer, to collapse. Right? So if we go into some of the works of say, again, citing sources, I want people to read it. You don't have to agree with all of it. But if you look at some of the world, the works of like Emmanuel Wallerstein or Undergrinder Frank in their particular assessment of the capitalist world system, we see that things take roughly 50 to 60 years to sink in and transform. Okay. So if you're thinking about it within, and this is part of the, and this is part of the, a level of consciousness that we have to kind of ascribe to. So within the context of our own lifetime, you might dismiss certain arguments. But if you look at it in the context of several generations, you'll see that, yes, this system is in a very terminal decline. And I would argue that techno feudalism is not just a symptom of the decline, right? but it is something that is going to hasten and speed it up. And for me, I had been arguing before, and for folks who, again, the site or source, if it hasn't been put in the chat, one of the main framers, I think the lead framerer of this techno-futalism argument is Janus Beric Fawkes. Look up his book on techno-fetolism. I can't remember the exact technology. Is that the brother from Greece? That's the brother from Greece, the Conrader from Greece, you know, who. Austerity movement? the post-osterone. We were in the Sariza government, which, in my view, wind up making a class of portrayal of the people, leading them down a dead end path. Part of what I was arguing against around, you know, what the what type of concessions we can get, you know, from capital rather than making a clean or some would argue kind of a dirty break and going it alone, at least in regards to them switching out of of being part of the EU and going back into kind of their own currency or their own transactional relationships and then using that to foster the dynamic growth of the solidarity economy because Greece had that at the time and then one definitely emerged in the in the midst of their crisis following the financial collapse of 2007, 2008, 2009, that there was a profound social movement that they wound up basically kind of betraying and gave space to the current right government. which is now in place in Greece. But I think, you know, this move, this terminal decline has led to the rise of all of these neo-fascist forces or these right-wing authoritarian forces, you know, the likes of, again, outside Modi in India, you know, Erdogan in Turkey, you know, we can go on. Urban and Hungary, Malay, in Argentina, and the list goes on. And unfortunately, we'll probably have, you know, a right-wing government in Germany and in France soon as a result. But this- Are these changes legit? Are these changes legit? And do they change how we fight, who the revolutionary subject is? Legit. If the answer is the system moving in that direction, I would say, if that's what it's meant by legit, clearly that is what's going on. I mean, we can just look at what Trump has enabled in terms of the cabinet and like what he's done with Doge and Elon Musk, basically kind of making him his co-president. But it's not just him, right? It's all the techno-futal lords, you know, which have made a very clear and conscious decision to ally themselves with Trump and the Maga movement on a very deliberate nature and why they are very much invested in a deep race for over AI artificial intelligence and this global competition to who's going to get there first from between themselves being the United States and China. And why J.D. Vance in real time is over in Europe now threatening the Europeans that they either get on board with the United States and open up all of their markets towards the U.S. domination of AI and work with them or they're going to be punished. Now, you don't normally talk to your friends like that. No, you don't. You're not supposed to. So, you know, that speaks to a different time, a different order that is not just about Trump's personality. Folks need to understand that. Right? This is about capitals deep restructuring and trying to get to a particular place, right, so that the West remains its hegemonic control over the earth, over its peoples, and all of his resources, so that a certain group of people continue to benefit at the expense of others. So that race, is still going on. That is why Elon Musk, who is supposed to be running part of the government now, is trying to issue a hostile takeover of open AI. Put these things in perspective to understand what a technical feudalism piece in the argument why it's legit. Does that change how we fight? I would argue we'll go through it. In some ways, profoundly yes, and in some ways, at least in terms of what we're articulating, No. Right? Now, what we need to be clear on, I think in terms of kind of like what principles and program, the piece that we'll get to where we talk specifically about social, digital infrastructure, that deals with how we in community production within this formula, that deals with how we are arguing that we should be engaging in these kind of new technologies, but not engaging them on capitals term, but to the greatest extent possible, appropriating them at the scale that they could be utilized to open source to create our own means. And that is why, just to cite, you can get back to this, that is why I want folks to go back and look at, what was, I'm forgetting the name, deep, deep seek, whatever, the AI piece that China put together, that was a profound move, y'all. And I'm not saying that to like praise, you know, a China, but that was a pretty concerted move that opened up a tremendous amount of space. And what they fundamentally did by making that open source, they made it so that folks in Nigeria can take some elements of their code and work on it without having to deal with the proprietorship or ownership. Or me and you can learn how to code and be involved in that and help technology, grow, and function, and ensure it actually functions to serve human need and not further, right, the private appropriation capturing social control that the capitalists are aiming. towards very explicitly. If you don't believe me, listen to what Peter Till said about two weeks ago. So this can be done through our labor unions, right, or is that idealistic? It's going to have to be done through them and beyond them, right? And to be clear. Like, we need those institutions to, you know, be transformed from the inside. And we need them in particular to jettison, you know, the agreements that have confined them and that, kind of adhered to, you know, for the greater part of, what, about 70 years? And what am I specifically relating to in terms of the United States, right? Like, we, we have fundamentally, and I've been part of the trade union movement, still part of the trade union movement. But you've kind of hamstrung ourselves and accepting the National Labor Relations Act in this framework that comes out of it, right, which keeps us from acting in politically or acting in solidarity in a number of fundamental ways. And then how that's supported by the right to work regime, by the Tav Hartley law, we have to go beyond that. And we should have been going beyond that a long time ago. Right. And so we now have to, you know, be very clear that to the, to the degree that the Maga movement is very intentional about destroying all of the liberal bourgeois protections that supposedly are enshrined in the Constitution. We ain't got no need to uphold it either. Right? This is where our, our mind, space has to open up. and seize the opportunities that exist amongst the contradictions that they are creating. So if they're not going to necessarily play by the rules, there's no reason why we should either. And we have to step out of that to now figure out how do we engage in a broad union kind of co-op initiative to, like, fund each other, support each other, build our collective strength. How do we now move in a concerted level to like organize one of the, to link it to the previous questions? How do we get all of the the major unions that are part of the AFL-CIO to now step fullheartedly, wholeheartedly into supporting the workers at Amazon, right, to unionize. And then not only to unionize, I would press, and this is part of what, you know, one of the times I was able to kind of sit down with Chris. We had a brief conversation, a presentation, Chris Smalls is one referring to. Cremotation said, don't just settle for unionization, right? Press for social control, right? Cooperize the space. That is how Amazon basically should be run, basically either as a public utility or as a collective-owned cooperative. So open to our imagination towards the appropriating. We have to, you know, go back to be very clear about we're trying to expropriate from the expropriators. That is a fundamental task that is. still before us. It's just the means by which we have to do it and the instruments we have to do it by. Some of them have to be reinvented by like the trade unions. And then some things we're just going have to create a new, right? Basically somewhat from scratch, but starting from where people are already engaged in the millions in social activities that speak towards a broader transformational project. How much of lack of coordination is due to lack of physical infrastructure versus lack of network relationships across difference? Where is best to put? our energy. That's a damn good question. I'm glad it was asked. Real quick, real quick. The graphic we put up that circle, is there a link to that or that's in a book? Folks, there's a series. David Harvey has been doing a series about a capital for years now, where he breaks down Capital Volume 1. There's a series of lectures that you can go to his a YouTube page or you can go and look at David Harvey, you know, and you can get an analysis. Now, I have some nuance with David's read of capital. We ask the graphic, bro. Where can we get the graphic? You'll find it there. Okay. Or you'll find it in his book, a companion to, I think, capital. He has. Okay. Got you. Lack of coordination versus lack of network relationships. It's both. Okay. Right. And, you know, the capital is always, you know, fostered and facilitated uneven development. And so this is part of, you know, part of the legacy of capital only building things that serve his particular needs. And so that means certain sectors, certain people, certain groups are left out or certain folks wind up being incorporated into basically sacrifice zone. Like I would say Jackson fundamentally, you know, has become, in essence, a sacrifice zone. at least most of it, you know, to capital. And so, you know, a lot of part of what we're struggling with is the lack of infrastructure. But the lack of infrastructure is an obstacle. It's a barrier that I think the deeper one is the lack of coordinated relationships. And that requires the organizing. And that we have to, you know, look, if we got to like bicycle to find ways to connect with each other or walk a couple of miles to connect with each other, necessity should demand that we do so to overcome the infrastructure. limitations. You know, and this is fundamentally what we're going to have to get to. I think if we're serious about transforming the system. And trust me, I'm citing things that people do in the real world all over the globe. Maybe not in the West, not here now, but these are practices that people do. So don't think it's impossible or it's insurmountable. Well, we have a spreadsheet and a calendar for coordinating or what? Well, this is, again, this is what we mean by social, digital infrastructure. Right. And we'll probably come up with a better, you know, tool for that. And I know some comrades that we're working with, you know, outside two that the folks want to look up some of the work that they're doing. You know, one is grassroots economics. They just came out with a book on, you know, how they're utilizing basic elements of kind of, you know, cell phone technology to be able to do complex transactions within, you know, community and Khalifi community, and Kaliya and beyond, to help coordinate and do the type of planning that I'm suggesting is going to be necessary. And this is low grid, low tech. Then there's more, you know, kind of advanced versions that are being worked on by like the One project, in particular a piece that they're kind of, you know, working on that we've been somewhat, you know, at least on the advisory end, that I would cite that people should look at. But, you know, if you want to look at, I'm forgetting the name of the book, I will cite it in some notes and make sure to bring it further along. But I think the best example of even a low-tech system or version of what we're trying to go to deal with some of the complex problems of, you know, like some of the socialist experience, like the calculation problem that many of the projects, you know, suffered from and moved through in the 20th century, we now have the computing power, you know, know, on cell phones to deal with a lot of things that they just did not have the capacity to grab information in, you know, quick instance of a fraction of a section. We now have that at our disposal. We're not utilizing in this means, right, because it's owned and control. That data is now a new form of capital being used and, you know, kind of colonized, if you would, by the technical field of lowers, but there is still enough time and enough know-how that we can redirect our skill and the techniques to do the kind of level of appropriate technology to develop, you know, programs that enable us to coordinate. And some of this stuff is already out there. You know, it's not that spreadsheets can't help, but to aggregate moving from like a time bank, you know, it has like 200 people to try to move something, you know, say on the scale of Jackson where, again, it's between, say there's 180,000 people, we're going to need far more sophisticated tools to aggregate and plan that out. And we argue that those are basically kind of at our disposal. Doesn't mean that we don't need to tweak them or work them or to learn more, but we need the intentionality in the political direction and agreement around a program like this, that there's a necessity to do so that is required. As someone who focuses on affordable housing, land stewardship, I'm very interested in the overlap between food sovereignty and land stewardship in that context. Well, that would be the second, I'm speeding some of this alone, definitely, take all of the questions and everything in the comments. So please keep them coming or to send them to us, you know, on the YouTube link on the Jackson Rising or on route work. You know, we'll pick them up there, Black Liberation Media, the different places that this is going to be rebroadcast. We have people kind of going through that to kind of tease these out and make sure that we incorporate these questions in the presentations that we do. You know, they'll sharpen things up. And you all have already, you know, touched upon the critical things that I think a couple of these questions, the technical feudalism, the infrastructure question, all of these have been very, very helpful. So keep them coming. But we'll definitely tackle that particular question around that intersection, right, in the third session, which is going to be about food sovereignty and land decommonification. And then there's a deeper component of it, which we actually ultimately have to need to argue for, both which is somewhat specific. to settler colonial societies, but there's a deep element of decolonization that that program has to be matched with. It's not true everywhere. So that's why we kind of left that out. But for articulation of what we need here in the United States, this the colonial project and the need for its dismantling will be dealing with that during that section. I am, that was the David Harvey graphic. I keep seeing more questions later on for you people who came in. laid asking about that graphic. And, well, I did see one, hold on. I don't know if that's rhetorical or not, but there's a question for you. Can all the urban agricultural projects in New York City feed the city? Is that the best way to feed the city? If there's an uprising in New York City, where surrounding farmers and producers come to our rescue? In short, the answer to that? No. No. Can it alleviate some of the stress and strain? Yes. Can it put people in new relationships with each other within the city context? Yes. Right. Could it help free up some people's time, labor, energy? Absolutely. But if it's not coordinated, right, with a network of farmers outside of the city into an extended and intentional value chain that's following this particular program and politics, then you just be set up for value. So, you know, a large part of this is not just urban, right? We have to figure out how to do a very integrated piece. And I would argue, you know, that the more rural areas are actually far more right and will become more right for a particular program like this. I think in the days going forward as Trump unleashes more contradictions along this field, right? And let's go back to just remember, just briefly, let's go back to remember when Trump hit China with some tariffs back in 2017, 2018, the quick response of the Chinese government and the surgical nature of their response, which was targeting primarily, you know, red counties, the counties that voted for Trump, which were mostly rural and how it targeted farmers. And most of that, you know, market. basically never came back to soybeans, the Chinese just, you know, I said, we'll get our sourcing now from Brazil, right, and support them. If you all don't want to play, we'll do that way. Well, that's created a bunch of contradictions in the heartland that we, I think, as the left, have not found a full way to kind of engage or exploit. A, we don't have the relationships and have been intentional about creating the relationships. I'm not saying uniformly, but I'm saying, like, in mass, that's not a particular aim. because most of them are written most of those folks off. It's like, that's just MAGABAS. Well, you know, MAGABAS is now facing some major contradictions. They are already facing some severe labor shortages on account of, you know, shooting themselves and those who supported them, you know, supporting the deportation, but now no labor force to do that work. And they're not going to force U.S. citizens, quote, unquote, back into the fields, paying them U.S. wages, standard U.S. wages, without driving up inflation, which will make it harder for them. And then there's terrible. you know, what Canada and Mexico and other folks are going to hit back is going to make the life of those folks very, very painful for a while. And so, you know, his aim is to stimulate more industrial production. That's going to take more than an ocean and more than just simple investment to do. We need to step in. And through our mutual aid work, which we'll go back into, we need to step in, start building relationships, and start moving them towards being a part of our kind of extended network and meeting some of their their principal need for resources and then our principal need for food. And that there's a relationship that I don't think we should disconnect. And I'll cite, you know, a critical piece of why that's not as impossible as it may seem. Again, go back to the early days of the COVID pandemic in 2020. And you saw that a lot of our mutual aid work, the explosion of it, particularly in parts of the south, parts of, you know, Pennsylvania, Ohio. and over into the Midwest, there was a mass explosion of farmers, particularly midsize and small farmers who took their product directly to communities and distributed fundamentally based upon need, right? Not based upon a profit or exchange and they came up with mutual ways of it doing that. That happened within our living experience. And that is something we need to be intentional about not only picking up learning from replicating, but extending into a broader network. But, you know, is New York going to feed New York? No, you just don't have, you know, enough land to do that. But you can build relationships in your immediate environment to do so because that's where, that's what already exists, you know, up through the Hudson Valley and all that other kind of stuff. But we need a rearticulation of its intentionality. How do we combat racial capitalism's ideals of individuality and encourage connection and material resource sharing, mutual aid across groups of people and scarcity is socialized into us. I want to do a piece where that particular framework is actually challenged. And I mean racial capitalism. So I'll put that in for another piece because that's elements of that that that I, framework, that framework coming from from Cedricin Robinson, for those who don't know, largely borne out his book called Black Marxism for folks for getting citing sources, you know, to check out. I got some profound disagreements with that brother than his work. But that being said, you know, it's critical conduct that we make clear, you know, not that he didn't make any contributions. You know, I'm not saying that by no stretch of the imagination. But I think he also led her down. the fish and lead the bones, brother. Please for the last mile. We also have to avoid the pitfalls in the traps, Tony. That's why I'm- Fishing and lead the bones for the level of that. But in terms of the individuality and courage connection, right? That is a hard challenge. One of the hardest, you know, I often argue that the most successful thing about neoliberalism the last 40 years is this actual cultural impact. even more so than the effort at privatizing everything. Now, those two go together, but it's cultural impact. The creating, you know, breaking down society where, you know, the prophecy, if you want to call it, that Margaret Thatcher, where she said there is no such thing as society. They're just, you know, individuals and families. They've done a damn good job, at least in large parts of the West, and atomizing things. And we have to be very intentional about recreating collectors. And it starts, it varies small, but it has to start an aggregate. And that is where the struggles to build, you know, why, let me put it this way, just in the interest of time. There's a reason why we start with the mutual aid in social reproduction that deals specifically with your question rates, because we have to build trust amongst each other. Right? And we have to reconstruct the solidarity. We build that. And without that, you won't be able to build no relationships and none of this other stuff will even be remotely possible, right? It may be, you know, necessitated by the circumstances, but if folks don't see it and envision it and then, you know, work with the intentionality to create these types of relationships, we're going to fall short. And that is a critical piece. So we'll take that up a little bit more. I'm going to just stop there on that question in the interest of time since it's past our hour. But I can go on. want us to, timely. Well, I wanted to get to as many questions as people had as possible, and I may have, well, let's see, I've got that one. Did you get to everything you wanted to get to tonight? Of course not. But that's why we're breaking this out throughout the course of a series. So we will work to get there, you know, and, you know, you know, just tonight was just starting to frame some arguments, but I want to go into practical components. You know, that's what the, the meat of what I'm hoping to get with all of y'all, you know, encourage everybody is to tune in and to, you know, join us in this path in this course throughout the year and help to sharpen it up so we can get there. But there are practical steps that I'm hearing people, well, how do I do mutual aid? How do we do this? How do we do that? And we want to, you know, at least share from our experience of what we've been doing on how to do these things, and then collectively draw from everybody to then put that out. That's what we mean by the coal construction. Just going through a couple of comments real quick. Oh, this is a good one. So, yeah, one of the critical pieces, you know, one of the things I didn't get to, and I'll just state in short here that deals with this part of this question, right? you know, not that we could stop necessarily, you know, by doing things in a broad democratic manner. There is no safeguard of stopping liberals or even reactionaries from coming in and appropriating, you know, some of these frameworks. That is going to entail political struggle. And so there are a certain set of principles that we are, you know, encouraging folks that they that have to be a collier to this particular framework, right? And the critical piece, you know, it starts with anti-capitalist framework and upholding that. And within that, you then have to build upon or scaffold upon, you know, anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic, you know, pro-queer, pro-trans, all those different things that we have to be grounded upon. And it's not to limit like who could be involved. Because, you know, we need to struggle with people who come in with ideas that may not be affirming of everybody's humanity. We're going to have to do that. You know, like that's just where our people are at. How we embrace people in their difference and, you know, and be clear about at what point do you just say, hey, that's something that could live in this space because, you know, your behavior. behavior is oppressing other people, right, or limiting the life chances to somebody else. Like, that's real. We got to be real about that, you know, because, you know, fascism as is rude, there's the anti-life politics, right? It is premised on death as a means of social control, right? Or social death as a means of social control, right? both of them working and collared with each other. So there's some limits to what we can't withstand. But we have to be, I'm going to be real. We got to safeguard. are some elements of what we are articulating from liberals. Let's be real. Right? And their appropriation and within that, you know, there's there's a danger that we have about, you know, certain elements of collaboration with social democratic forces who want to tie this, you know, to like, you know, a certain types of vantage points with the Democratic Party. When this needs to mean, it be something that's totally independent of either of like the two, at least in the United States context, independent of either of those political forces in their particular strategic relationship and dependency upon capital. So we have to work outside of that. Now, that does not mean we're going to move this without capital. The question is, how do we do that, right, without succumbing to its dictatorship. And that is a very real challenge. And so we will articulate that, you know, more. And the start of our next piece to outline that they're very clearly in terms of, to put that in writing and what we're going to do with all of these is, you know, have little power points from here going forward to kind of break down some things that people can use and take. And, you know, however you want to translate that into your organization's work or community work, you know, people feel free. But we are going to make a strong argument around fighting against that reformism very concrete. So tonight was the introduction of the build and fight formula under practices of position. This is going to be monthly here on Black Liberation Media, on Ritwork, and on the Cooperative, Cooperation Jackson's YouTube channel Jackson Rising. It'll also, we'll also be working in conjunction with Rosa Clemente and her Disrupt the Chaos show available on her YouTube channel. The next session will be Tuesdays for the rest of the year. March 11th, mutual aid and social reproduction. April 8th, food sovereignty and land decommodification. May 13th, worker self organization. June, community production, July, social digital infrastructure. August, self-defense, September 2nd, People's Assembly and Planning Councils. That's under the practices of position, under practices of maneuver in October. We'll be talking about general strike. I saw someone in the comments asking about the U.A. W's call for general strike in 2028, democratizing the economy in November, and finally in December, dual power, and freeing the land. Let's see here. And I had asked you earlier also, you said that this build and fight formula is being done in partnership with other organizations, and those organizations are part of the People's Network for Land and Liberation. And if I'm not mistaken, community movement builders, of which Kamal Franklin, a co-founder of Black Liberation Media, is a part of that People's Network for Land and Liberation. Is that correct? That is correct. All right. So we, it is 515, I believe, in trying to ask, here to people's time, be respectful of people's time, as much as I possibly can. I know these folks in the chat would love to hang out here all night. That's by themselves anyway. They would really love to hang out here with you all night. I'm not going to do that, though. So any last words from you, Colleen? Yeah, I'm more, I just wanted to end, you know, with the critical piece around, you know, less organized for revolution, that crisis avoidance, y'all. And, you know, give this some serious thought and consideration. And I just want to, you know, leave in part with a little song of inspiration to fight against reformism, right? And the appeal towards moderation. which definitely is not the call of the age, right? And I want to leave you with a song I play sometimes for myself for inspiration. This is the whalers for Peter, Peter Tosh taking the lead. It's called burial and it's based upon his notion that, you know, rosters don't go to, no one barrel, let the dead bury the dead. So let's leave the capital system that it's leave it to its own ruins and let's build what we need to build together collectively. Right? With each other, we got a lot of, you know, issues and struggles to navigate, but we got to do it together. There is no other way. All right. So let's take a listen to this. Bob Marley and the Whaling Whaling Whal, you know as old if they say the Whaling Whalers. This is with Peter Tosh and Bunny. Is it Bunny Whaler? Was that his name? Bunny, that's right. Bunny Livingston, my man.