Please read the short essay, or just click the answers to these simple questions. You may need to *enable popups.
1. Which is NOT normally a function of good progressive clubs?
b. Making activities more effective
c. Providing a place for endless discussion and personal therapy
2. What is probably the best way to meet strong potential progressives?
b. Listen in on other people's conversations in public places
c. Get involved in the class struggle
3. How does writing for publications help form new clubs?
a. Published work establishes one's credentials in a good way
b. Good, truthful, helpful reports strengthen the movement everywhere
*If popups don't work when you click on the answers, you will probably get a yellow line across the top of your screen. Click on it and choose "temporarily enable popups."
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No Organization? Start One! |
The basic organizational unit of most progressive organizations is the club. It can have dozens of members or a few.
Clubs have advantages
One might think that they can be just as effective on their own as they could be in a club, but that's generally not the case. Club members get a chance to talk over their ideas before putting them into practice. Feedback from others can head off a lot of unnecessary mistakes. Club members tend to inspire one another.
Clubs end the all-pervasive isolation that every thinker feels within capitalist America. Whether we are aware of it or not, capitalism not only surrounds us in all our culture and social interactions, it actually sinks into our very bones! Total alienation is the norm under capitalism, because the last thing that our rulers want is for us to begin to get together. Being part of a club and meeting regularly with other thinking people is as refreshing as it is empowering!
What Does a Club Do?
- A club represents the movement in a given area or a given workplace
- Helps direct activities
- Collects dues or finds other financing.
- Solicit donations and sustainer pledges.
- Helps disseminate truthful and helpful information
- Builds the movement through recruitment
- Cooperates with other clubs
How Do We Start?
Gathering like-minded people might be a lot easier than one thinks. Polls have shown large and increasing segments of the American population moving toward socialism. Under capitalism, of course, they aren't likely to tell anybody until they are asked. Consequently, the number one strategy for getting other people to join a club is: ASK THEM!
You may already know some people in a targeted area, and they know others. You might even think of establishing a webinar.
Meeting with New People May Not be Easy for You
Even those of us who have been building the movement for decades may still have a difficult time going out to meet someone new. In these internet days, more and more people are joining, and somebody, probably you, has to make that first contact.
It's not a good idea to give out your personal information over the internet. People might not even be who they say they are and, in an extreme circumstance that hasn't come up yet to my knowledge, might be some kind of internet predators. Proceed with great caution..
- 1. Never tell strangers where you live.
- 2. try to set up live meetings, but be sure they are safe. I always try to meet people in the daytime
in public places, usually McDonald's - 3. the only immediate test of sincerity is to get people to pay dues. If they don't pay dues right away, be even more wary
- 4. Try to give people something to do right away, we get way too many talkers and not nearly enough doers. If people want to join for egotistical or even more suspicious reasons, they will fall away when asked to actually do something.
While an increasing number of people are joining over the internet, the best new members are still those that we meet within political struggles.
Join the Struggle
Don't wait to form a club. The best possible people for a new club are the people who are already active in struggles. They may be doing electoral work or assisting a union or other progressive organization. If you want to know them, and if you want them to know you, get started working for the benefit of the working class and its allies. After all, that's the point of it all, whether one has a club or is only trying to start one.
A good way to establish one's credentials is to start reporting regularly to publications, internet and social media. Get something published, if only a book review or a letter to the editor, then show it to other activists and seek their responses. You may have a club started before you know it!
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