This report from our friends at It'sGoingDown.org reports on the anarchist efforts to supply aid where the state didn't fill the needs of the people.
If we are sitting around waiting for gov't to save us, we are all gonna die.
I know you know that, dear reader, but please tell your friends.
https://itsgoingdown.org/mutual-aid-disaster-relief-tour-recap-Fall-2018/
From the story:
At the end of a long year, our second workshop tour is complete!
Over the course of three months, we worked our way from Albuquerque to San Diego, then north toward Seattle, and across the midwest into Wisconsin, making a total of 21 stops.
The MADR Network has only been around a couple years, and is mostly focused on supporting response efforts to hurricanes on the east and gulf coasts.
In traveling west, we wanted to understand the unique disasters that communities are facing, the lessons they’ve already learned, and explore how a grassroots network could carry resources, information, and stories across the so-called U.S.
When calamity strikes, it’s not uncommon for people to ask why the Red Cross has failed to help, leaving them to rely on those closest for support.
We say that the true first responders aren’t paramedics or fire crews – and they certainly aren’t the police.
They’re the people most directly impacted on the ground.
On tour, we emphasized cooperation and self-determination, rather than waiting for aid to swoop in from above.
If you missed us, plan to host a training in your hometown, or simply want to review our materials, please download and share the first draft of our evolving facilitator toolkit.
We’d love feedback on this!
Our workshops began by acknowledging disasters as much more than the acute catastrophes of climate chaos or sudden ruptures of infrastructure.
We live in the disasters of colonization and capitalism every day, and it’s these systemic disasters we spend our time responding to after the embers have gone cold or the waters clear.
Earth’s natural cycles aren’t the problem. The disaster is the way institutions capitalize from and create inequality.
It’s the power structure that holds a monopoly on aid, but refuses to distribute it to those in most dire need.