Hello friend, how many of these organizations of yours that exist will accommodate me by masking?

My org masks in all indoor spaces and most outdoor ones. If an outdoor event is very well-ventilated and we don't initially plan on requiring masks, we will still require masks if anyone requests it and this can be done anonymously.

I’ll give you a hint, because I have actually barked up this tree, assuredly unlike you: it’s zero.

You are objectively incorrect. My org isn't even the only one in my area with this attitude towards masks, there are 3 that for sure do the same kind of thing.

Your words are just as hollow as your criticism, I have heard it all before. Come back when you have something actually materially substantial to offer.

I did offer something substantial, which is that essays into the void are counterproductive, they provide a false catharsis, and our projects require actually organizing other people, something that was notably neglected in the article posted. The two are related: the essay into the void distracts the person making it and provides a catharsis that tends to displace doing the aforementioned organizing. The 3 or so orgs in my area that regularly mask? We met with one another to coordinate this and make it easier to work in coalition. We have, accordingly, done irl work to agitate otg for policy change in governmental and non-governmental capacities as well as direct action to ensure materials are available for people to keep themselves safe and to connect capitalism to COVID neglect in a way that builda orgs and ongojng projects.

Like did you actually read any of this shit? That’s your call to action. Wear a mask! Distribute masks to your workers, and among your org! Filter the air! Accomodate those who can’t call off to attend events or risk showing up in person by holding virtual meetings, something we did for years that was very much possible and then just stopped!

Those are calls to individualistic action you could pull from any liberal pro-masker. This is not organizing and not a way to actually build power and achieve our shared goals. It may seem like I am splitting hairs, but I assumed it would be understood that calls to action means things like drawing people in to an organizing space, building lists, or even just raising funds for a left org so that their organized efforrts have cash. When you make agitprop for organizing, you generally use it for a strategic purpose that builds an org, an event, capacity for action, and so on. I did not even think of a call to action that is pure individualism.

With that said, neither the quoted passage nor the article actually call on anyone to do these things. There is not actually a call to action there. The closest it gets is at the very end where there is the typical "what must happen is..." statement that includes mask mandates. Which is not a call to action but a policy plank attached to no vehicle. This is another tendency of anemic Western leftist approaches. It does not make you or the author a bad person or anything, but it is counterproductive to give it any real value. It is not actually going to do anything positive but it will lead people to feel it is important work, and so they start doing the same and doing it over and over again thinking that spinning those wheels is getting somewhere.

All things very, very doable at an organizational and institutional level — strange how none of you who speak like this will do it or work to enact any policy to help accomplish any of it!

I have done that, actually. I don't want to doxx myself as I am not sure how common the policy outcomes were elsewhere, but I will say that we used a coalition to get tangible, material results.

Want to plug a group? None of them do any fucking action worth plugging in this context.

If you know what action is worth plugging and know how to organize with like-minded people, you could of course create an organization and plug that. I am not being snippy, I just want to repeat what our ability to effect change looks like. It is to get people together to learn and take action, with a panoply of tools at our disposal all based on mass (per various definitions) action. One example of using agitprop to actually do something is to plug an org so that those who are agitated by what is written can become personally engaged, join actions, and otherwise build power with us.

The closest is city mask blocs, and guess what? That’s also mentioned in the article, and it is a poor substitute to concrete institutional efforts, which, wow, is also mentioned within the piece!

Mentioning things is not plugging them for people to get involved. "Concrete institutional efforts" does not provide any onramp for someone that agrees with the author. They can think, "yeah that sounds nice" and then maybe Google a little to see if there is already a web presence for that in their area or something, but most people will just keep reading because there was no specific ask. These are the core tools of organizing, of getting people to actually do the things you believe need to be done. Requests must be directly, repeatedly, and strategically.

DSA, PSL, any of these big organizations in the US are not even at this level, which is the barest of bare minimums for addressing the primary contradiction of access in a world where COVID is still very much a threat. That is the point of the essay.

The DSA is a dysfunctional, liberal organization that has no rudder whatsoever and is dominated by chauvinists and constant grievances between members. I still sometimes point people to it because you can gain organizing skills there if you are picky about what you work on and because just being part of the wider community overcomes the greatest barrier to being a lifelong organizer. PSL has a silly line on masking under the pretense that it makes it difficult to connect with everyday people. Maybe if you were going after chuds it would, but we should not try to coddle chuds to agitate. So in that sense I agree. But what has my agreement accomplished? I already had that opinion. Most people don't even know what the DSA is, let alone PSL. Who is the audience and what are they supposed to do as a result of reading this?

Re: primary contradiction of access, I have no idea what that means. What dialectic is posited? What are the other contradictions of access to consider?

Currently, the exact same thing is happening at the institutional levels (from all sides) and the individual and organizational levels: nothing!

If we consider institutional levels to be liberal institutions, then yes, of course. Capitalists want normalization of the pandemic for various reasons. If you include left spaces, it is a mix where most are ableist and following liberals' lead while some do a pretty decent job, all things considered.

And instead of actually listening to these “calls to action”, you do this shit all of you love to do: you respond with a patronizing screed at me to get my boots on the ground and do something

It feels like you are implying that you are the author, as that is who I addressed. You may want to keep your hexbear account and the identity of the article's author distinct, even if the author's name is a pseudonym. InfoSec is undervalued. I will edit and delete this part of my comment if this is the case and you would like to similarly delete this portion of your comment for InfoSec reasons.

Anyways, I don't think your comment applies to me. Aside from therr not being calls to action in this essay, I do actually do irl work on this topic.

to “plug a name” of a nonexistent political organization

I did not tell you or anyone to do that.

speaking past all of us who are doing exactly this to deaf ears.

I don't understand what this means. The author is not doing the things I mentioned, the absense of which is my critique! I am not speaking past them and do not presume to even be talking to them, though the critiqur criticizes their approach. The actual audience of what I am saying is whoever happena to come across this ppst. This is the first time I have replied in this comment section. How could I be speaking past anyone? And why do you falsely assume I don't do any of this kind of work? This is not a productive way to engage with comrades. It is purely wasted energy in the defense of another waste of energy. Think of what else we could be doing.

Things I have done, we have done, that you and the rest of your cadre ignore to continue the outdated tactics of dead unions and political messaging from a hundred years ago or more.

Me and the rest of my cadre? What? You don't know anything about me, let alone what work I have done in this context. Please be more comradely in your responses.

Not a very dialectical approach!

What would be a dialectical approach? I have not set that bar up anywhere in this conversation, so I wonder at what you think it means.

What do you think you accomplish posting something like this, then, aside from making yourself look like a fool?

My goal would be to agitate people away from the false catharsis that dominates anemic and often counterproductive Western leftist patterns of thought.