How Hope Wins, eg: Solidarity with Haiti and the Black Alliance for Peace

Operation Hope
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Here is info on an international organization which I think we should make ourselves known as being in solidarity with; (Background & Rationalization — The Black Alliance for Peace). As we make our movements known explicitly as being in solidarity with organizations such as this (and others), then we have greater capacity to materially, politically, and spiritually support our shared movements when opportunities emerge.

For example, as I previously stated in @karadhe’s thread, if our movement in the US was already known as being in solidarity with Haitian sovereignty (among other efforts), then we would now have more influence on current Haitian events (among other events). Haiti is a good example because it shows how the US empire is weaker at the ends of its reach than it is here at the center of empire in our US. Had we already been better organized around solidarity with Haitian liberation, then in this current (potentially inflectionary) moment when our empire is losing peripheral control, we could have been (and may yet be) more supportive, and we could potentially improve (ie reduce) our US imperial imposition on Haiti; (and as we reduce empire, we increase space for the changes our peaceful political revolution entail).

Ultimately, this tactic of broadening and deepening shared solidarity is aligned with the dream and direction of MLK. Further, we can strategically plan to develop this tactic. We should explore opportunities to develop such solidarity prior to inflection point events (such as Haiti could now be), in order for our movement to be ready to help peel back the reach of empire. We should reduce empire in order to make political space for necessary intersectional lasting changes. To the extent we pre-emptively grow our solidarity over wider crisis bounds, (from Haitian liberation, Palestinian liberation, US unions, ecological crisis, economic rights, natural rights, human rights, spiritual crisis, health crisis, etc etc), to that extent the influence our shared solidarity has to leverage inflection points grows, (if not compounds). As empire must react to maintain control at inflectionary points, we hijack that compulsion into a systemic backfire by our being already in shared solidarity of resistance when and where our empire is weakest. We would be ready to respond and share further solidarity, rather than only react (or ignore). We would intentionally and actively accelerate imperial decline by using it’s systemic nature against itself in feedback loops which then supports our solidarity and exposes imperial illegitimacy when we so hijack imperial compulsion to persist.

This is a (proposed winning) strategic response opposite to divide and conquer; unite and liberate.

:turtle: :heart:

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This does not address urgent nor localized needs, because this is a longer term and wider bounded plan. It covers all imperial area, to compound the influence of solidarity, and to be in position for more and less predictable inflection points as they emerge. Shorter termed and narrower bounded issues would still be developed and included. This plan isn’t how we make fast nor specific change, rather it is for general lasting changes; (though, I would argue this plan produces potential for and empowerment of other plans of faster and narrower changes).

(And, I’m aware I’ve actually already too narrowly “defined” this plan. Think of this more as a description rather than definition, which is an extension of an approach applicable beyond even imperial context).

So, I would encourage us to find where we best fit, like near one’s passions, maybe on some specific issues, maybe around some skill sets. If we share this plan, we still need other such plans and works. We only need to keep a growing inclusivity in open mind, and open heart.

Lastly, I think we should also need some more dedicated work actually on developing this plan, especially on:
a) networking, organizing, and growing solidarity
b) contextually, how to turn solidarity into leverageable political influence (mindful of political liabilities)
c) plan where, when, and how to leverage specific and general inflections with influence
d) seek, share, and monitor potential inflection events and patterns
e) organize, strategize, iterate, critique, manage, (etc) this plan among contexts

Go team hope :turtle:

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I asked for a friend’s input, and here are some clarifications.

One can consider this “we” as a broad coalition initiating here (or there, like with MLK); and, also “we” as persistently emergent via selection pressures of social evolution in an environment shaped by the nature of imperial modes of operation. This “unite and liberate” is an emergent strategic response which intends to overcome “divide and conquer”. Further, for liberation our strategy recognizes the adaptive and systemic nature of our colonized contexts, and seeks to mindfully redirect the imperial nature into hijacked feedback mechanisms.

To reiterate the previous example of that, consider Haiti, and how better prepared we could have been for this predictable moment. If we organize and prepare, then as empire maintenances struggle, we can exploit imperial maintenance operations to draw attention and grow solidarity with said struggles, despite imperial maintenance. We could have prepared as a coalition to leverage influence over the administration on the Haitian issue, for when the inflectionary opportunity emerged. For instance, assuming Haiti colonization continues past this moment, we should maintain our Haitian solidarity knowing eventually the opportunity will reoccur, share our solidarity broadly (eg: with Palestine liberation) to wield compound influence, and then have shared history with which to exert influence, ideally on an array of already identified levers (eg:“uncommitted”), intended to further our shared liberation from empire on the Haitian (and all) front(s). This is a vastly different dynamic than we are now in, where we are mostly unprepared to support our shared struggle at the moment when the Haitian front is ripe for liberation. We should recognize all imperial aspects will eventually be the ripe front, and so we should deepen such a broad solidarity over time, to ultimately share liberation.

We should organize around how this method can accelerate the decline of imperial power, which ultimately would improve the potentials across intersectional domains. (For instance, our US military requires vast fossil carbons, and until the military is reduced it will see any potential reduction in fossil carbon availability as a threat, and neutralize it; thus our climate crisis can hardly be addressed unless the intersection with US empire is addressed).

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TYT recently made a great segment on Haiti. Let me focus on the last question of what our US could do. The response was to support vast infrastructure projects, and sovereignty.

The first reason to focus there is because, exactly that type of international infrastructure project would be an excellent policy agenda for our movement. In another thread on the topics of economics and society, we’ve explored the ecologically informed need for our transformational vision of global infrastructure and economics. Consider how the US dollar is the world reserve currency; this type of global financial dominance which our US has (internalized submission to and often forcibly) imposed on other nations fundamentally prevents the possibility of basic financial sovereignty, let alone the following policy space, including especially proper infrastructure investments. This intersection of ecology and economics is critical.

As was previously discussed, (again in that previously linked thread), geopolitical dynamics are such that even a nation which still has sufficient financial sovereignty (to enable space for sustainable policy) is yet still prevented from ecologically necessary economic adaptation by the expected security threats such would entail exposure to. Our own US sustainable transition would require a foreign policy aspect which addresses such concerns, in order for our US transition to not be pre-emptively too risky to be feasible. Such US internal sustainability policy so tied to foreign policy could then lead, coordinate, and support international sustainability transition policy.

With all that in mind, while the dominance of US dollar as global reserve currency is problematic to say the least, it still could be utilized for such an international sustainable transition, (rather than prevent it). For instance, our Green New Deal type agenda could be an international policy (since it would necessarily require international risk mitigation to even be feasible anyway, assuming it includes phases of transition to an ultimately actually sustainable economy), and so it could incorporate further international aspects such as financial and material support for infrastructure projects, including in Haiti, and perhaps even framed (or at least implied in subtext) as reparations regarding the climate crisis our US is largely responsible for.

Obviously we won’t get all this put together at once, (and potentially the US dollar global financial dominance would fail before hand, which of course would then change financing options). However, aspects of all these issues are so intertwined that they require simultaneous development and broad coordination.

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Which leads to the second reason for focusing on @cenkuygur’s final question in that segment; it was framed as what our US should do, rather than what our movement should do. Clearly so much necessity and detail are not near US political consciousness, yet. But since our movement is not contained to only the US we should better organize transnationally to develop such types of plans so that when opportunities arise we have on hand something to guide the directions we move our respective and collective politics towards, with intentional and explicit grass roots cohesion and solidarity.

If we had some draft of international GND type priorities/policies/alliance/treaty/etc, then we could pressure our governments with clearer directions in a better coordinated and more effective manner. And rather than rely on official (read: incapable) international institutions of such negotiation, we could support and develop international progressive (and inclusive) coordination, likely starting with many already existing organizations of similar spirit, (such as, I suspect, the Black Alliance for Peace).

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Lastly for now, I mentioned earlier our thread on economics and society, and there I posted this comment, which features a podcast episode speaking to the types of plans I explored in this thread (and in that thread).

Especially, by the way, how our global organizing for development and sovereignty of the global south is great even for US internal political agenda, because it undermines the ability for global capital to benefit from exporting US jobs.

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This video speaks to some of the economic dynamics and solutions we’re talking about here; (despite the pro China bias of some points made).

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Here is another example of opportunity for potential solidarity with growing anti-colonial movements.

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Here is a recent podcast episode which very well summarizes the Haitian historical context:

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So to me it seems a bit simple really it is all about force of will. We give aid that goes to a government. This government and the country has historic corruption much from vestigial trauma of being colonized and recolonized. The status quo is the illegal arms trade from the US fuels the gang violence.

I am not familiar with Black Alliance for Peace. I read their wiki and they seem like they could make a good leaders here.

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Below is an interesting discussion on wider imperial crises, like by being stretched thin around the globe:

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This is really interesting. It’s like just when you think it’s going to break, it does, but not necessarily in the way you think. Sometimes things have to crumble to build something truly sustainable and autonomous.

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Yeah, these things are difficult to predict…

For instance, climate change is a threat-multiplier, since it multiplies threats to empire by empowering expectable threats, but also by enabling less expectable threats. And climate change is only a narrow example of all the threat-multipliers empowered by our metacrisis more broadly. (If climate change is threat multiplication, then) the metacrisis is threat exponentiation, since it multiplies threat-multipliers. Further, the metacrisis is similar (even fractal), in how it also enables and empowers more and less expectable multipliers. Together, (the more and less expectable threat-multiplication, exponentiated more and less expectably again), destabilizes complex systems (intertwined with our inverted totalitarian empire) in fundamentally chaotic ways.

Thinking about this, I’ve thought of an illustration simplifying how the metacrisis affects subjective threats in relative terms…

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Here I show, (even despite our continuing to learn and share about all the issues we need to change), the space of things we need to learn and share is increasing faster than the space of things we do learn and share, (due in part to mindless imperial military and colonial operations, and other socio-cultural patterns). In other words, even the known known threats are increasing, just they are increasing at a slower rate, and thus are proportionally shrinking relative to the unknown unknown / less expectable crisis. We each have our own expertise we learn and share, but how can we each learn and share from others well enough to better know what more we each can and ought to learn and share, in order to improve how and what we organize to do? Organizing such social integration is increasingly driving me.

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My point with that reply is to respond to your point about building something sustainable (ie anti-imperial). We are mostly still deconstructing the crumbling foundations from within disparate imperial dungeon cells, seeking solid and sustainable liberation. But if we take too long to dismantle and escape our imperial modes of imprisoning ourselves, then we might find outside our dungeon that all we have to work with is an imperially desecrated environmental foundation of mostly sand, salt, and ash. And while we here at TYT are obvious working together, it is like we are only on one dungeon level, talking through our cages, digging at our walls, while other dungeon levels dig at their walls; if we could better integrate and coordinate, then we may work through the floors and ceiling (eg, state/national borders, media bubbles, expertise disciplines, disagreements, one’s own internal contradictions, etc) which could then allow us access to each other (and one’s self) better, whereby we might better organize and actualize our collective efforts.

More simply, rather than: [ 100 prisoners each digging 100 tunnels through 100 feet of earth ], instead we (at TYT) are now; [ 10 prisoners in 1 dungeon level working together on our 1 tunnel through 100 feet of earth, while 10 more dungeon levels each duplicate their own 100 foot tunnels ], and I’m arguing (in this thread) why and how; [ we 10 prisoners might dig through 1 foot of floor to get with the dungeon levels below us, and we keep going until a good proportion of all 100 prisoners can together dig 1 tunnel through 100 feet of earth ].

Though as a metaphor this is lacking, especially since I’m not really saying we should concentrate on one real world issue, rather, that the metacrisis is everywhere, especially so where there is imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, racism, fundamentalism, etc. We can each better work in our groups’ settings by integrating across settings and groups, since how each issue needs our works is partly defined by the details of other issues upon which others work. And especially, without integrating, then our works are most likely to be misguided, adversarial, and counterproductive, (given the outpacing of increasing and chaotic complex hazards we share, and produce).

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I understand what you’re saying (I think at least for the most part). We need the power of people working together on a common goal and related goals. Do you see it as something like this; some people try to get the word out in general; with others focusing on the role corporations play in adding waste to our landfills, and maybe others focus on how this affects the inland water systems and aquifers; then others can focus on the affect on oceans, glaciers, and weather changes? (Just as examples.)

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Yes, a bit like that; those are great examples. :turtle: But also, each of these focal points, (which emergently are already focused on), are often not explicitly interrelationally informing and integrating each other’s organizations, altogether; and even when and where we are collaborating across organizations, we don’t necessarily do it well enough.

Like in the previously linked discussion in this thread, (where they speak of empire being drawn thin across all the concrete disparately-organized efforts towards escaping various settings of imperialism/colonialism/etc.), each of the discussed disparate organized efforts may not coordinate as well as they could, if at all. For instance, back to the initial example for this thread, the Haitian liberation organizations could be more effective if they were coordinated with all other liberation efforts, internationally, (such as in Palestine, as well as our own efforts here at TYT where we might work to escape our self-imperialism from within our heart of US empire); and more broadly, they would benefit from coordinating with organized efforts for other (perhaps seemingly disparate) objectives, like populist economic prosperity, feminist theory, ecological crisis, critical race theory, etc.

As is, some of all of such organized efforts are composed of a wide array of members, only some of whom are individually so mindfully cross-objective integrated; (for instance, I might think of myself as practicing being such a member of our efforts here at TYT). These organizations stand to gain by (and I would argue actually need to) explicitly internalize such integration and project solidarity across issue sets, to better affect their organizations’ own (seemingly disparate) objectives, (as well as our broader shared if seemingly disparate objectives of other organizations). That again, rather than each organization having widely integrated members inform their disparate organizations, disparate organizations need to themselves widely integrate with shared organizational structures, in order to benefit as much as they could from such members.

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(maybe check out this related topic thread)
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Of course, an issue here is that individual members of such organizations can’t all be individually available to invest the effort to become such integrated/generalized experts, and, some members are actually personally opposed to other organizations which their organization ideally should explicitly integrate with; which could lead to (perhaps typical) leftist infighting, but ideally could be also integrated and overcome, given there are valid bases for disagreements to be compromised / synthesized / hedged. Not so integrating inhibits organizations from their/our potential effectiveness. Another issue is, as @cenkuygur has pointed out on the show, each organization (mindfully) does not have a good idea of what we could/should/would do to help each other organization, together; let alone, even if we knew what to do, we don’t know the how-then-to-do-it next step, (which I might think is more or less actually a single step process).

I’ve been thinking about, basically, organizing a network of organizations. Like, let us here at TYT do what we do, and also, have part of what we do be to network with an organization which further networks with all the organizations doing what they each do. Then, this shared organization of general-experts could work to integrate, (for examples), how Haitian liberation organizes themselves, with how we at TYT organize ourselves, with also, feminist praxis organizations, economic praxis organizations, ecological praxis organizations, etc. By working so broadly, such an organization-network could critically propose answers to questions such as those Cenk posed, and help to integrate potential answers and feedback across each relevant organization, in order to ultimately improve all organizations’ effectiveness.

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I agree completely! There has to, in a sense, be a kind of throughline. There are so many necessary causes and organizations that it often becomes an understandable if not unfortunately futile game of trauma competition, impatience, and falling for the zero-sum fallacy. I think that is often why third-party candidates do not bode well, especially in our corporately corrupted system. There are so many groups that, rather than fighting together towards a larger common goal, splinter off and try to win the game by showing their side is somehow more deserving, right, and able. If everyone worked together as interconnected pieces of a unified whole, I would imagine a lot more progress would result. (Is that kind of what you mean? It’s late, I have a bleeding ulcer, and I suffered through the Presidential Debate earlier, so my brain feels a little worse for the wear. :joy:)

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Yeah! Lots of groups have ideas of what to do, maybe how to do it, and why, etc., but they may conflict with other similar (and dissimilar) groups’ interests. If they would hash out differences in their perspectives, and integrate well enough throughout and in-between each group, then they might find their common ground from which to work together. Of course they may also find limits of agreement, but then could still keep in mind that they might find a way to hedge against the concerns that they don’t mostly share. Without such mindful and cooperative integration, those differences could instead just lead groups to otherwise-mitigated, wasteful, and unnecessary adversarial relations.

Even and especially populist right wing groups should ideally also be included in this social integration. Then we might work through many things we could agree to come together on, (like political and economic corruption), and hopefully we would also find ways to better understand and cooperate around remaining differences.

Another aspect to all this is, I don’t really expect to reach absolutely every group; but, still, this type of thing could reach significantly, and what influence it does manage to have would spill over into broader society. Like, maybe we find an organization influential among independents or moderates or whatever; even if we didn’t directly reach integration with all such positioned organizations, getting a critical mass of integration among groups representative of such perspectives would organically affect their larger cohort. For hypothetical example, a moderate policy organization could directly learn and integrate some aspects of why and how progressive economic policy works, (not to mention, progressive policy organizations could similarly learn as well); and when such a moderately positioned organization integrates such progressive perspectives, then other similarly aligned moderate organizations (their in-group) have a good chance to also be similarly influenced indirectly, (especially since they may not necessarily feel like being drawn into in-vs-out group patterns of being).

Thanks for your attention and input; it has been very helpful to get all such nuance fleshed out more clearly. Hopefully others can now more easily see these points, and feel free to poke at holes in it for us to better fill together. Rest well my friend :turtle:

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The follow discussion is on the psychological transition, and they tie it in with a type of networking we’ve discussed here. One interesting point they bring in towards the end of their discussion is that the group of institutional elites informing and following decision makers may be a priority target audience for integrating how and why we need to change.

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