how
honestly the idea of starting an undergound leftist club is becoming increasingly attractive but i probably dont have the charisma needed lol
Every leftist club that exists is desperate for new members. Charisma is very much not required.
How do I find one local when I’ve searched (locality) + every leftist term I can think of? It’s a college town too. You’d think there would be something :sadness:
Even volunteering at the food shelf and meals on wheels is exclusively church people.
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I got lucky when I found my most successful org. I happened to be searching for them, or something like them, during a week where they happened to be hosting a major event. Any other week of the year and they would have been virtually un-googleable because no one had updated their main website in forever. After I joined I pointed this out - yes, yes, we’ll get around to it. But no, because there was always something else that seemed more pressing. I think they had a Facebook page, but for those of us who don’t fuck with Facebook it would have been pretty easy to not know they existed. And they / we were doing good work! It’s just, goddammit, if you’re out of the loop you’re really out of the loop.
So I would say, if you’re in a college town, take a look at the clubs listing on the campus website. There’ll be something activisty. If it’s nothing close to what you’re interested in, it’s still possible that they have members who’ve been part of coalitions, or who’ll have attended rallies and at least witnessed someone else passing out a flyer or something. You may get hit with some petty bullshit about why you should never go near them for fear of catching tankie cooties, or whatever, but you ought to hear something.
Another option would be labor unions. SEIU or AFSCME or your local teachers’ union (college or K-12) will probably have at least one member who’s active in a socialist group or can point you to someone who is, and if the union is putting on any kind of event (picket, educational meeting, May Day rally, anything) there ought to be a socialist group that’s helping out.
Maybe there’s nothing in your town after all, but you should at least get some contacts this way.
If you’re an undergrad that makes things much easier anyway. Join a few clubs related to stuff you’re already interested in, socializing more will build up your confidence then you can decide if you want to start a leftist club. Also, there’s probably several already on your campus, if your undergrad TAs are unionized you can try getting a job as a TA and start attending meetings there. There’s usually communists in most union meetings, even moreso for university student-worker unions.
