Tim Stevenson is a community organizer with Post Oil Solutions from Athens ([email protected]) and is the author of Resilience and Resistance: Building Sustainable Communities for a Post Oil Age (Green Writers Press), and Transformative Activism: A Values Revolution in Everyday Life in a Time of Societal Collapse (Apocryphile Press).
ATHENS-In his Feb. 7 column, Chris Hedges stated that because of "self-inflicted wounds, characteristic of all late empires," the American empire will collapse, "like a house of cards."
What is missing from what I consider to be an otherwise accurate statement about America's future prospects is the observation that this fate would certainly entail untold pain, suffering, and death for millions of us who weren't fortunate enough to have a privileged seat in Elon Musk's SpaceX, perhaps financed from all the money he stole from us by cancelling our Social Security and Medicaid, as he flew off to Mars with his oligarchic buddies.
This coup in progress has been brewing from the very beginning. Think 1619, genocide of Indigenous peoples, worker oppression and exploitation, and a U.S. Constitution that reflects white male supremacy.
What we today call fascism is more accurately understood as the final chapter of the class warfare that this ruling class has waged against the rest of us all along - the workers who created the nation's wealth that has been largely expropriated by the rich - in their efforts to establish absolute rule.
But because we have been gaslighted by capitalism with a democratic façade, embracing the illusion of freedom, justice, and equality for all, we never saw the dictatorship that was always lurking in the wings, ready to pounce.
As it is with false consciousness, in general, our blindness to our class reality has been compounded by embracing the myth that, in contrast to the Europeans with their snooty royalty and aristocracy, we are a classless society. We didn't understand that in order to be a truly democratic society, we had to act as empowered people who are the necessary agents for a society to be a truly functioning democracy.
The potential remedy for such a fundamental deficiency is the virtue of democratic community mutual care associations.
Today, our backs are against the wall - we have no choice but to accept the fact that we are on our own to take care of ourselves and do what is necessary for our well-being in the face of the collapsing climate and the Trump/Musk destruction of a government.
We cannot expect the petroleum CEOs to do the right thing or the politicians we elected to fulfill their sworn duty, because, as the primary operatives of our existential dilemma, our needs are not part of their agendas.
There is no one else but us.
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Ironically, it is this seemingly very bleak situation that contains not only the potential to provide us with the necessary survival wherewithal we ordinarily expect to receive from our corporate-political leaders. Out of necessity, it also presents the opportunity to address the root cause of our dilemma.
As the incomparable Rebecca Solnit tells us in her must-read book A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster, when people are in a catastrophic situation, we invariably exhibit the very best of ourselves, displaying our inherent potential for compassionate, generous, courageous, selfless integrity - essential not only to our survival, but also to any society that honors itself through its everyday relationships by exhibiting the values essential to a democracy.
As she goes on to write, we unfortunately don't retain this high level of virtuous being after the crisis has passed. We typically return to our old sloppy, distracted, careless, mindless, indifferent ways that significantly contributed to a collapsing climate, and a fully advertised dictatorship comes to power.
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Our situation is an unfolding catastrophe that bodes for a long emergency. Neither the long-term damage that has already been done by the Trump/Musk administration nor the unfolding catastrophe of the climate crisis will be repaired in the short-term future, as we usually expect with catastrophes.
Our virtuous potential that awakens our best selves at such times therefore remains a necessity; our situation represents a blessing in disguise as the necessary external urgency for our long-term growth and development to become habitually and spontaneously consistent (while still humanly imperfect) as the transformed people of heart we naturally are and truly desire to realize.
If for no other reason, because such behavior feels right - which, in turn, allows us to feel right about ourselves - we increasingly are in sync with the whole, empowered person we actually are.
This begins with mutual care associations.
By their nature, participants are open to the reality of their world and consistently acting on their inherent heart properties; hence, they are responsive to the well-being of the people in our community.
This combination - of being real about life as it is and being the people we naturally are - allows us to be of loving, effective service to others, attending responsibly to such matters as doing chores for those in need, protecting and defending our migrant neighbors, trans folks, people of color, women, and those of us on Social Security and Medicaid.
Mutual aid association participants also organize collective efforts around such necessities as community food, health care, education for our children, transportation, securing necessary services and goods, and providing community self-defense.
These groups not only try to render whatever is needed, but do so democratically so that a dialectic of mutuality and collaboration between all parties is established, obviating the usual power relationships found in charities, social service agencies, and government programs.
The folks involved decide and implement together whatever is done as an interdependent whole, so that in a very important sense, the receiver and giver are cared for in their own ways.
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These democratic relationships inform the way of the community as a whole come together to decide consensually what is best for the greater welfare of everyone. Because of its intentionally small size, we all have a voice that is listened to, and integrated into the collective wisdom that arises.
Along with communal activity around meaningful tasks, where the contribution of each is valued, empowerment emerges, and everyday democracy is actualized. Accompanying national strikes and mass demonstrations, mutual care associations are the ground-floor response to the coup.
Over time, as other similar communities develop, the possibility arises of coming together voluntarily as a confederation of independent entities to work on matters of mutual concern and benefit.
Through consensus - where all parties choose whether to participate in a proposed project or work with the group until common ground is found - a participatory regional democratic body reflects and is grounded in this culture.
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This presentation of a more complex subject can only suggest the kind of grassroots initiative that is so basic to resisting the Trump/Musk assault on our democracy.
I would be interested in starting a second group of a baker's dozen-size who could commit to meeting regularly as potential organizers of a mutual care group among their friends, family, comrades, or neighbors, in their communities, schools, churches, or workplaces. If so inclined, please contact me at [email protected].
This Voices Viewpoint was submitted to The Commons.
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