Mutual Aid and Autonomous Disaster Relief Groups Mobilize in Wake of Hurricane Helene
itsgoingdown.org
A Category 4 storm, Hurricane Helene, one of the largest storms to hit the Gulf Coast in a century, collided into the Big Bend area of Northern Florida on Thursday, before moving into neighboring states of Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and the Carolinas. According to media reports, upwards of 60 people have already been confirmed...

Commies have always done this kind of thing, but it’s long been a core of Anarchist thought - Small affinity groups, ad hoc organizing, mutual aid networks within the decaying corpse of the state.

I’m not talking about nihilistic ecofash crap like “Desert” or whatever, but rather how to work in these small, nimble, and responsive groups and organizations. I think that as global warming rips nation states apart and capitalism continues to fuck everything this kind of organizing is going to be very important. There may not be an industrial proletariat to organize by mid century if global warming puts enough pressure on the world to cause widespread logistical and economic collapse.

I think that’s likely enough to merit serious consideration, including working out what communist organizing would look like, and how it would work, in a post free-trade, post-international just in time logistics world.

There’s that old story where an old man is walking down the beach after a storm. The storm has washed up thousands of starfish who are stranded now. The man sees a little girl throwing starfish back in to the ocean. He says “Why are you bothering, you can’t save all of them.” and without looking up the girl says “I can save this one” and hucks another starfish in to the surf. The man thinks about that for a second and then joins the girl in hurling starfish.

As global warming continues to worsen, as the neoliberal state continues to auto-cannibalize, all these disasters are going to add up. Things that are destroyed won’t be repaired. There will be knock-on effects as the collapse of infrastructure in one region accelerates the collapse in surrounding regions. Flexible, relatively small scale organizing groups doing on the ground relief, repairs, or even outright replacing infrastructure will likely be vital for the survival of many communities.

A lot of us are already involved in projects like this in one way or another. Pooling theory, personal experiences, and other resources to apply our dialectical magic to the problem can only make us stronger.