I like the idea of being sustainable, growing your own food, and living naturally. I used to dream about starting a commune or homestead, but now I’m starting to think the idealization of it is petty bourgeois and part of the settler mindset. Starting some farm in the wilderness is very reminiscent of the western frontier, and the homestead act which I am myself a beneficiary of. We don’t need more socialists leaving society, we need more urban farming and an end to monoculture.
What do y’all think about it?
I’m not implying that we’re basement dwellers, but the fact is that even a factory worker in the US (which I once was) lives a sedentary lifestyle compared to countries where agriculture is extracted. If you ever do an accompaniment with a Zapatista family you will see just how built different they are from the hard work they need to do from childhood.
Edit to add more: This is a pattern most US internationals experience when going out to revolutionary projects like those in the YPG/YPJ, Chiapas, and all the other ones. You can take the most built westerner and they will crumble before a comrade the same age who grew up in the harsher conditions. I’ve seen a man in his prime with tree trunks for arms and abs that could break melons ask for constant breaks while the fairly average looking Zapatista comrades could go for the full 12 hours with only 2-3. It’s just what they’re used to.
Maybe. It’s just that my experience as a Westerners, working as a carpenter and in a steel mill for years, makes we wonder how God tier the Zapatistas must be. Doing 8-10 hours a day of manual labor in the West does something to your physique as well.
But maybe you’re right. I’ve never had the chance to meet the Zapatistas.
zapatistas specifically, yeah they’re built different
But for the people of a lot of countries ravaged by imperialism, I wonder somewhat if the idea that they have a higher tolerance or developed a higher tolerance over their lifetimes for grueling labor is a myth, perpetrated by survivorship bias.
Pretty easy to think of people who live in countries that are being economically attacked as industrious, unrealistically strong-willed people, when the more likely case is that everyone who can’t work to that degree, either mentally or physically, just fucking starved to death.
I don’t think people are often able to get used to the suffering, I think anyone who can’t get used to it just gets tossed into the pile of imperialism’s victims.
The sickening thing is that there are people who exist who would realize that and then just argue it’s “natural selection”. Social darwinists should be executed unironically
I highly recommend seeking an accompaniment if you’re ever able to, they’re good people.
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My connection there isn’t available right now but if you ask around there are people that would be happy to get you in-touch I’m sure. I don’t know what their COVID plan is right now though, it’s possible they might not be taking accompaniments still.
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I think on here or Hexbear you’re bound to run into somebody that knows somebody that might say something. If you’re interested in learning about Neozapatismo they have Autonomous Government textbooks you can find easily by searching and there’s a book I particularly liked called Autonomy is In Our Hearts.
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