Speaking from experience here. They have enough time. Most of them are completely politically uninvolved, but the ones who do know about politics are very frequently conservative, so i’m not entirely sure how to go about this.

It would make a lot of sense for rightwingers to mobilize the homeless and it probably won’t be as difficult considering homeless people get a huge amount of aid from churches.

  • gun@lemmy.ml
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    3 years ago

    This is why Marxists keep telling socialists to read theory and organize. I don’t want to come down too hard on you, but to my knowledge a successful mass action of homeless people, part of the lumpenproletariat, has never been seen, let alone an actual revolution. This is why socialists organize around the workers. Workers can go on strike and the elite of society must eventually hear their demands. They have no interest when lumpen protest, because why would they? What can a mass action of the lumpenprol do even if it could happen?

    Rightwingers don’t mobilize lumpenprol because they know better

    • homeless@lemmy.mlOP
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      3 years ago

      lumpenprol

      includes criminals. Criminals afaik have riots in prison to improve circumstances. Criminals are frequently (depending on region) recruited into firefighting forces. Mobilizing lumpenprol with other facets of society would help increase numbers.

      Gandhi mobilized some very poor people successfully.

      • gun@lemmy.ml
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        3 years ago

        No it doesn’t include criminals, it can’t. Because a criminal is someone who breaks the law, they can belong to any class. This includes ex big pharma exec Martin Shkreli, drug lords like Pablo Escobar, etc.

  • ghost_laptop@lemmy.ml
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    3 years ago

    I think there’s potential there, but it’s hard to ask people that can barely sustain their existence to spend time they could be using to earn money is a bit complicated, if there were some true promise of true economical compensation, maybe, but for that you need to expropriate some land which would never happen in the US because their military industry is too big, that generally happens like in countries with heavy levels of peasantry.

    • homeless@lemmy.mlOP
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      3 years ago

      expropriate some land

      This happened vaguely during blm with a police station. Mobilize the homeless and convince them they can stay in a police station, which would benefit somehow or something… not sure.

      A handful of homeless/very poor come out during protests already about housing rights or to increase welfare. At least 1 homeless guy i met goes out to every antimask protest. A lot of them go out to church services on sunday, even the church services that are not in a shelter.

      Or if a riot has like the promise of seizing a target again, that’s something. But i wouldnt recommend a riot.

      • ghost_laptop@lemmy.ml
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        3 years ago

        What about trying to promote some anti work shit on /r/homeless plus trying to create groups of like minded people who are in the same situation? It may be a better way to try to start something than in person.

        • homeless@lemmy.mlOP
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          3 years ago

          I think thats a good idea compared to in person. Unforunately, I largely agree with other posters here in that the average homeless person is too pre-occupied to have any kind of class consciousness, but online its easier to find the more class conscious individuals

    • homeless@lemmy.mlOP
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      3 years ago

      Unfortunately, from what i’ve seen, if the venue being seized has a lot of cigarettes, that would also maybe convince some homeless