Jeroen Robbe

P.S.: I feel you if this type of work feels too slow when the world around us is on fire. Yet we have to commit to doing it anyway. Laying the groundwork for deep change makes it less likely that we end up here again in a few years time. At least we'll be better prepared when the monsters reemerge!

Find an organization addressing an issue you care about deeply and join them. Or find some comrades and start something new. It takes all of us, in may different but aligned formations, to really make a difference and win.
#strategy #resistance #organizing

3️⃣balancing action/mobilizing with relationship building/organizing
4️⃣starting where people are, but not getting stuck there
5️⃣making space for healing, grieving as well as joy and hope
6️⃣building alliances across issues and space

Join organizations which invest in strategically building power for the long haul. How to identify such organizations? Here's a few indicators:
1️⃣committed to grassroots leadership development
2️⃣setting short-term and long-term objectives + a pathway between both

So true: one off mobilizations, short-lived protest camp sites or even short campaigns contribute to build movements as they show defiance and politicize new people, but the real task is in absorbing the momentum in efforts for long-term power building. That involves people joining organizations.

With everything happening, it's very normal to feel overwhelmed and start to panic. If you do, slow down. Find others. Come together. Share your fears AND your dreams. Cultivate active hope, while you also mourn. Take some more time. Reflect. Strategize. Organize. Only when you fight, you can win.

You don't need to love Bernie Sanders or even agree with many of his choices, to learn from his campaigns. So...
What's your narrative?
What are you building for the long haul?
How do you pick your battles?
Those questions are at the heart of any winning strategy.
#Organize #Resist #BuildPower

✨Combining a strong "no" with a "hell yeah"
No abstract policy plans, but concrete material wins that speak to people's needs and pain. Whether it's the "Green New Deal" or "Medicare for All", you don't just fight against something, you fight to actually win.

🎯strategic focus
Bernie knows you have to pick your fights. He is focusing his current efforts on those swing states that will be instrumental in changing the power balance. You can't do everything at once, so start to do what matters most.

🏗️ building scalable movement infrastructure
It is the main reason he could threaten the democratic establishment as an independent outsider, back in 2016. Decentralized organizing allowed him to scale up and gain momentum. Afterwards the engine of that campaign became the nonprofit "Our Revolution"

🗣️ a powerful counter narrative
Bernie doesn't shy away from picking the ideological battle that we need. There's a clear "us" and "them", a fundamental conflict between both, and a choice to make.

Bernie's back in the game! Bernie Sanders is a much better strategist than any formal leader of the Democratic Party. His approach has been rooted in:
🗣️ a powerful counter narrative
🏗️ building scalable movement infrastructure
🎯 strategic focus
✨ combining a strong "no" with a "hell yeah"

Myles Horton (Highlander): I like to think I have two eyes. I try to see with one eye where people are. If I can get hold of that, this is where I start. So I look at them with my other eye and say to myself, how do I start moving them to where I know they can be. #Strategy #Organizing #PeoplePower

Kwame Ture started off as a brilliant organizer with SNCC during the civil rights era. Afterwards he belonged to many organizations. In fact he never was without affiliation. He said: “I have not known any great person who did not belong to an organization”. Make sure you find yours to build power!

En het is al de 19de editie! Dankbaar voor iedereen die doorheen de jaren zo'n mooie katalysator voor actie en bewegingswerk is blijven voeden - voor korte of lange tijd.

2.Dh5 | Festival voor wereldversleutelaars Het jaarlijkse 2.Dh5 festival keert terug naar Amsterdam in de Ru Paré voor haar negentiende editie op 1 en 2 maart 2025. Meer dan ooit hebben we behoefte aan gemeenschap, steun en wederzijdse hulp.

Komend weekend in Amsterdam. Het 2.Dh5 festival is een plek om ideeën uit te wisselen over grass-roots campagnes, tactieken en actiemethodes die onze idealen van een vrije en solidaire samenleving dichterbij brengen. www.2dh5.nl

What's the first thing to do during dark times? Make sure to get in formation and find an organization that could serve as your political home. It doesn't need to be perfect, just good enough for now. Good enough to build community, to resist and to practice solidarity.
#Organizing #Resistance

Frederick Douglass: "All concessions (...) have been born of earnest struggle (...) Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
>>> The EU wants to put profit ahead again of people and planet. We better get in formation for another round of struggle to make them rethink

Freire: "The more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can transform it. (...) This person does not consider himself (...) the liberator of the oppressed; but (...) commit himself or herself (...) to fight at their side."

Because in order to break free, we will need to expand our movement beyond those people we feel comfortable aligning with. That requires us to listen deeply and to hold dear truth lightly enough, of course without losing sight of our core values.

Adbusting still gets the goods! #CreativeActivism #BeautifulTrouble #BillboardLiberation

🚨 Back to protest mode

Tomorrow, @ec.europa.eu will announce #Omnibus, but we've seen the leaked text: it's a direct assault on the EU sustainability framework & dramatic for the #CSDDD

It's not simplification, but full-scale deregulation designed to dismantle corporate accountability
#NoToOmnibus

But our silence will not protects us (channeling the spirit of Audre Lorde here). The longer we wait, the stronger the positions of the (far) right will get. Now is the time for organizations to volunteer to create spaces for reflection, coordination and strategizing = what we need to build power.

And organizations in turn need to get better at pooling resources and building coalitions. Just like no individual can do the work alone, no organization can either. In several places I see organizations starting to step up to the challenge, in others fear and hesitation hold back those that should.

The answer will depend on where you are based. In most places, there are organizations active doing part of this work. As the late organizer Kwame Ture always repeated: "everyone serious about change should join an organization." #JoinTheResistance #Organize

This is true for anyone anywhere involved in the fight for justice and against the far-right: you don't fight back the bullies by playing softball. We need to build power around a strong counter narrative, rooted in widely shared values. A narrative that envisions big wins for the many, not the few.

The current "slash-and-burn" deregulation efforts by the European Commission are part of a wider effort to overwhelm progressives and the broader civil society. Using the momentum of a shift towards the right (also in the European Parliament), it's a class war from above - against people and planet.

Cover of the book "Right Across The World" by John Feffer, describing the global networking of the far-right and the left response.

Excerpt from the book stressing how the new right despite their obsession with the nation-state has been increasingly active across borders, while progressives, despite their historic internationalism, are slow to respond to the transnational assault on democracy.

Elon Musk with a chainsaw on stage, together with Milei, the Argentinean president, on the conservative CPAC conference in February 2025.

Will the real internationalists please stand up? If the far-right outgrows the left in terms of international networking, then we have a real problem. While we need strong, locally anchored organizing efforts, let us invest in building more space for international solidarity and mutual learning too!

Humor en satire zijn effective wapens in de strijd met autoritaire regimes en de 1%. Ze laten ook toe om de strijd om het verhaal te voeren.
Fijn dat @vprotegenlicht.bsky.social enkele van de toppers in dit veld aan het woord laat.
#BeautifulTrouble #Hoax #CreativeActivism

Cool, thanks! And for who prefers to read, the text is also fully available to read online on the History is a Weapon website:
www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon2/peda...
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