A TRUE RADICAL! Given What Our Nation Is Sliding Into, Mutual Aid Is The Essential Radical Act
“Many people are suffering. So many more than I imagined. Quietly, just secretly, really suffering. ... Heat in the winter, it’s a human right.” -- The Woodsman
Illustration & column by Mark Taylor / DeMOCKracy.ink
No politician will rescue us. Given what’s coming, people need to put aside their political squabbles, find common ground and cause and look to help each other build compassionate, caring communities.
By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (1/11/24)
In 1934 American novelist Upton Sinclair published a book on his run for governor of California, with the awkward title “I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked”. Running in the midst of the crushing poverty and dislocation of the Great Depression, Lewis, a socialist, ran as a Democrat on a campaign of radical reform he called EPIC: “End Poverty in California”.
EPIC “…was a bold plan to end the Depression in California by taking over idle land and factories and turning them into citizen-owned cooperative ventures for the unemployed.” To his shock and surprise, the idea caught on with a desperate population. There was a spontaneous rise in a statewide network of hundreds of local “EPIC Clubs”, that elbowed aside the usual regurgitation of party hacks he was running against for the nomination. The EPIC clubs developed a number of creative ways of neighbor-helping-neighbor mutual aid, completely outside the normal exploitative capitalist model.
Ruling class freakout
Sinclair’s movement rattled the political and economic establishment. Freaking out at the revolutionary possibilities of Sinclair’s EPIC model taking hold, the banks, business networks and — most significantly — corporate media, led by oligarch Howard Hughes, jumped in to smear, slander and fear monger about a looming “communist” revolution. Of particular interest to me was that in those days, most newspapers had editorial cartoonists, who were sicced on Sinclair like a pack of coked up Chihuahuas. Lewis included a number of the cartoons in the book and a modern reprint features one on the front cover.
A critical lesson for today
Predictably — as today, so then — the power of money perverted the will of the people and Sinclair lost the election. But there are lessons from that campaign and his EPIC model of mutual aid we need to learn from and and bring forward at this time of crisis.
As is obvious to more people by the day, the con of the bipartisan political betrayal in this country is accelerating by the day…by the hour. On every marker from sprawling urban homeless encampments to falling life expectancy; lack of adequate healthcare and medical debt being the leading cause of bankruptcy, to the crippling effect of student debt and the inability of almost 40% of Americans to cover a $400 emergency the collapse of the country is more and more evident. The poor are collapsing into street life misery as many in the middle class tumble into debt bankruptcy and ruin.
As George Carlin called it out way back in 2005, “It’s called the American Dream because you’ve gotta’ be asleep to believe it.”
And neither political party cares a whit because both are wholly-owned Wall Street franchises. Republicans pout hate like meth head preachers while Democrats promise up modest changes, then run ‘em through a paper shredder the day after the election. The political system in this country is dead. Has been for at least 30 years.
Forget the damn politicians
No politician will rescue us. Given what’s coming, people need to put aside their political squabbles, find common ground and cause and look to help each other build compassionate, caring communities. We need to care for each other because our corrupted political process doesn’t give a crap for us. It’s time to step away from the Zoom pantomime of community. Face-to-face mutual aid and organizing is core to that and with war and social chaos on the way, more important than ever.
The following story from The Guardian (1/10/24) gives a powerful example of community mutual aid in the real world. Note how others joined with the woodsman to help in the effort, be that dropping off a spare can of chainsaw oil, or gift card for gasoline to coordinating donations. It’s significant that the woodsman has asked that his name not be published. His priorities are right: focusing on helping neighbors in need instead of self. Let him become all of us.
‘Soul-Warming’: The Mystery Man Who Chops Wood To Keep His Neighbors From Freezing
In the world’s wealthiest nation, some people freeze to death inside their homes.
By David Wallis
The Guardian (1/10/24)
On a chilly morning in Woodstock, New York, frozen dew turns lawns a glistening white as puffs of smoke from chimneys float across the road.
“Winter is here,” declares the woodsman, a broad-shouldered man in a black-and-gray checked wool shirt and navy denim Carhartt overalls as he sharpens his orange chainsaw. Hanging from his neck is a medallion that reads “St Christopher protect us”– a gift from a red-carpet-level comedian who once collaborated with him on a theater project.
The woodsman, who requested anonymity, is an accomplished director, writer and producer with several popular film and TV credits on his IMDb page. But he now devotes much of his time to supplying his struggling – and sometimes freezing – neighbors with free firewood.
For many Americans, warmth is just another unattainable luxury. In upstate New York, a woodsman is quietly easing the suffering.
Think of him as a cross between Paul Bunyan and Banksy. He delivers seasoned hardwoods like birch, oak and his favorite, maple (“burns hot, burns clean”) often to elderly people, the ill, or both. Though he is quick with a quip, his soft voice hardens when discussing America’s insufficient safety net: “Heat in the winter,” he said. “It’s a human right.”
The Woodstock area is known for its thriving art scene as well as its famous former and current residents, including Bob Dylan, Levon Helm, Uma Thurman and David Bowie. But poverty festers amid the wealth.
Quiet suffering
“Many people are suffering,” said the woodsman. “So many more than I imagined. Quietly, just secretly, really suffering.”
The numbers back him up. Almost half of the children in the local public school district are economically disadvantaged, meaning that they or their families receive government anti-poverty aid such as supplemental nutrition assistance program (Snap) or disability funds. Affordable housing is in short supply: there are only a handful of long-term rentals on Zillow in the 12498 zip code with an average price of nearly $4,000 per month.
A cord (128 cubic feet) of firewood, about enough fuel for a month or two, costs between $250 and $350 in Ulster county – up from about $200 before Covid. According to the low income home energy assistance program (Liheap), which distributes block grants to the states for heating and cooling subsidies, 18.6% of US households “kept their home at a temperature that felt unsafe or unhealthy for at least one month in the past year”.
And in the world’s wealthiest nation, some people freeze to death inside their homes.
This year, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Edward Markey and Representative Jamaal Bowman introduced ambitious (some might say doomed) legislation to bolster federal heating programs. The proposal would cap expenditures on energy at 3% of a household’s income, allow applicants for energy aid to “self-attest to eligibility criteria” and ban utilities from shutting off power or charging late fees.
For many Americans, warmth is just another unattainable luxury.
The woodsman has been an active activist for several years, helping refugees in Mexico stay in safe houses, distributing free masks during Covid and organizing voter registration drives with the Comedy Resistance, a non-profit organization.
He moved to upstate New York from Los Angeles a few years ago to look after his mother, who had cancer and then Covid. He stocked a paying stand, which operated on the honor system, outside his mother’s house with bundles of wood; she donated the proceeds to local charities. But some of the bundles of wood vanished. The thefts distressed the woodsman, who recalled that a friend “suggested that I put a sign out on the stand that says if you if you need wood to heat your home, but you don’t have the resources, just ask me and I will deliver”.
That conversation sparked the free firewood program. …
(David Wallis is the co-editor of Going for Broke: Living on the Edge in the World’s Richest Nation / Haymarket)
“But anyone can do something, right?” — The Woodsman
Faces From The Great Depression
Just came across this after posting. It is a poignant video presentation of photos from the Great Depression that have been colorized. In the process, the people come to life in a powerful way. Some of the children pictured may still be with us. What happened to that generation may well be repeating soon.
I'd never heard of Sinclair's political aspirations until now. Now it feels so depressing - how people are wasting their lives trying to make things better, just to be shanked by these corporations claiming to represent our interests.