hex on Nostr: This is another reminder that disaster preparedness is the most valuable thing to ...

This is another reminder that disaster preparedness is the most valuable thing to focus on now and as long as the polycrisis of late stage capitalism continues. There are a number of reasons for this.

The state is always weakest in times of crisis. The more authoritarian the state, the less competently it handles disaster. The *most* effective organizational structure for handling disasters is egalitarian mutual aid. Disaster is defined by large amounts of information that needs to be processed quickly. Each level of hierarchy decreases communication bandwidth by at least half and creates bottlenecks around authority figures. This leads hierarchy to get stuck in turbo-paralysis. Meanwhile, non-hierarchal organizing completely skips this problem, allowing those with the most context on a situation to make the best decision with the information available. Peer-to-peer information sharing and distributed, leaderless networks are far more effective. Disasters present opportunities to demonstrate how anarchism not only works in practice, but works even when hierarchy completely fails.

Here at the end of capitalism, we are surrounded by crises that the state and capitalism are incapable of addressing. Not only does state/capitalism fail to address these problems, but it causes basically all of them and then expatriates the impact. As the crisis continues to compound towards a societal collapse singularity, the need for egalitarian organizing only grows.

There are no shortage of crises, and organizing for one can often help with others. In the Pacific Northwest, we organized disaster prep around the fire and smoke season. We put together information on building air filters. We stockpiled n95 masks. A few years later when the pandemic hit, we had masks to donate to hospitals and houseless folks again. We had air filters all ready to go.

In the event of a crisis there could be mass displacement. If you want to know what that looks like, look at a houseless camp today. If you organize to support a camp as though it were people displaced by a natural disaster (instead of a human one), you would be building all the skills you need and would be able to plan to scale in the case of a larger disaster.

In the case of a natural disaster, people will need medication, including hormones. This is also what people will need as the medical system is torn apart and as trans healthcare becomes illegal.

During Katrina, far right militas organized to raid and attack people. Community defense, including armed defense, is critical to keeping people safe from right wing "preppers." While we are preparing to keep as many people alive as possible, they have only bought ammo and have nothing to offer but terror and an armed savior fantasy.

Organizing for natural disasters is a plausibly deniable way to organize against human made disasters as well. Keep this in mind, as plausible deniability is a key part of survival under fascism as you never know what perfectly sensible thing might become illegal.

You can start today by looking at the existing landscape, threat modeling, and figuring out what actions you can take today. Start with making sure you have supplies: food, fresh water, a camp stove, possibly a tent. Once you have a kit for yourself, help other comrades build theirs. From there, plan how you can help others. Understand what organizations already exist in the community. Get a ham radio license and learn how to use it. Whatever you do, make sure it's rooted in what actually can happen (or is currently happening) in your area.

The most important thing, more important than any supplies or gear or anything, is community. Just the act of talking to other people makes you more prepared. If something happens to your house and all of your supplies, one of the folks you're organizing with maybe able to help you... And that's the difference between leftist prepping and right wing prepping. One actually helps you prepare.

#uspol