how to organize on campus?, how to organize on campus?

At my college there is a real lack of radical politics, radical groups, and any revolutionary work on campus. I am trying to change that. I am trying to fill that void with a revolutionary organization. However I am new to organizing. In the spirit of Kasama I am trying to create an organization that is revolutionary and welcomes all different revolutionary ideological trends. So far I have created a flier trying to reach to radical students. I put the flier up all over several different buildings where classes are held. On the flier is a proxy email address which it encourages people to contact it. So far there are several people who seem interested. I was planing on waiting a little longer, then try and set up a meeting and then go from there. Since I am new to organizing I was wondering if anyone has any ideas as to what to do or what not to do? Any tips or helpful information on organizing? All the help I can get is appreciated, thanks.

I am in the process of attempting to do this as well, so let me give some ideas that I am trying to pursue and perhaps we can bounce off each other here.

As a jump off point, find something political that is an area of contention either on your campus or something that affects a good number of students. One of the issues that I plan on organizing around is ROTC on campus, for example. If you are at a public school, there is a lot to be learned from the current upheaval in the University of California school system, which is based around budget cuts to education and other social services. I'd check out the stuff Advance the Struggle is putting forward as an example of connecting revolutionary politics to student struggles. http://advancethestruggle.wordpress.com/

I'd also try and build ties with cultural groups where possible. Out here, for example, there is a certain radical bent to a lot of folks in Latino and Filipino cultural groups, and I think attempts should be made to engage with that as much as possible.

Another idea, which I haven't done yet but will be doing once my group gets approved by my school, is utilizing Facebook. While this seems obvious, there are a few ideas that you might not have thought of. One thing you can do is searching keywords, i.e. in the search field type "communism" or "socialism" or "revolutionary" etc. etc. and see who comes up in your network. These searches will look through information in their profiles, ranging from Political Views, Favorite Books, Favorite Quotes, and so on and see if those words are ever used. You can sometimes find radical folks on your campus just by doing that. Also, for very cheap, you can advertise your club as a Facebook group for very cheap; you can make it so like 100 people from your school will see your ad for only about $1 a day.

If you don't mind me asking, what school are you trying to organize at?

Thanks a lot for the input. I talked to someone in my Russian/Soviet history class who mentioned the flier. He said exactly what you said about finding something that people care deeply about and/or are effected by. My whole plan was to first try and find several radical students then working on politicizing other students and so on.

I think there really is some use for facebook. However looking for people with keywords like communism is harder than it sounds. I have tried it in the past with out much luck. If people are anything like me they dont post that stuff onto their profile for obvious reasons. Its worth trying again... even though i dont understand how everything on facebook works anymore(I hate when they change stuff up significantly).

I think what you said about building relationships with other organizations like Latino or Philippino groups is very important. I know at my school there is the black student union and the latino alliance. I think the finding things that directly affect students and working with other organizations is related or overlapping(if that makes sense). Oh, and I attend Columbia College Chicago. I have high hopes for potential propaganda at my school, considering its a liberal arts college.

Thanks again.

I think there is some value in rethinking the super-security mentality that a lot of us have or have had regarding posting our political views on social networking sites. I, for one, as well as a lot of others on Kasama, are very open about our politics on Facebook and regularly post articles and pro-communist stuff to our profiles. I don't deny that there is any risk in doing this; if there is ever an outbreak of revolutionary fervor in our lifetimes that threatens the state, I'd imagine they'd use the site to start a witch hunt against us (assuming it still exists!). However, how do we plan to touch peoples' hearts, influence their opinions and change their minds if we aren't present, as revolutionary communists, in every possible sphere of their lives? Of what value are we if we are seen out on the streets and then disappear from sight and discourse into our private lives? No, I feel we need to be far more drastic. We need to be revolutionary communists as often as possible, as vocally as possible, and be as omnipresent as possible. Otherwise we become this mystical, alien group of activists that nobody seems to know which, obviously, isn't good for our reputation among the people.

I agree with you completely. I am very open about my politics and even post links to pro-communist articles on facebook. However I am not sure about having Maoist or communist on my facebook under my politics. I used to have Marxist there, but now I don't have much about me on my profile at all. I am not worried so much about the feds as of now. However I am worried about it affecting me getting a job. When I again look for work over winter and summer break I don't want something like that stopping me from getting hired. Employers do check stuff like your facebook. Should I be concerned about that?

Just make is so only people that are your friends can see your profile, or only your friends and people in your university network. Employers shouldn't technically be able to see your profile then, only your name and your image. :-)

But regardless, I think most people that are communists do express that on their profile somewhere. It doesn't even have to be in one's Political Views, but maybe a quote by Lenin or something like that. Just search a bunch of stuff, i.e.:

Communism/communist
Socialism/socialist
Anarchism/anarchist
Revolution(ary)
Marx, Lenin, Mao, Trotsky, Gramsci, Black Panther, etc.
Names of books, authors, musicians, etc.

Will do! thanks again! Oh, and the fliers have gotten some responses, things look like they may turn out good! And if you don't mind me asking, how are your efforts going?

Awesome, post up the flier if you have it on your computer I'd love to check it out.

My efforts are sort of in limbo right now, because I'm waiting for club approval so I can actually set up a table and stuff in the main plaza... They kinda have their panties in a bunch about flyering without a recognized club to back you up. I've noticed some interest which is good, and I think there is a lot of potential at my school, but one of the obstacles is that there is a very large hippie-influenced contingent among those that consider themselves "left" and it'll be interesting to see if those people can be politicized further. This is my last year though so I need to act quickly to get this established.

And I'm at the University of San Francisco, by the way. I wish more people would reply to this thread, there are a lot of people around Kasama in Chicago that might be of more help to you. Add me on Facebook if you'd like; www.facebook.com/selucha.

http://picasaweb.google.com/CCCACUF/Untitl...850204560199506

I realize now wretched has a w in it. I am the worst speller and I got people to help me with the spelling but it still wasn't perfect. only the anti-capitalist united front part is red on the actual flier. That's because i found out color copies are $.49 instead of black and white copies which was $.09. I got a nice marker and colored in what had to be red, it worked really well and saved me a tone. This flier was trying to find radical students, I got a 3 responses, and they all seem really into the idea.

I have a similar deal at my school with groups. I cant hand out fliers or set up a stand anywhere on campus unless i have an official group. And you need like ten people and a bunch of paperwork, its a mess. But you can post stuff on the bulletin boards regardless. well some, there are some designated for students and some for certain departments, and some places people put fliers like stairwells. Usually students can get away with posting on any bulletin board regardless because there is so much crap there anyways.

You could try and find a way to get around all the administrative crap at your school. Maybe something like an electronic flier or something could work in your situation.

I'm open about my politics on Facebook, but I don't use my real name there either.

Some of us have bosses to worry about.

I've been trying to organize stuff on campus, creating a Workers Party on Campus branch. However other than like two successful film screenings not much happened (the last week of the Uni year has just finished). After much deep thinking on why this happened, I've made the following conclusions:

1. due to my youthful political naivety (I had just left high school) I got way too caught up in student union politics, which is far more liberal than revolutionary, and is completely irrelevant to the overall student body (3% vote in the student union elections). I've subsequently cut myself off from those self-important irrelevant hacks.
2. Political cowardice - decided to not burn the NZ flag in solidarity with the students in Wellington because I didn't want to be arrested, trespassed off the student union property (which shows how progressive the student union is) and possibly suspended from Uni. In retrospect this was wrong that I put all these things ahead of my political ideals, and if a bunch of shit had happened it would have been a good opportunity to organize around and get recruits from seeing the political commitment.
3. Failure to insert revolutionary politics into relevant student issues, the two quite successful meetings were film screenings of "Leila Khaled: Hijacker" and "Murder of Fred Hampton" which while having revolutionary significance don't have student significance.
4. Most of the radical activist students I know have gone with Socialist Aotearoa (A strange Auckland-only IST-affiliated "libertarian socialist" mish-mash of Green party voting Trotskyists and anarchists), so that option of taking advantage of a blank revolutiuonary slate isn't available.

I've got a good 4 months of holidays to come up with a decent solution to these problems. None of this is helped by the fact that Auckland University is an extremely politically apathetic campus. But Auckland Uni is also the most prominent New Zealand university, so if I actually managed to get something achieved I think it would have a positive overall impact. Luckily I have another 2-3 years of University to go..

A solution I've already come up with is that I'm organizing with a few anarchists and Socialist Aotearoa people a "revolutionary writers group" to contribute regular far left articles to the student magazine next year, since the editor who was elected is really open in terms of what political articles he'll allow (unlike this year who were close-minded liberal postmodernists)