this is so rad josh, thanks for writing it! gonna get it linked to RUBARB's facebook page, as such words are crucial during these times.
hope things are going great at the new shop, can't wait to visit some day!
xoxo liz
On 2016-11-11 10:13, Josh Bisker wrote:Thanks for your kind words and support, everyone. In response, I've postedthis writing up on Medium, in a slightly edited/refined form. Thank youagain.https://medium.com/@joshbisker/what-the-trump-election-means-for-my-bike-co-op-69db69832a60#.1kkwz1qivOn Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 11:03 AM, Angel York <aniola@gmail.com> wrote:http://lists.bikecollectives.org/pipermail/thethinktank-bikecollectives.org/2016-November/thread.htmlOn Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 3:22 AM, Johnny Fill <johnny@bsbcoop.org> wrote:Beautiful, thank you for sharing this, I have shared it widely.Solidarity & positive wishes from all of us at Broken Spoke Bike Co-op.Josh, is this message online anywhere that we can link to it from oursocial media pages? If not, could we publish it as a blog post on our site?Ride on in peace & joy,JohnnyJohnny FillAdministrator & Lead MechanicBroken Spoke Bike Co-opwww.bsbcoop.org--On 09/11/2016 19:47, Josh Bisker wrote:This is a message I sent to the Mechanical Gardens. I'm passing it on toyou here. Feel free to repurpose. Love and strength and sorrow, everyone.Josh___________________This is a message of hope and strategy.Today we enter a broken future, and the dangers that now loom on thehorizon are too numerous to be counted and too massive to be properlyappraised. In consequence, we as the Mechanical Gardens now have atremendous responsibility. "We've got our work cut out for us," is a sayingthat's been in the air. Here's what I believe that looks like for us. Wemust make our co-op a place that actively opposes the agenda of hatred, anddefends and elevates women, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ folks, thedisabled, and the impoverished. We must become an organization thatembodies social mechanisms for achieving equity, safety, mutual aid,compassion, and environmental justice in our operations and outlook.This election is a disaster; its fallout will be far worse, snowballinginto a series of crises as the new government destroys the many social,cultural, and economic systems that people depend upon for life. For theMechanical Gardens, therefore, I submit that rather than asking "what canwe do to help people avoid the coming crisis," we approach our workslightly differently, asking: "what can we do in the co-op so that afterthese crises come, after the systems we depend on are undone, that groupsof people still know how to operate in ways that support their values andprovide safety for them?"This means that the soft stuff on our agenda -- like creating ourguidelines for decision-making, collective respect, and participation -- isthe most important work we have cut out for us, alongside our outreach tobring more people into the shop and the collective. These are everything.These are the seeds of a solid tomorrow that we tend and cultivate at theco-op, and that we entrust to everyone who comes in the door, so that theycan plant and foster them as well, no matter what calamity comes.How do we do this? We begin by training ourselves to articulate ourvalues and decide how to formally embed them in our cooperative structure,and deciding to informally embody them in our ways of being. Some of ourvalues stand alone; others will be informed by the risks we see to libertyand justice, such as the threats of persecution, discrimination, sexualexploitation, authoritarianism, police and mob brutality, landexploitation, the devaluing of science and reason, and the fracturing ofdemocratic institutions. We must decide how to value and embed compassion,equity, feminism, mutual aid, environmental sustainabilty, enfranchisement,reason, protection against persecution, safety, autonomy, responsibility,and respect into the bike co-op, both in the institution and in ourinteractions there.Bike stuff is important too! Mechanicship especially is critical to theoncoming era of climate calamity, with uncertain roads, settlementconditions, and gasoline access meaning that bikes become invaluable forbillions of devastated and displaced people worldwide. (General DIY skillsand self-confidence too.) But bikes here might be a vehicle to helping usempower ourselves and our communities to create thriving structures thatsupport their groups' values.This, I submit to you, is "our work." We have so much we can learn fromeach other in it. How to be listeners, how to be leaders, how to becommunity members. How to be strong, how to be nimble, how to collaborate.And how to work not out of fear but of love for each other, those aroundus, and those yet to come. These things are the seeds of the revolution weneed to prepare for.This has been a bad day, but I'm very happy to be doing this work withyou. The world is in trouble, and by coming together, we have found workthat will help people survive the dark times ahead.Josh____________________________________The ThinkTank mailing List<a href="http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.org" <http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.org>>Unsubscribe from this list</a>____________________________________The ThinkTank mailing List<a href="http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.org">Unsubscribe from this list</a>____________________________________The ThinkTank mailing List<a href="http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.org">Unsubscribe from this list</a>____________________________________The ThinkTank mailing List<ahref="http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.org">Unsubscribefrom this list</a>
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