The Importance of Political Involvement
Each and every day we wake up in our local communities and interact with the world around us. A frequent sentiment in this day and age, especially in the often targeted furry community, is that politics is a beast not to be reckoned with. Either the political elite are too corrupt or powerful to exact any change, your democratic system is highly broken and your votes aren't represented, politics is too much to get involved with because you're too busy in the rest of your life, and so on. This belief is, unfortunately, a tool co-opted and exploited by the capitalist elite. If they take away your power or say, relegate you to a disenfranchised position, and convince you that there is nothing you can personally do to enact change, then they can keep you subservient to their abusive exploitation.
Political action is no easy feat, especially when fighting for communism and furry issues, but it can still be much easier than you think. Getting involved in your local politics can help organize our labor movement into collectives that can change the system, by force if necessary. We often lie down in the face of a government's sheer power, but what many forget is that the government only has that power through the legitimacy provided by the people. If we stand up to capitalist tyranny, and commit to our resolve, we can overcome the system. The first step to standing up is to get involved. Locate your nearest Marxist party, look into their philosophy. If you agree, attend a meeting. Most political parties host free meetings, and you can attend and see if it's a party you'd like to join. There are small local parties, larger provisional ones, and even larger national ones in most countries that permit party politics. Find the one best suited to you, it's as easy as attending meetings or subscribing to a newsletter like this one. Your support of a Marxist party is one less support for the capitalist system.
Many parties fight for things from a national scale, such as worker rights, but also get involved locally at town hall meetings and in public works projects. If you're interested in getting more involved than just attending meetings, this would be an excellent way for you to engage in your community and feel the tangible benefits of the change you are creating. Organizing into a popular front starts with local party involvement, and moves into cohesive Marxist movements coordinated between those local parties or branches. It's imperative we implore ourselves and those around us to get involved in that process.
Overcoming the capitalist elite is no easy task, and in many places the threat of persecution exists for us Marxists. However, that is all the more reason to fight back, to join opposition parties, to fight for our neighbors who can't fight for themselves for one reason or another. Refraining from political involvement is a choice that isn't merely an abstention, but complicity in the capitalist system's continued existence. It can be easy to neglect our duty to defend our neighbors when the political atmosphere does not directly affect us, or if the propaganda against entry into the system is too great (as seen in the two-party regime in the US). We must not neglect our duties, we must fight, and we must get involved.
Is getting involved with political parties too difficult for you? Is it too daunting? Then act on other avenues. We're furries, we have the benefit of our anonymity. Submit a newsletter to FurInform, join a groupchat or forum online of leftist individuals, start your own newsletter or social media account, challenge your friends and family around you to question the capitalist system, volunteer at your local homeless shelter, volunteer in your community to build local projects such as community gardens, join non-political groups that foster senses of community beyond political affiliations and bring up topics that affect you and your neighbors. There is so much that can be done to help improve our everyday living conditions, and to dismantle the capitalist regimes around the world. All it takes is that first step.
Seek out your local parties, be the change you wish to see in the world. Advocate for your neighbors just as you wish them to do for you. Abandon the hyper-individualism propagandized by capitalism. And most importantly, fight to end capitalism. The cause needs you, and you need the cause.
FurInform is dedicated to encouraging and educating on how to get involved in your local community and in politics at large, and take back the agency you have been robbed of. This is an introduction to the topic, so make sure you stick around for our future newsletters that go into greater detail about these crucial steps to facilitate the destruction of capitalism. We are all a team, we should all look out for each other. Keep up the good work comrades, and you'll be surprised how much agency you really have.
In Solidarity,
FurInform
