Yotam Maron has a good piece on Occupy Sandy and turning community organizing in response to a crisis into organizing to produce proactive policy solutions that we need. It’s definitely worth reading.

Community-based organizing around mutual aid creates a tremendous opportunity to move people affected by crises to a new political viewpoint that is informed both by what happened to them and by who and how they were aided in response. That’s why organizing victims of bank greed in the foreclosure crisis and fossil fuel company greed in the climate crisis makes so much sense. Finance capital and the fossil fuel industry are two of the most powerful sectors in our country and the world. We will only be able to shift power from these few massive corporations to people in a democratic way when opportunities to organize and provide aid are seized in moments of crisis. Think of it like a reverse shock doctrine.