Welcome to Radical Routes - what's it all about?

Thanks Sean - I'm just this week getting on top of the data input from last weeks session, and here you are, no nag required!

Excellently put - I particularly grip on to "through co-operation we should be able to strengthen our networks and spread democratic organising throughout our daily existence rather than leaving politics just to the realm of the 'Political'. "

Hi folks, I’m the Loomio Helper Bot.

If you want to get the attention of a specific person in your group, type @ into the comment field, followed by their name :)

Here are some things you might want to try to get things under way:

• Set your profile picture
• Configure your email settings
• Introduce yourself to the group in the Welcome to Radical Routes - what's it all about? thread

If you’ve got any questions, the first place to check is the Loomio help manual.

Hi, Chris from Webarchitects here, we are an associate member of Radical Routes and are based in Sheffield.

I'm Cath from Cornerstone Housing Co-op and Footprint Workers co-op in Leeds. I'm on the publicity working group and am part of the Clause 5.1 & beyond subgroup.

Hi I'm Sean from BBF / Federici. This is what I wrote for the session we had last week on why i am in radical routes:

Why do I think Federici part of Radical Routes?

For me co-operation is something which can only be done within a broader political strategy – or it becomes siloed and self serving. The goals of our co-op Federici are to collectivise our experiences of our social reproduction so that they are easier to trudge though. Although we definitely don't achieve this fully I think that to attempt to do so outside of a broader political network would raise the questions of; why make our reproduction for capital more effective? And if we aren't going to organise ourselves from and with our co-operatives, what is the point in collectivising our housing? The answer of course is that through co-operation we should be able to strengthen our networks and spread democratic organising throughout our daily exsistance rather than leaving politics just to the realm of the 'Political'.

The way I see Revolutionary change happening is not through one sisemic event, rather an ongoing process of communisation – where the creation of democratic environments allows for some elements of commodification to be lessened, an ongoing process of changing social relations so that different ways of running society become materially possible. I think it's important to see Radical Routes as part of this process, as opposed to forward bases of revolutionary 'activism' from which we can organise a revolt, as this ideology can lead to a Leninism, or vanguardist separation from our class. Additionally we should steer away from seeing co-ops as prefigurative excersises in communism, as this again points to the idea of one big grand holiday, and places ourselves directly inside capitalism – when although we are subordinated by it's mechanisms often enough, we also can, and should break the rules!

Being part of Radical Routes is an opportunity to mutually support with, our time and effort, a network encouraging these sorts of experimentations and also to gain the means to do so, through financial support and technical know how from 25+ years of co-operation. I think also we want to be involved to change Radical Routes – no revolutionary strategy can be static and relveant, lots has changed in capitalism and house prices since the network has started and we should all be looking how to to expand and grow, and change our co-op models to confront capitalism in new ways, not to conserve the old ones.

Hello I'm Jonathan from Webarchitects, we are an associate member of Radical Route, based in Sheffield. I'm also in Principle 5 co-operative education resources group also in Sheffield, working to revive co-operative culture :)

Hi there, my name is Alastair (or Ali/Ally for short) - I'm one of the founding members of a future co-op in Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland called Lusan Co-Op, looking forward to attending the upcoming Radical Routes gathering in November.