Page 7: Recruitment, Dragons, Media and More.

I CANNOT OVERSTATE THE IMPORTANCE OF RECRUITMENT.

Get each member to gift $5 a week so you can print out thousands of flyers- and leave them all over the place. Each flyer should use a half-sheet of paper to save resources. Voraciously promote your assembly, and share the local facebook group/youtube playlist so they can learn more. Interested people will request to join the group and boom, you’ve got a new member.

We want each member to recruit at least one new person a month, not just the “recruitment” PoC. If your group commits to this, the amount of growth you can create in a short period of time will be astounding.

Month 1 - 12 members: Just starting out, getting settled and getting your project teams sorted out.

Month 2 - 24 members: Your project teams are almost ready and you’ve begun approaching people with your vision.

Month 3 - 48 members: Project teams completed, you are now ready to begin.

Month 4 – 100 members: Your core hybrid group is complete, and filled with a diverse skill set.

Month 5 - 200 members

Month 6 – 400 members: At this stage, most of your service-based needs can be met within the group and you’re starting to have some effect on the local economy. You enter your rapid growth phase. This phase is make it or break it- pull it off, and your success is guaranteed. Fail, and your group will plateau somewhere between 200 and 400 for good.

Being successful requires every tool at your disposal to get the word out, even if it means you become a “walking billboard”. In other words, wear a custom solidarity t-shirt which reads “I WORK 20 HOURS A WEEK AND LIVE FOR FREE Ask me!”

Month 7 – 800 members

Month 8 – 1600 members

Month 9 – 3200 members

Month 10- 6400 members

Month 11 – 12800 members

Month 12- 25600 members

There you have it. In less than a year, you can convert an entire mid-sized town of 100,000 to Contributism. Long before you reach Month 12, other businesses will be forced to adapt or close, speeding transition. As more people become unemployed, they can join your group which accelerates the process.

Imagine 25000 people living the hybrid lifestyle in your town. Imagine two of them sharing a car and selling the extra- that’s 12,000 cars off the road. Imagine the hundreds of dollars being saved monthly by members sharing apartments, homes, cars etc.. All that money can go towards community projects.

This needs to be a coordinated operation. More and more assemblies pop up in neighboring towns, starting the process all over again. As they grow during year 2, millions of people come on board.

That’s millions of people waking up by watching RBE videos on youtube.

Millions of people not shopping at stores owned by big corporations.

Millions of people growing an abundance of food or supporting local farmers who do.

Millions of people who refuse to work at jobs they don’t like.

Millions of people sharing golf clubs, tennis rackets, lawnmowers, power tools..

Millions of people not taking out bank loans or dropping the ones they have.

Millions of people who know about liquid democracy and next time, will vote for it so they can take back government to protect their revolution.

And even cooler, millions of people who get to travel and stay for free in other hybrid towns.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you starve the beast.

Capitalism has a fatal flaw- it requires constant consumption to keep the wheels turning. We do the opposite. Yes, we still have to pay taxes for now- but as far as everything else is concerned, we try to limit the amount of money used in our day-to-day lives as much as possible. The system will collapse within 3 years if we work hard at recruitment. Unlike last time it’ll be planned and we will be ready for it.  

Slaying the Dragons

Most of this so far has focused on business- but there are other interests that may interfere with transition.

The Powers That Be

Dealing with this depends on your attitude. If you take an adversarial tone or blame them for things, understandably they will see you as the enemy and act accordingly. The Global Assembly isn’t anyone’s enemy though; we just see problems in the world and want to fix them. In the beginning, it’s best to just focus on the humanitarian aspect of what you’re doing and leave the politics aside. Once the assemblies mature and build a broad base of support, you can speak out about the political aspects of transition (safety in numbers). Local government officials will naturally be on your side since they see the effects your programs are having on the community firsthand. Over the years, local assemblies will have embedded themselves so deeply within the fabric of communities that attempts to harm them will be considered similarly to attempts to ban churches. Remember: You don’t win by fighting the system. You win by creating a new system that makes the old one obsolete.

The biggest immediate “dragon” that needs to be dealt with is Big Media.

It’s crucial to take control of the narrative from the very beginning. Your local assembly starts as a humanitarian organization- so show it! Make pictures and videos of everything you do, and post them on your social media pages (not just group)

Long-term, if we want to wake up the a large amount of people, we need to replace big media. An idea I had was something called “Channel 99”, and like The Global Assembly it would be a brand. Channel 99 is a grassroots local news source and public access channel hosted on Youtube. “Channel 99” is meant to reference the 99% and associated feelings. The channel would be democratic and public-access so if anyone had something they wanted to share, they could submit it for broadcasting.

There are lots of general politics and political talk youtubers out there, but Channel 99 is different because of the local focus. “Channel 99 Chicago” would be the Chicago branch focusing on local Chicago neighborhood happenings for example.

What you place on this channel is limited only by your imagination. Cooking shows, dramatic book readings, game shows, talk shows.. We want this to be a real tv station that people can tune into, livestreamed during certain times of the day. You don’t have to produce all, or even any of the content. Just look around to see who has some stuff they’d like to get out there.

Local musicians and artists looking for a wider audience? Check.

School plays? Check.

Church events? Check.

Low-budget DIY home movies and funny local clips? Check.

Cooking and game shows? Check.

Women sitting on a couch and talking? Check.

Deconstructing advertisements and other BS peddled by the mainstream media? Check.

In return for promoting them, guests can promote you and expand the reach of Channel 99. 

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The end! We hope you enjoyed this short series of articles on how to transition to a Resource-Based-Economy. Stay tuned for more!

First: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-guide-to-global-assembly-and.html
Prev: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/page-6-essence-of-transition.html