Honestly, living in Turtle Island for the last forty+ years, I’m not convinced we’ll see a revolution in my lifetime — certainly not one led by North American leftists without the advance of the Global South decolonial movements— but it’s important to imagine what could be, what should be. After all, Washington struggles to tether us to a limited imagination of what we can achieve and what we can produce and procure by massacring, disappearing, assassinating, and coup’ing Indigenous, socialist, and Black Power leaders and activists.
This version has been inspired in parts by the Cuban Revolution, Thomas Sankara, The Red Nation’s The Red Deal program manifesto as well as various conversations, sustainable and green movements, abolitionist programs, etc., I’ve read or participated in over the last decade or so.
Land: Land should and would be restored to the Indigenous tribes and those who would join them for keeping over the earth. Mining, drilling, pipelines, and logging/deforestation will need to cease until they come under the auspices and review of the Indigenous/caretaker groups. The army and workers can help reforest large swaths of land, particularly in the Midwest that has been ravaged by monoculture and industrial farming. Excessive water waste such as golf courses and lawns will need to be reutilized. The commodification of housing will end and the people (with Black and Indigenous at the forefront) will “own” the land and landed property. Homelessness will be abolished, and everyone will be furnished with their own housing; housing unfit to live in (as in many Black communities) will be demolished and replaced. McMansions will need to be converted to more practical use, but most people who own a house can keep living in the house, most people who rent can remain renting — however, now renters will pay roughly 5% of annual income (instead of 35–60%) and leaser/owners will pay 3%. The difference will be in what the renter/owner is responsible for upkeep in their own places.
Work: Guaranteed work for everyone under 65 who is able to work, with living wages for all jobs. This includes workers with disabilities, who are disproportionately shut out of the workforce but who have skills and insights that we neglect in fields as diverse as city planning, education, and healthcare due to fears of individualized accommodations as well as general ableism. Thirty hours a week will now be considered full-time, with caps for overtime at 40 hours a week. Since priorities are no longer on maxing capital nor consuming unnecessary objects, work will now focus on healing and creating. Work will now focus on decontamination, farming and feeding, recycling and reusing, education and re-education (against sexism, racism, transphobia, xenophobia, and the consumptive lifestyle), and healthcare. Most work should also be local, within walking distance preferably. Local farmers, community cooks and chefs, nurses and health workers, artists, and teachers more likely than not will work in the community they live in; engineers and researchers can do much of their work at home or in community office spaces. All workspaces (as well as all public spaces) should accommodate all workers.
Health: Healthcare should follow Cuba’s model. Citizens are full participants in their own healthcare and knowledge and should be treated as such. Doctors are workers, not gods and not little capitalists. This goes without saying that full healthcare should be free — including dental and mental and social health. Like with education, poor communities should be targeted for Grow-Our-Own trainings to address the medical apartheid on Turtle Island. Since the 1970s, Black men make up only 3% of those entering medical schools and Black and Indigenous communities are drastically underserved by the few hospitals in their communities. The way the medical community operates will need to be thoroughly deconstructed with an emphasis on healing rather than profit.
Food: The abolition of factory farms and monoculture. Community farms (every square mile in an urban setting should have 1/16th of the area specifically for farming, including greenhouses, open-air, animals, eggs, milk, etc) along with area aquaponic farms (which could use up one room per floor in a high-rise, for instance) will make roughly 15%-30% of the diet, with one-third to one-half coming from within 50 miles, another fraction coming from within the region, maybe 10% from somewhere in the country, and 5% tops internationally. Which would likely mean a big old reduction in avocados, pineapples, bananas, or sugars. But I’m sure humanity will survive if our planet does. Community dinners are an underappreciated aspect of food culture, but having at least one meal per day grown, sourced, cooked, and served within the community can bind communities, heal divisions, help to nurture the body, provide work, comfort, and creativity, be a space for conflict resolution, cultural exchanges, and informal political happenings. This would also negate the presence of food deserts and food apartheid common among poorer Black neighborhoods due to racialized capitalist oversight and planning. Fast food production will reduce and — unlike local restaurants which will be compensated by the government — be heavily taxed.
Energy: Mining, fracking, and drilling will need to be drastically reduced with a moratorium until Indigenous and local societies can determine what is necessary, what is excessive and destructive, and can do a thorough analysis. Utilities will be in the public sector with oversight and limits provided by the Indigenous committees. Housing energy should be taken care of through lowered energy consumption, solar panels, energy-saving appliances, water retention, improved insulation, and the like along with the fact that meals are provided in the community center or cheaply in restaurants. The goal is a net-zero carbon emission within forty years.
Education: It should go without saying that education should be free at every level — from daycare to afterschool programs to college and technical schools. The only debts racked up in higher education may be minimal for housing and supplies, but Black, Indigenous, and other demographics that have been ignored or stepped over by the higher education industry should receive automatic grants for enrolling in a university or a trade school of their choice, with extra funding and targeting for areas where these communities have been undervalued, such as college education, healthcare, and engineering. Additionally, Black and Indigenous people should be immediately targeted for Grow-Your-Own trainings in early, primary, and secondary education as they should be the primary teachers of their own youth and children. Education at all levels should teach the truth of US and world histories, including not just the destruction of colonialism, capitalism, ableism, and patriarchy but the struggle and victory of proletarian struggle, of equality, of justice. Art and creativity should be valued as well as rigorous application of science and math at all levels, but racist standardized tests (which is what all standardized, high-impact tests are now) will be struck.
Transportation: Car culture will need to be made obsolete as will airplane culture. Abolish the interstate highway. Car, SUV, and truck manufacturing will need to be replaced by bus, train, and tram manufacturing and urban and suburban streets will prioritize public transit, pedestrian traffic, and bicycling. This in combination with the localization of the economy will mean a significant reduction in highway and road construction, so that the focus can switch to a different form of infrastructure. Individualized transportation should be reserved for those with mobility disabilities and the elderly and sidewalks and streets should be easily accessible for them and for children as well.
Military, Police, and Prisons: The total abolition of the military, the police, and prisons will not be immediate anymore so than the abolition of the state, but the operation, direction, and targets of violence and control will flip a 180, and as a result, the size, location, and movement of the military, the police, and jails, prisons, and other incarceral spots will be reduced in such ways to make them unrecognizable. Police will no longer be positioned against workers — particularly poor and racialized communities but will take a small role as the communities see fit to protect against violent harm; this will mean roughly all of the current officers in some communities will be out of work, the majority will need to account for their direct or indirect crimes, and the rest will need to retrain after serious review. Most of the ‘crimes’ that we now lock people up for will either be completely rewritten, obsolete, or will focus on restoration. Most of the incarcerated should be released immediately, with back pay for the years, trauma, and labor they have sacrificed. Violent crimes such as domestic abuse, child SA, and sexual assault will need to be dealt with within the community and may involve holding the accused in a safe space for a period of time. It may also involve something much more punitive. Eventually, as poverty becomes a thing of the past, as both worker and nuclear family alienation become muted, as mental and emotional needs are taken care of and dealt with appropriately rather than punitively, and as patriarchy is unlearned, such problems should also wither away and the need for harsh measurements be rendered obsolete. Ideally, the military will just disband, but that’s why this is so far a dream, right?
