Active Clubs, Grassroots Activism, and Political Power
Threesec DarylActive Clubs are a relatively new phenomenon in the US, starting to come into existence after the fall of the Rise Above Movement by Robert Rundo and coming into prominence during Rundo's time on the run and his exposure to more grassroots European Nationalist Organizations. They trace their roots to the Autonomous Nationalists in Europe, which came as a result from crackdowns on Nationalist organizations where they would have to operate smaller, more anonymous, and more compartmentalized.
The best known action they undertook was the Euromaidan, where various regional nationalist networks engaged in street fighting and lead to the overthrowing of the pro-Russian Ukrainian government, showing the advantage of the decentralized model. Active Clubs have taken this and combined them with the age of social media, usually defined by an Active Club covering a region, with a public social media presence, vetting done through online messaging, and high paced edits of the AC.
Why Active Clubs Are A Good Idea
The most focal point of the Active Club model is training combat sports, the AC almost always has their meetup be a combat sports training session, which is then documented with a meetup photo of who made the drive that day. This activity serves the purpose of getting everyone used to working together, and training up their ability to defend themselves and cause damage to others. MMA is important because it is the most basic form of self-reliance, you are able to stand your own and project your will onto others, as well as sharpen yourself as a person. MMA is also a hub for youth counter culture right now, the best young men are interested in combat sports and like the idea of training with a likeminded group.
The most useful part of Active Clubs though is the fact it builds regional networks that are much harder to crackdown on by the state and highlight that things are happening directly in your area. Now obviously this requires enough clubs covering relatively small areas so that way driving distances aren't too far, and you don't have one giant organization covering everything. Some Active Clubs have shown the ability to springboard off this and even acquire capital and become locally involved, others remain small and isolated from their greater community though.
Every org should strive to primarily get membership from IN person contacts.
Why They Aren't A Solution But A Stepping Stone
As the last paragraph was getting into, the best of the AC movement has integrated locally rather than just being a fitness club. The primary issue with the AC is that it doesn't matter how many boxing events you do, or how many likes you get on Telegram, it matters the level of impact you have on material reality. You will never magically become the SA or Blackshirts just from recruiting people off Telegram. You have to be locally involved, impacting people's lives, and showing that you are a legitimate opposition to the way things are, and have an alternative present. You have to be the outlet at which people look to for change, not entertainment.
Active Clubs have a major issue with a lack of Political Coherence, some are just reactionary white nationalists, other have sizeable National Socialist membership, but I haven't seen one that was truly ideological, none have a coherent plan, or goals beyond the networking they do internally. (IN THE US AT LEAST, EU IS DIFFERENT)
The NSN started off as arguably descendant from the Active Club Model and then quickly evolved into an effective political organization, capable of causing mass mobilization, and paralyzed the Australian political system. They have shown an ambition, results and vision not typically seen of similar orgs in the US. This clearly shows the utility of the Active Club model as a stepping stone into highly effective activist networks.
Why They're Poorly Executed Not Bad
(THIS ISN'T ALL ACTIVE CLUBS JUST SOME)
A plague on Active Clubs in the US has been the terrible behavior of some clubs and leaders involved.
Evergreen Active Club has been caught smuggling steroids, NSC-131 had multiple members die of fent overdoses, Tennessee Active Club has a domestic abuser who fed posts running it, there are countless more but this is to highlight that people like this need to be gatekept because they will cast a dark shadow on the entire movement, and in some cases already are.
Because of their reliance on social media advertising they also overshare a lot, entire ACs have been doxed before(not linking), and almost all have had the gyms they train at doxed from posting videos of the interior(which is identifiable as fuck). A large amount also have no desire or vision to go past a fitness club into a grassroots populist movement, they simply think if you get enough people to march you take over America.
IF YOU DONT THINK LIKE THIS IT DOESNT APPLY TO YOU.
Another problem has been that they are being used as Patriot Front shell groups, a lot of them have a complete overlap in members, such as our local PNW AC consisting of roughly 14 guys who are almost all dual members of PF. This hampers their effectiveness because they have to chain themselves to the ideology of Americanism and being descendant of 18th Century Liberalism and away from National Socialism. Patriot Front recently tried dissolving their Youth Clubs because of extreme rhetoric they were using.
The Upgrade
The Grassroots Political Organization is an idea that has been utilized by every effective movement, having crews of people based around a local area, focusing on issues that effect local people, and getting local people involved and mobilized. CasaPound is a great example, they are very grassroots and help with local issues directly. CasaPound is responsible for housing Italian families, providing food drives to their communities, doing neighborhood patrols for security. They play a massive role in many people's lives and keep food on people's tables. They are also heavily involved with youth counter culture scenes, they run social centers, bookstores, and host events for people to get introduced to the org without even knowing it.
As of December 2017, CPI had 106 headquarters/local offices across Italy (Wolff, 2019) and Iannone described each new centre as a “territorial reconquest.” Because every centre was self-financing, and because they claimed to “serve the people,” those new centres in turn opened gyms, pubs, bookshops, parachute clubs, diving clubs, motorbike clubs, football teams, restaurants, nightclubs, tattoo parlours, and barbershops.
They focus on complete ideological coherence, and getting people as mobilized as possible. They are able to mobilize a large amount of localized activists to create shock actions that are more than just a streetwalk that gets covered as fools running around in costumes. They have had a result of pushing the Overton window of Italian Politics to a further extreme, resulting currently in a major remigration initiative heading towards parliament as a result of local activists canvasing.
Of course a lot of that type of stuff isn't all applicable here in the US, but what is very applicable is the idea of building political legitimacy by providing a proper alternative to the state. "Every trade union sucks and rips me off!" -> "Here's our trade union!" "Every landlord is a sleazebag" -> "Here's our tenant union!"
You have to be engaged in society to change it, you can't just box in the woods and expect to become trusted, and you can't just hide from the system, you build your alternative and stand by it. Read the Compoundism Article Here
The left does this in the US, and it's the only thing going for them, if we actually make an attempt here we can easily become more trusted and well liked than literal insane tranny freaks.
Conclusion
This article wasn't meant to hate on Active Clubs, but show their utility and potential as a stepping stone, and a springboard for our people and how to think about the next step for an effective movement.