In Port Angeles, Washington, where I live, we have one print newspaper, one radio station, and spotty internet access. The 12-page local paper is fighting to survive and has only one page of world news. Radio stations run conservative talk shows. Most people who follow the news here get it from social media.
Small towns and rural areas are increasingly targeted by right-wing groups like Moms for Liberty, Patriot Prayer, and recently Turning Point USA. They run candidates for school boards and local offices, and attack unhoused folks, environmental efforts, and tribal treaty rights.
Fightback is growing in rural areas as the administration’s cuts and edicts come down, with anti-Trump protests growing larger. But most progressives only have the Democratic Party or groups like 50501 and Indivisible for examples of “leadership.” There aren’t many leftists organizing.
There is a dire need for factual reporting on issues impacting working people, but also for news of U.S. and international movement fightbacks and wins, and especially analysis. This is what the FS provides in a hands-on paper format that can be carried around, studied, shown to and discussed with friends and coworkers.
The FS is vital in organizing here as a way to introduce the program of the Freedom Socialist Party to neighbors and strangers. I can say, “I wrote this story, what do you think?” or “Have you heard about this labor victory and how they did it?” When we were organizing to stop the Border Patrol checkpoints on the Olympic Peninsula, the FS coverage helped us gain national support and spread word of our tactics and victories.
As a Freedom Socialist writer, I propose stories that especially impact rural area workers, farmers, tribes, and the environment. I look forward to continuing to bring revolutionary socialist feminist organizing to small towns with the FS.
