We Build Now
For the people, by the people. A living framework for mutual aid, community defense, and civic resilience.
Something brought you here. Maybe it was a Threads post. Maybe it was a friend. Maybe it was the knot in your stomach that says something is very wrong and I don’t know what to do about it. You’re in the right place. Not because we have all the answers, but because we have each other, and that turns out to be the thing that actually works.
This document explains what we’re building, how the pieces fit together, and where you come in. Read it through. If it resonates, there’s a place for you here. If you’re already doing the work somewhere else — good. We want to support that, not replace it. The goal is connection, not consolidation.
What This Is
Liberty’s Landing is a coordination network — a shared floor where people with different skills, different backgrounds, and different projects can find each other, support each other’s work, and build community resilience from the ground up.
We are not an organization asking you to join and follow. We are infrastructure. Think of it as a town square: the projects are the buildings around the square, the people are the neighbors, and the square itself is just the place where everyone can see each other and figure out what needs doing.
Some of us are starting specific projects (a tenants union, a mutual aid network, a press initiative). Some of you have your own work already underway. Some of you have skills and energy but don’t know where to plug in yet. All of that belongs here.
The core principle: We share the floor. News flows. Voices are heard. Nobody owns this. We coordinate, we don’t command.
How the Pieces Fit Together
There are several active projects already taking shape under this network. Each serves a different function. Together, they form a civic ecosystem — overlapping, reinforcing, and filling gaps that no single project could cover alone.
Common Threads Coalition
What it is: A mutual aid and community resilience framework. Born in Amesbury, Massachusetts, designed to be replicated anywhere. When systems fail, neighbors catch each other.
What it does: Coordinates food access, housing support, peer crisis support, community care, neighbor-to-neighbor resource sharing, and practical solidarity. Runs on horizontal decision-making — coordination, not hierarchy.
Why it matters now: Federal programs are being cut or weaponized. SNAP, housing assistance, healthcare access — none of it is guaranteed. Communities that have their own infrastructure survive. Communities that don’t are at the mercy of whoever holds the purse strings.
The template vision: Everything we build here becomes a framework others can adapt. A tenants union model. A mutual aid handbook. A peer support protocol. Replicable, adaptable, owned by the communities that use them.
Amesbury Tenants Union
What it is: A union for renters. Collective bargaining power for people who pay rent but have no seat at the table when decisions are made about their housing.
What it does: Know-your-rights education, collective advocacy with landlords and city government, documentation of housing conditions, mutual support for tenants facing retaliation or unsafe conditions. Plans to take collective complaints to the AG and push for legislative change at the State House.
Why it matters now: Housing costs in Amesbury are outpacing incomes. Repairs get ignored. Tenants don’t know their rights. Individual complaints get buried. Collective action gets heard.
A Common Threads initiative — and the proof of concept for the whole model.
American Antifascist Press
What it is: An independent, nonpartisan press initiative focused on documenting threats to democratic governance, countering propaganda, and providing historical context for what’s happening right now.
What it does: Journalism, analysis, historical essays, investigative documentation (ICE operations, legislative tracking, insurance and program cuts), creative writing, and global antifascist education. Inspired by the Italian antifascist press tradition.
The name: Antifascism is not a party. It’s a position — one that was, historically, the default American position. “Nonpartisan” means no party apparatus, not “devoid of values.” We need writers, researchers, editors, translators, photographers, social media strategists, and people willing to do the work of telling the truth clearly.
Long-term vision: International journalist network, mirror sites for resilience, global solidarity with democratic movements facing similar threats.
Art, Performance & Cultural Production
What it is: The creative arm. Art as organizing tool, satire as truth-telling, performance as public witness.
What it looks like: Street preachers reading from the Constitution. Musicians bringing the sound. Town criers distributing zines with verified news. Peddlers selling art and wares. Parades. Spoken word. Documentary work. Oral history. Memoir. Scripts. Visual art. Wheat-paste. Murals. Whatever your medium is — bring it.
Why it matters: Movements without culture don’t last. The music, the art, the stories — that’s what makes people feel something, show up, and remember. Every serious resistance movement in history had artists at its heart. This is that tradition.
Bring a soapbox.
Your Project
Already doing work? Have an idea that fits this ecosystem? We’re not trying to absorb your effort — we’re trying to connect it. If you’re running a food pantry, organizing in your town, building a zine, training street medics, or doing something we haven’t thought of yet: the floor is yours.
Propose it. If it aligns with the values of this space — dignity, solidarity, mutual aid, anti-authoritarianism — we’ll amplify it, connect you to people who can help, and make sure your work is visible.
The Frameworks — What We’re Actually Talking About
Some of these ideas have names that sound academic or ideological. They’re not. They’re practical tools that communities have used for centuries — often long before anyone gave them a label. Here’s what they actually mean, in plain language, with the history attached.
Mutual Aid
“I have extra. You need some. Next week it might be the other way around.”
Mutual aid is neighbors helping neighbors — not as charity (where someone with more gives to someone with less), but as reciprocal support between equals. No means-testing. No applications. No one deciding whether you “deserve” help. You need it, we have it, here it is.
This is how communities survived before government programs existed. It’s also how they survive when those programs fail. Barn-raisings. Church suppers. Immigrant benevolent societies. The Black Panther free breakfast programs. Volunteer fire departments. It’s the oldest form of community infrastructure.
Tenant Unions
“One tenant complaining gets ignored. Fifty tenants organizing get a meeting.”
A tenant union is collective bargaining for renters. The same basic principle as a labor union — alone, you have no leverage; together, you have power. Tenant unions educate renters about their legal rights, document unsafe conditions, negotiate collectively with landlords and city government, and support members facing retaliation.
They’re legal. They’re effective. They’ve existed in the U.S. since the early 1900s. In Massachusetts, tenants have significant legal protections — most just don’t know about them.
Peer Support
“You don’t need a professional to sit with someone in the dark. You need a person.”
Peer support is trained, intentional emotional and practical support between people with shared or similar experiences. It’s not therapy. It’s not crisis intervention. It’s accompaniment — being with someone through difficulty rather than referring them away or pathologizing their experience.
The model we draw from (Alternatives to Suicide, Intentional Peer Support) recognizes that people in crisis often need connection and dignity more than they need a diagnosis or a detention. Peer support has deep roots in recovery movements, disability justice, and veteran communities.
Harm Reduction
“Meet people where they are, not where you think they should be.”
Harm reduction starts from the premise that people are already making decisions about their own lives, and our job is to reduce danger rather than demand perfection. It originated in public health (needle exchanges, safe consumption sites) but the principle applies everywhere: housing, food access, substance use, mental health, economic survival.
In practical terms, it means: no moral judgment as a prerequisite for help. No requiring someone to be sober, housed, documented, or “deserving” before you treat them like a person.
Community Gardens & Food Sovereignty
“If you grow your own food, nobody can use hunger as leverage.”
Community gardens and pantries aren’t just about vegetables. They’re about reducing dependency on supply chains and political systems that can be disrupted or weaponized. When SNAP benefits get frozen or cut, communities that grow food and share food survive. Victory Gardens during WWII weren’t a cute hobby — they produced 40% of the nation’s vegetables.
Horizontal Organizing
“Nobody’s the boss. Everybody’s accountable.”
Horizontal organizing means decisions are made collectively, not handed down from leadership. There are coordinators, not commanders. Roles exist because the work requires them, not because someone’s in charge. This is how most functional communities have always operated — town meetings, worker cooperatives, volunteer fire departments, neighborhood associations. It only sounds radical if you’ve forgotten it’s normal.
It’s slower than top-down decision-making. It’s also more resilient, because there’s no single point of failure. If one person burns out, the work continues.
Solidarity Economics
“Spend your money where it builds your community, not where it drains it.”
This is straightforward: support businesses that support your community. Withdraw support from those that don’t. Pool resources. Share tools, skills, and spaces. When we coordinate purchasing and mutual support, we have more collective economic power than any of us have alone.
Cooperative businesses, credit unions, mutual aid funds, buy-local campaigns, time banks (trading skills instead of money) — these are all solidarity economics in action. None of this is new. It’s how immigrant communities, labor communities, and rural communities have sustained themselves for generations.
Community Defense
“Knowing your neighbors is the first line of defense against anything.”
Community defense means communities taking responsibility for their own safety and wellbeing — not through vigilantism, but through connection, awareness, and organized care. Legal observation at protests and ICE actions. Sanctuary coordination. Know-your-rights education. Documenting what’s happening so there’s a record. Making sure vulnerable community members aren’t isolated.
The best defense any community has is people who know each other, look out for each other, and refuse to let anyone disappear quietly.
Where You Fit In
Everyone has skills, perspectives, and ideas to bring. No role is less important than another, and not all roles have been invented yet. We are not gatekeepers. Credentials are relevant where required (you can’t be a street medic without training), but many roles are open to anyone willing to learn and show up.
Browse these and see where your skills land. If nothing fits, propose something. If multiple things fit, start with one.
Training for roles that require it (street medic, legal observer, peer support, de-escalation) is being organized. The more hands we have, the faster we can bring trainings to local libraries and community spaces.
The Floor Is Open
We need news and information to flow. We need voices heard. We need people who have ideas and skills to be able to bring them to the table — whether that’s a fully formed project or a half-baked thought that someone else can help you develop.
How to Propose a Project or Initiative
If you have an idea — a skill-share series, a zine, a neighborhood watch, a cooperative business, a training program, a documentary, a garden, a protest, a potluck — bring it to the coordination channel. Keep it simple: what is it, what does it need, and who’s it for. If people are interested, it moves. If it needs development, we help develop it. No gatekeeping. No permission required. Just alignment with the shared values of this space: dignity, solidarity, mutual aid, anti-authoritarianism, and the conviction that people are capable of governing their own lives.
What We Ask
Show up with something to contribute — even if it’s just questions, time, or willingness to learn. This is a working space. Passive lurking is fine for getting oriented, but the goal is participation. You don’t have to carry the whole thing. You just have to bring what you have.
Center those most impacted. People living the problem know more than people studying it. Under-represented voices aren’t optional here. They’re the center.
And if you see a gap — something nobody’s doing that needs doing — that’s your role now. Congratulations.
What This Isn’t
This is not a finished product. It’s a living framework that adapts to whatever community it finds itself in and whatever moment demands. Names, platforms, and structures are all negotiable. The values are not.
This is not an ideology test. A constitutional conservative who shows up to observe ICE raids is welcome. A leftist who builds mutual aid networks is welcome. A single-issue voter who just wants to protect their neighbor is welcome. A fascist is not welcome. Ever. If you can’t tell the difference, ask.
This is not a substitute for existing organizations doing good work. If an organization is doing what needs doing, support them. We’ll link to them, boost them, show up for them. We exist to fill gaps and weave connections, not to compete for territory.
This is not something that requires you to put your name on a list, show your face, or take risks you’re not ready for. Operational security matters. People’s lives depend on it. Participate at the level that’s safe for you.
What’s Happening Right Now
This week: Amesbury Tenants Union first organizing meeting at the Amesbury Public Library. Details incoming. If you’re local or want to support remotely — watch the announcements channel.
Forming now: Common Threads Coalition launch alongside ATU. The mutual aid framework that holds everything together. If you have experience with mutual aid, food access, peer support, or community organizing — we need you in this conversation.
Building: American Antifascist Press needs writers, researchers, editors, translators, photographers, and anyone who can help document what’s happening with accuracy and historical context.
Calling all creatives: The art, performance, and culture track is wide open. Musicians, poets, visual artists, filmmakers, satirists, storytellers — the floor is yours. Bring your medium. Bring your voice.
Your project: If you’ve got something, bring it. The coordination channel is open.