According to Michael Albert, "To win we need to generate a trajectory of activism that elites cannot repress away or manipulatively derail, and which they also can’t calmly abide. That is the logic of social change in the near and even middle term. But what is it that threatens elites, that can’t be repressed away, and that can’t be manipulated off course? The only answer I know of is rapidly growing numbers of dissidents, varied diversifying focuses of their dissent, and steadily escalating commitment and militancy of their tactics. To succeed, we need not just one of these, nor even two, but all three. (i) Our movements need to be multi-tactical in ways that help each constituency manifest its aims without the efforts of a few trumping all visibility, tone, and content of the rest. (ii) Our movements need to be multi-issue, enabling each constituency to mount its priority claims and aspirations, with none drowning out the others and each finding means to support the rest. For example, can’t globalization activists mobilize on behalf of the work of living wage activists, of unionists striking their employers, of solidarity workers trying to find international space for East Timor, of anti-war activists bracing to aid Colombia, and with people of color organizing against police repression, racist violence, and impoverishment?
Yes, and the response to the WTO in Seattle back in - when was it? - '99? was the first major coming together of a host of different groups with different foci, but who nevertheless had recognized a common enemy. This has been built upon at subsequent meetings of this type, at the Earth Summit, in Venezuela. Both Paul Hawken (The Ecology of Commerce, The Natural Step) and Jean Houston (Fdn for Mind Research, cross-cultural studies of educational and healing methods), who travel the world and meet with many groups across the planet, have commented that for the first time, grassroots groups, though they have different agendas, those agendas are aligned in purpose, not at odds. We are building the basis for a global transformation. But it will take organizing and focus. I don't like to use the metaphors of war - but guess I'm too steeped in this culture - we have to act like soldiers in a war - always alert, always ready to act, do what's necessary, not allowing ourselves to be distracted.
Here is Houston's favorite poem for our time: A Sleep of Prisoners Christopher Fry 1951
The human heart can go to the lengths of God. Dark and cold we may be, but this Is not winter now. The frozen misery Of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move, The thunder is the thunder of the floes, The thaw, the flood, the upstart Spring. Thank God our time is now when wrong Comes up to face us everywhere, Never to leave us till we take The longest stride of soul men ever took. Affairs are now soul size. The enterprise Is exploration into God. Where are you going? It takes So many thousand years to wake, But will you wake for pity's sake?
I'm in a prayer group at work. Today, I was outnumbered by war supporters seven to one. My big obsession lately has been the dishonesty of the administration. However today's discussion was about supporting troops, and the evils of Sadaam. I said very little. To have shared my obsession would have likely been counterproductive.
Here, I'll offer the table of contents for the latest Utne Reader, which had a whole section on how to talk to those we disagree with and related issues.
http://www.utne.com/pub/
You Say You Want a Revolution…
By Jon Spayde
It started, of course, on September 11, 2001. I have a memory of an almost molecular-level shift of consciousness on that day. For many people the flaming, falling towers became not only symbols of terrorist fanaticism but icons of the precariousness and preciousness of life. I suspect that’s why so many people, like the quiet crowds that gathered less than a mile from Ground Zero at Union Square, responded not with anti-Muslim rage but with a profound mourning that ruled out hate and retaliation and more burning of innocents.
Learning from the Right
By Anjula Razdan
Van Jones sees nothing to applaud in the rise of the political right. But the 34-year-old founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in San Francisco, which focuses on reforming the criminal justice system, thinks that progressives’ response to recent events—gloom and doom interspersed with bouts of anger—is not helpful in envisioning the next step forward. Instead, Jones says, we must acknowledge that when it comes to reaching and organizing people today, the right simply does a better job—sometimes using methods that actually originated on the left.
Tell It Like It Is
By Julie Ristau
I am in the car with my 8-year-old, listening for the 10th straight time to his newly favorite Beatles song, “We Can Work It Out.” He looks over at me and asks: “When there are two sides going to war, do the people from one side get to talk to the people of the other side?” At just that moment, the Beatles sing, “Life is very short, and there’s no time / For fussing and fighting, my friend.”
Connected We Stand
By Philip Slater
The other day a friend started haranguing me about “greenwashing”—token ecological gestures that corporations make to mask their environmentally destructive practices. I suggested that the practice reveals a corporate vulnerability to public opinion that opponents can turn to their advantage. He brushed this thought aside, as if anxious to convince me how hopeless it was trying to stop corporate malfeasance. I began to wonder if harping on the magnitude of problems might actually be keeping us from doing anything about them.
Be the Change You Want to See
By Karen Olson
When André Carothers started working as an activist for Greenpeace 20 years ago, he was motivated by the same desire that brought lots of other young people to that organization: He wanted to change the world, to make it more just and humane. But after many years working with a dozen progressive nonprofits, he realized that real social change depends as much on helping activists change from the inside as it does on campaigning for change “out there” in the world.
Think Pink
By Nina Utne
Pink snow-women parade in front of the White House. Homeless men bring blankets, hats, and gloves to pink-clad women on a vigil in Lafayette Park. Singers, drummers, Catholic nuns, Buddhist monks, children, people of all ages and colors gather in a spontaneous and ever-changing theater full of laughter and a lot of hot pink. This is the face of Code Pink.
Make Protests Fun
By Jessica Misslin
Mark Sommer is sick of protests. Last fall, he took part in a San Francisco rally against the Bush administration’s Iraq policy. The vibrant, energetic crowd exhilarated Sommer, a veteran activist and director of the Mainstream Media Project, a nonprofit educational organization based in Arcata, California. Not only was the number of people who gathered impressive, but nearly half of them were under the age of 25; Sommer, 57, noted the refreshing energy they brought to a movement that had its last major infusion of youth in the seventies.
Meet the Crunchy Conservatives
By Rod Dreher
Conservatives who make their own granola? Republicans who oppose sprawl and consumerism? Hard-core right-winger Pat Buchanan condemning corporate greed and the Iraq war? Welcome to America’s changing political landscape, where progressives might find some unlikely allies on a number of important issues.
Pat Buchanan Turns Left?
By Jay Walljasper
An ambitious new political magazine hit the stands late last year with bold pronouncements against the war on Iraq, the culture of greed in corporate boardrooms, and numerous Bush administration policies. Its back pages included a compelling essay about the quirky genius and strong social commitment of Neil Young. An obituary sadly noted the passing of Jim Chapin, one of the leading lights of Democratic Socialists of America. Casual newsstand browsers would assume that the progressive press had gained a new voice. And they would be wrong, at least in the way we typically look at American politics.
A Greener Shade of Right
By Jeremy Beer
Several years ago, at a conference for conservative college students, historian John Lukacs argued that Greens were the natural allies of the right. At the climax of his talk, he surveyed the young audience and magisterially proclaimed: “You cannot be conservative and be on the side of the concrete pourers and the cement mixers.” The students flocked around Lukacs after his talk.
If we do not do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable. Murray Bookchin
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