Civil Resistance Law and Constructive Program Law

Civil Resistance is... well... civil.  As in, non-violent, courteous, by citizens, and in pursuit of just ends.  It is a broad term used to define a wide range of obstructive activities that build support for and participation in the movement.  The goals can be anything from trying to change the way the general public behaves, trying to change an unjust law, to upholding social norms against usurpers.  At its heart, Civil Resistance is "non-cooperation with evil" and can be done daily in our everyday life with small acts of resistance.  Resistance can take many forms, I consider deviating from problematic norms in our daily lives to be just as important as the larger more confrontational acts.  More confrontational forms include Civil Disobedience and Satyagraha.  Historically, Civil Resistance is far more effective at producing good outcomes for society.  (Check out  the book Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict by Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan if you don't believe me)
A related topic is Constructive Program, which I think of as "cooperative with good," and which is deeply interconnected with Civil Resistance.  It involves building just ways of life from the ground up, building the community's capacity, and building just institutions.  I have been thinking quite a bit about how this would work with the housing and the campaign finance issues, which I will probably write about later.  

For the past few months I have been trying to figure out how to use create a private law practice that supports just causes and stays true to my activist roots.  I want to call this practicing "Civil Resistance Law" and "Constructive Program Law."  So to coin the terms, I am going to try to define them.
In this definition, I do not think that only an attorney could or should do this work, I think it would be a collective process with the group.  Anyway, here is my first attempt at defining what an attorney practicing Civil Resistance Law and Constructive Program Law would do.  After reviewing this, I ended up categorizing this list based on the steps for successful movements that Martin Luther King developed.

1. Investigation!  Understanding the situation we find ourselves in is essential to finding a workable strategy to win changes.

• Research and describe the legal landscape the group and/or movement finds itself in, focusing on the topics that people want to change.  Find cracks and opportunities in the law that the movement can leverage.
• Research and analyze existing institutions
• Research the political landscape and help develop an understanding of how it fits into the legal landscape.  
• Help research the history of this issue and look for insights.  
• Research alternatives to what exists. 

2. Educate public, build support, and make a personal commitment.

• Help the group find resources.
• Distill the legal issues into easily understood explanations and parables.

3. Develop strategies based on the investigation.

• Imagine what changes to the law would bring about the group's goals, and what the details of the law would be.   
• Consider all of the findings of the investigation and help develop a strategy to achieve the goals of the group.
• Develop campaigns, campaign goals, and campaign sequence to achieve larger strategic goals.

4. Discuss options with opponents and negotiate

• Help develop strategies to build support and organizational capacity.
• Develop a negotiation strategy and fit it into the larger strategy.
• Develop and provide access to the system and officials.
• Help negotiate.

5. When negotiations inevitably break down

• Help develop escalation tactics.
• If the group wants to break the law, advise them what will happen if they do.  Note that legal ethics require that an attorney not advise clients to break the law, but may describe what will happen if they do.  The only exception to this is where the client wants to make a good faith challenge to the validity of the law (California Bar Professional Ethics Rule 3-210).  So ensuring compliance with ethics rules is something to always be aware of.
• Provide legal support for the group when they are arrested, and connect them with additional attorneys who can help.     

6. Reconciliation and change implementation

• Help develop a face-saving out for the opponent.  There are lots of advantages to this strategy, which I will probably discuss in a later post.
• Facilitate an agreement and reconciliation between the sides.  There will often need to be a lasting relationship, so an us v them mentality is not helpful.  
• Helping draft the legal changes and legal requirements.
• Ensure that enforcement options exist to enforce the changes and monitor compliance.

7.  Reflect and Repeat!

• Reflect on the campaign and how it worked.
• Go back to step one and start investigating for another campaign
• Help revise longterm strategy as necessary.  

I also think that the principles of Rebellious Lawyering are essential to this kind of practice of law, such as the emphasis on community leadership and problem-solving.   Anyway, that is what I have thought of so far, let me know what you think!

Brainstorming New Political Systems

The political system needs a good deal of reform. Now with corporations able to pump as much money as they want into elections, there is going to be a much larger amount of corruption than before. So I think it would be a good idea to try to dream up different political systems that would avoid the pitfalls of corporate domination and moral bankruptcy.

1. Electing Ideas. I do not think that politicians should be the prime electees. Voting on broad goals (not specific things, like the referenda in CA often take the form of) would be a much more fruitful system... the system wouldn't get stuck in personal attacks and mudslinging, and corruption would be a much less endemic because it is much harder to corrupt ideas than it is people.

2. Electing officials through a series of trials. We should have a set series of tests and trials that officials have to pass through to become elected. These trials would put the skills of the candidates to the test, and all trials would be broadcast and chronicled by the media. People would have discussion forums to discuss how the candidate did and who was the top competitor. And trials could last a long time. One trial could be One trial could be managing a small government agency. Another trial could be to live on welfare for 2 months. The trials would be designed to both test the individual as well as acquaint them with the country (or state or whatever) they are going to govern.

3. Local Townhall meetings to set general goals of the bureaucracy in small areas. Included in this are a webpage forum for people to discuss things.

4. Some sort of public forum that is more participatory than the current media structures. I am not sure what that would look like.

5. Organized volunteer public works - the government should be more involved in organizing people to improve their locality.

6. Free, voluntary education programs. Basic for any thriving democracy to thrive.

Ok, that is all I have time for right now.

Wars are Arguments #2

Building on my last post, I would like to explain more about Satyagraha which is a method of conflict that goes to the very roots of social ills. Satyagraha's focus is to change society at a very basic level through organizing the populace to both improve their own lot and to act in concert to improve the society. This can take an infinite variety of forms, from encouraging better diet and exercise habits to developing and implementing better political systems. It even takes the form of civil resistance and disobedience. But the main thrust is a transformation of society itself, which is not the government, but the population. Changing minds and people's daily activities is the primary goal. Everything else is secondary to that focus.

Many may question why one should prioritize changing society instead of focusing on taking over the institutions that run society and then use those as a tool to change it. A careful look at history will show that whenever a movement focuses on taking the reigns of power, it always loses sight of the initial goal of improving society and becomes corrupted by the very means they sought to achieve their end, and in most cases fail to achieve the end anyway. Focusing on direct programs and campaigns to improve society has a two-fold benefit. It actually achieves the end of improving society and it brings the added benefit of building political power almost unconsciously. This political power will then almost naturally bring the institutions of power into its orbit over time.

But this is a slow process and not for the weak. A movement must be strong-willed as well as undogmatic in their approach to how to change society. Ever-improving the methods through practical application and revision is essential. This work will bring a movement into conflict with many groups, but through the judicious use of non-violence, these groups can be successfully turned to either acceptance or support. The weak will resort to violence while the strong remain indomitable in the face of oppression. Oppression and other such evils must be met with principled resistance. I found this sweet video introduction to civil resistance from Waging Nonviolence here is the article: http://wagingnonviolence.org/2010/08/a-succinct-introduction-to-civil-resistance/ the video itself is embedded below. I agree with most of it, but, similarly to what was said in Waging Nonviolence, I disagree with the supposition that nonviolence is not about winning over your opponents. Most successful revolutions whether they are violent or not have won over atleast large parts of the military and police. Look at the French Revolution, there was basically no internal military support for the King. Anyway, the video is still a good watch.

Civil Resistance: A First Look from ICNC on Vimeo.

An Attempt to Explain My Spiritual Practice

The following is a letter I wrote to Dave Belden about my spiritual practice.  It is probably the most articulate I have been on the subject yet, so I wanted to share it.


Dear Dave,
I have found it difficult to figure out a good approach to outlining my spiritual practice, because it feels like explaining my life.  I have an urge to tell stories about how I came upon my beliefs, but I think that would be alittle too long.  I have had to resist the urge to tell more of the history of my development.   To remain succinct, here is a simplified version of the principle behind my spiritual practice:

1. We all change over time.  We change in demeanor, behavior, passions, interests, and what communities we are a part of.  To be human is to be dynamic, thinking of ourselves or others as static limits our capacity and deprives us all of our humanity.
2. Willful action shapes how we change.   You can become the person you want to be through practice.
3. You have the power to decide how to act, behave and respond to any given situation.
4. Every moment is a chance to shape how we change and therefore who we are.
5. Living by broad, well-thought-out tenets facilitates positive personal change.
6. Learn from your mistakes.  Reflect on them at length, for days or months if necessary, to figure out what happened and how to change yourself to be more in line with who you want to be.
7. Reflect on your activities and behaviors and how they impact the world around you.  Try to change your behavior so it changes the people and communities how you want them to change.  
8. The whole world changes over time.  Our collective willful action shapes how it changes.  Even small scale actions change other people’s lives, and you can never know the full positive impact of a good deed.  Likewise, you can never know the full negative impact of a bad deed.

The practice of this principle is the difficult part.  I have used my conscience to good effect in this, when I have the impulse to do something, I will usually check it against my conscience and a myriad of tenets that I try to live by.  Then I act the way that seems to conform to those tenets, sometimes having to force myself to do it.  The most trying actions where I have to hunker down and really compel myself to do are often the most rewarding.  Self-control and a willingness to forgo other emotions and desires in favor of conforming to my practice has been essential in seeing my ability to shape myself become reality.  Likewise, awareness of what I am doing and keeping my practice always in the back of my mind is essential.

Perhaps my greatest experiment in my spiritual practice has been with the Golden Rule.  I started trying to live by the Golden Rule when I was 15.  And it, more than any other tenet, has pushed me to the limit of being the person I want to be.  It has forced me to do some difficult and crazy things.  When I say experiments, I indeed mean it that way.  Looking at the outcomes when I fail to follow the Golden Rule versus when I keep to it has given me the utmost faith it this tenet’s ability to positively shape myself and my world.  These experiments helped me be able to figure out the core tenet of my life and what I believe to be the answer to the eternal question “what is the meaning of life.”

    “People” are my purpose.  That one word encompasses a wide variety of issues, but in short, it means a devotion to other people, helping them, protecting them, and putting others before myself.  Here are the tenets I feel flow from this purpose:

1. Generosity is a tenet that has produced more happiness in my life than I can even conceive of.  I now even get great joy from the search for people to receive.  This includes being generous of myself and of my time, not just the property that happens to be in my possession.
2. Anti-materialism.  This helps alot with following generosity, but it basically means not being attached to possessions and being willing to part with them at any moment.  I have even started trying to re-interpret theft as surprise, unintentional giving to the thief.  Focusing on objects prevents us from seeing the humanity in each other.
3. Forgiveness of everything as soon as it happens.  This not only helps the other person heal but is of huge value in maintaining strong social bonds and one’s own positive outlook.  
4. Being stable.  I think this is the Buddhist part of my practice.  I try to remain calm and unmoved by events and maintain an emotional baseline of happiness.  I consciously let go of frustration and anger, which forgiveness is key in.  Being stable helps the people around me immensely, I have found.
5. Awareness of others and what is probably going on in their minds.  Trying to determine how they feel and what they think based on what I have observed.
6. Activism.  Personal interactions go a long way in changing the world, and bringing that to a larger arena as part of a group is very powerful.
7. Investing myself in the projects and activities I do and in the people around me.
8. Silence.  Being careful with words and listening to other people more than talking.  This shows to other people that you value what they think, as well as makes them value your words more.
9. Non-violence in word and thought as well as in physical presence.
10. Truth.  Not lying beyond white lies.  
11. Humanization.  When I think of other people, no matter who they are or what they have done, I try to humanize them in my mind, not letting myself write them off as bad people.  Seeing myself in other people is another way of saying this.
12. Faith that the universe is dominated by good, and reminding myself of this.
13. Reflecting on everything.  On my behavior, others behavior, consequences of any given action, tenets etc.  This includes the development of self-knowledge and an understanding of oneself.
14. Being non-judgmental.  Being judgmental gets in the way of seeing other people as full human beings, and it burdens you with unpleasant feelings and emotions.  Forgiveness helps alot with maintaining a non-judgmental outlook.  Besides, I feel like reality deals out harsh judgements and punishments to people as it is, I see no reason to add to that misery.

There are probably lots of other tenets, but those are most of the important ones that I could think of off the top of my head.  I would say as far as the practice goes, it is a continuous process.  I am always practicing, trying to make every action deliberate and in-line with who I want to be.  That is really all it boils down to... if you want to become someone else, practice being that person in your daily life and one day you will see yourself a changed person.  I am also always re-examining the principle and tenets behind my spiritual practice, looking for faults or situations that contradict it.   This has helped me maintain confidence in it and improving it when there is an issue.  

I hope that short summary was what you were looking for.
peace,
Will

Thoughts on "Diversity Of Tactics: The Noise Before Defeat"

This is a fascinating read:  http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/07/26/diversity-of-tactics-the-noise-before-defeat/
It discusses the Black Bloc's use of violence and repressive tactics to silence debate about their violence.  It goes on to discuss the movement's failures to really develop a solid foundation of nonviolent resistance culture and institutions that promote and support it.

Here is an excerpt:

"That there are good reasons why it is difficult does not make the fact that it is necessary go away. We may not have the time for it, but we most certainly do not have the luxury of not doing it. Diversity of Tactics and the Bloc are simply one manifestation of how we fail to take our role seriously. A far more important consequence is that we are far less effective than we should be.

I like to use the metaphor of a craftsperson. They assess a particular task and choose a tool suitable to what it is they wish to do, be it a saw, chisel, or router. In the same spirit we should look at a particular political situation and choose one of the 198 different forms of nonviolent action because it will do the job that needs to be done.

The Bloc is a product of our collective ignorance; theirs and ours. We have a responsibility to them, to ourselves, and most particularly to the issues we claim to care about to be truly professional in our political work. Professional in the sense of being competent, knowledgeable and capable. That the Bloc exists is a testament to our failure to live up to that responsibility. "

Personally I have always found it odd how so many people who claim to be anti-war for a litany of reasons turn around and are willing to be violent toward property and people.  War is simply an extreme application of the same principle that legitimizes this violence and anger.  I can see no justification for war or even its effectiveness, so I see no justification for anarchist violence even though I would agree with many of its aims.  But I can understand how, in a culture so dominated by the justification of violence and the use of violence in attempts to achieve ends, that so many on the left would fall victim to this false prophet.

Content from a letter to Sarah #5

7/28/09
I have been meaning to finish this for awhile.  I also couldn't think of how to start it.  So, here is the final part of the initial life story I started out with.  I wrote this before a bunch of the other letters I sent.

After high school... I was lucky enough to get into Brown University where I majored in Anthropology. It introduced me to lots of other cultures and way of thinking about the world; I really couldn't get enough of it. While I was there I helped rebuild the student activist left after it collapsed the semester before I arrived (some huge fight between factions of a grand anti-war coalition that caused most of the active people to stop being active). Being in activist groups was probably the best and most meaningful educational experience I got at college. We built a strong community and managed to get a few victories too. I saw such inspirational dedication and courage from my friends, willing to suffer arrest and harassment from the authorities. (I think I told you this part already, but I will leave it in anyway) Our most awesome victory was with financial aid. Now anyone attending Brown whose family makes less than 60,000 doesn't have to take out loans. I am still active with Students for a Democratic Society (sds), and our national democratic and accessible education campaign. After I graduated I moved to California, because the job market is non-existent in Kentucky, my brother is out here, and a bunch of my friends moved here. The job search took me to Tikkun Magazine where I landed a job as Rabbi Michael Lerner's assistant. He is the editor and has a very appealing vision for a better world. It is a good job, I get to build my skills in alot of random areas, and read and make corrections to the magazine before it goes to print.  But it is very time-consuming.

So that is the short history of my life.  Looks like it is only like 25-ish pages.  I think i might have the beginning of an auto-biography :)

Lets see... what else did I want to talk about.  Ah yes, generosity.  So, as people are my purpose (and indeed, i think people are the meaning of life), being generous to others is very much my MO.  Like excessive generosity.  I think it makes people uncomfortable sometimes, how generous I want to be toward them.  It is one reason that I have acquired 5 mattresses over the past year.  I want to have places for people to sleep, especially my friends who lack a job and a place to live.  My friend Jacob might come stay on one of these beds while he looks for a job.  Liz is staying with us right now. Elisabeth stayed with us while she looked for a place to live.  Sidney stayed with us for like 6 months.  It is very important to me to have space for people to stay if they need to.

  

But back to generosity.  I think it is incredibly important to give, and give often.  It is the glue that holds society together, giving.  It makes everyone feel good, it helps people who need help, it promotes and maintains robust reciprocal relationships (which are by far the most evolutionarily stabilizing kind of relationships for people to have).  Giving just makes everything better.  I have gotten to the point where I always keep an eye out for someone I can give to.  (I think I already explained that I have qualms that I am not actually helping homeless people when I give them money... feeding addictions and so on.  If I ever have food on me when I am asked, I always offer that)  There is a passage in "The Prophet" about how the true believers in life give without thought of joy seeking or moral virtue, and give all of the little they have.  I try to aspire to this, although I fail.  I am always on the search for someone to give to.  The search is almost as fun as the giving.  

Much of my thinking on generosity has been shaped by the short paragraphs that are written in "The Prophet."  I have come to see giving as an essential part of life, something that is so inherent in what it means to live that to not give would be like half-living.  I think that is why I have never been a money seeker, it always seemed burdensome and much like a living death... a death of the soul.  Maybe that is too harsh... maybe it is more of an oppression and silencing of the soul.  

The Prophet section on generosity that has stuck in my head for years is "all you have shall one day be given."  I wish more people could intuitively get that (including myself).  I want to bring into question the whole concept of property, because it seems to me like an embodiment of the negative aspects of individualism.  Keeping things from other people for fear you will go without... it is utterly illogical and only "works" (if you can call it that... maybe functions in a semi-predictable manner is a better way to phrase it) when everyone does it, like in American mainstream culture.  I never ever want to be rich.  That is an oppression I have the power to avoid, and so I shall. There was a sign on a wall in one of the buildings at Friends Camp that was quoting a song.  It went "it's a gift to be simple, it's a gift to be free, it's a gift to come down to where we aught to be."  I love that.  I want to live a simple life, to share my little wealth with people, and to live in a supportive caring community.  In my mind, that is the logical outcome of generosity, if everyone were to take it up.  

Oh, there is a great song by Johnny Cash called "Man in Black."  Aside from being a great melody, it has fantastic lyrics.  This one has particularly stayed in my head:

"I wear the black for those who never read,

Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,

Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me." 

The road to happiness IS through love and charity.  I am so happy when I am allowed to give.  It has made my life so fulfilling and rich in so many ways.  I think that is why like 5 years ago I wrote this statement: "The generous life is the happy life" 

My freshman year of college, I really confronted the fear of not living up to my potential and discovered a way to deal with it in a very good way. (btw, I have always fancied my life's work as activism.) Whenever I am afraid that I am not being effective, I think to myself that I have helped lots of people, and even inspired a few.  The MOST important thing I can do to make this world a better place is to be good to the people around me and try to make their lives better.  That is the social change I want, that is the life's message I want to embody.  We may idolize people who lead mass movements, but it is not them that made the change, it is us.  Small groups of people, doing to each other what they thought was right, that is how things are always done.  A few years after deciding this, I discovered an amazing quote by Thomas Merton: "In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything." 

Attached to that quote, is another amazing quote, here it is: "Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything."   I love Thomas Merton, I visited the Monastery he lived at when he was alive.  He died in 1968, like so many of our prophets.  

So yeah, when I worry I am not living up to my potential, I remember that what really counts is how I live my life and how I impact those around me. Doing that is accomplishing something for humanity, probably the most important thing anyone can do.

That reminds me of a story... the winter after I reached this conclusion, I was walking with my high school friend Ben, talking politics.  He was just turning lefty at that point in his life. And I think he was a bit overwhelmed at the impossibility of the problems we are confronted with.  In his despair he asked something like "but what can we do, what should we do."  So I gave him this answer, about treating others well as being the most important thing.  I think I took him aback, because after I explained it, the convo kind of died.  I think it fits in very well with his brand of Catholicism.  

Hmmm... I looked through some of the old letters I wrote to you, and I need to talk about feminism.  I feel very lucky that my Mom was such an amazing ethics teacher, she imbued me from a very early age with a feminist outlook.  She put alot of emphasis on treating everyone equally (no matter gender, race, sexual orientation, etc.), and would consistently correct my language usage when I said gender-specific things that should be gender-neutral, like fireman or policeman.  She told me to say Firefighter or police officer.  That is one of hundreds of examples of the way she taught me to challenge the status quo and try to live by a feminist set of values.  I think it is because of her (and my Dad, too, but I think my Mom spent more time doing it) that it is my default setting to treat people with as much respect as possible.  She helped me notice how women were treated differently (a skill that I have developed alot thanks to activism and collective liberation stuff), and to try to point it out and do something about it.  Noticing gender roles is very important to me, and can disturbing sometimes when I notice it.  Especially when I feel compelled to point it out to conservatives, to whom I am still trying to figure out how to do it in a constructive way.

There are so many ingrained things in our society that are hard to even recognize, much less fight, that I feel very blessed that my Mom started developing my recognition tools very early in my development.

I get quite annoyed at egotistical men who always try to dominate discussions and prove their points.  It really bugs the hell out of me.  And it is really hard to deal with productively in a group setting.  I have seen groups dissolve because of the problems that arise from men doing this.  It is a really selfish thing to do, to push and push your point just because you think you are right and that everyone needs to agree with you.  They really disempower those around them, and make them feel apathetic.  I have seen it in activist groups, in corporations, and in friend groups.  There is probably a corollary with women, but I have not had it destroy my communities in the same way that it has happened with this phenomenon in men.  It is really scary how unaware so many of these men are this effect on others too.  sigh.  

So that is something I fight against.  The communities I have helped build have tended to be supportive and caring and have managed to deal with these issues in a way that has allowed them to survive instead of completely collapsing (which i have seen happen from a distance several times). Brown sds did this about a year and a half after I left. The activist communities in the Bay that I have hung around with have tended to be really cool and aware of these problems.  And for the most part, there aren't any men in them that do this, which has been lovely.  You know, I should really write an article on this and try to get it published. 

For some reason I am reminded of a quote I once heard... this idea has stuck with me powerfully ever since I heard it uttered.  In the context of something that was happening in their family the person said "the greatest sin someone can commit is to intentionally hurt someone else, either physically or mentally."  And I was like yeah!  that is so true.  It seems to me that so many selfish people do this on a daily basis, and it is not only destructive to their communities, it is an oppression unto themselves as well.  See, that is something most people have not yet realized, that the oppressors are greatly harmed by the oppression too.  Doing bad things to people hurts you as well as them.  Freeing the world from oppression frees the oppressors as well.  A large segment of the left does not realize this, they are too overcome with the Us vs. Them mentality.  They believe that through defeating your enemies, you will win.  This set of means is a false prophet.  I do not believe that in defeating your enemies, you win.  Only through mutual freedom can we ever hope to achieve justice.  Winning should be defined as converting your enemies to your cause.  I think Christ grasped that, which is why he told us to love our enemies as ourselves.  Loving our enemies allows us to free ourselves from our egos, and our need to have our beliefs be publicly vindicated as truth... and to act in the best interest of all. It allows us to treat enemies in such a way that they will be forced to cease to consider themselves our enemies.  Atleast, that is the way I see it, and have seen it work.    

Content from a letter to Sarah #4

Where was I... oh yes, activism. So, Brown SDS(Students for a democratic Society) started out as a vehicle to unite the left. We had long talks about it, and the fall of 06 we had a network formed which started having regular potlucks. We had a diso guide produced, which we distributed to the freshmen at the beginning of spring semester. We had held several anti-war protests and we were toying around with student rights issues. We held several solidarity events for things that were happening nationally. We collected signatures when that Arab American student was tazed like 8 times at UCLA. We did lots of solidarity stuff with other groups, we went to a Democracy Matters event at the state capitol (a half an hour walk from campus) and helped push for reform of the disenfranchisement of felons law. We tried to storm a corporation meeting with SLA (Student Labor Alliance), but only managed to get onto the balcony. We threw leaflets over the dinner tables. SLA was pushing for food services to stop labor squeezing part time workers, and give them full employment and benefits. I will talk more about what I did with SDS in a little bit.

With OIF (the anti-war group), we attended a bunch of protests, and brought some speakers to campus. We held several protests ourselves, and some of our group, including Bucky, got arrested at a Senator's office for refusing to leave until he signed a statement giving his support for ending the war. It was an action organized by the American Friends Service Committee. I love Quakers. One of the cooler things we did was we managed to get an art grant from the art department so we could buy steaks to put into the ground. We bought enough wood for 655 steaks, and the cold night of March 18th (or 19th) we hammered them into the ground. Some of the ground was frozen, which made it difficult. Let me tell you, even with 6 people there, it took us a few hours to hammer that many stakes into the ground. It took up a half acre, i would guess. Each stake represented a thousand people who had died. (There was a big report that estimated that 655,000 Iraqis died, and had pretty good science behind it) Three stakes represented American fatalities at the time. People said it was one of the most powerful anti-war things they had seen, that it really brought it home.

Spring of 07 SDS started looking at Brown's dealings with war profiteering companies. We found out that Raytheon (makes missiles, among other things) was going to be at the career fair about 4 days before it happened. So, impromptu protest! It was actually surprisingly well-planned. We had about 20 people with signs make a soft picket in front of the Raytheon booth. It was alot of fun. The career fair people called the campus police on us, so we had a nice battle of words with the cops. They brought 5 people up on charges of some bs rule, and dragged out the proceedings all semester. But we won, every charge was dropped, cause we had the right to be there. They did not bother the protest that happened in fall of 07 (I had left by this point, but I heard through word of mouth).

But the Raytheon protest turned into a big media spectacle in the college paper. We won lots of coverage and some sympathetic press. It really got the war issue to be talked about on campus. Amazing how something as simple as that can get people talking.

After the success with the Raytheon protest, we looked into other local war profiteers that we could target. We found Textron. Textron seems much less scrupulous than Raytheon, they make cluster bombs. Cluster bombs are nasty, if you dont know what they are, you should look them up... but they kill way too many civilians. Textron also gets like 90% of its business from the DoD (Department of Defense), and most of the rest from the IDF(Israeli Defense Force). So, we had a die-in in front of their international headquarters which happens to be in Providence. It was so much fun. About 40 of us marched down to downtown Providence, took the street in front of their building, and all lay down and wailed. We had fake blood (raspberry jam, I believe) (also, i just realized that you spell raspberries with a "p". I always thought it was just rasberry cause it is always pronounced "raz-berry") and it was alot of fun. The police showed up and formed a line in front of the building. I was video-tapping the whole thing, staying mostly on the police to make sure they stayed within the law. After we had died for awhile, everyone got together, put jam on their hands, and rushed the building, plastering it with reddish handprints. It is quite amazing to see people non-violently rush through a police line. There are a bunch of pictures I will have to show you.

We got alot of media attention for this. Even a one line reference from Good Morning America. National Media! So exciting. And we were just like 20 committed kids, who managed to get some friends together to do this. Who knew it could be so simple.
But, as we were leaving the protest, we didn't realize that one of our number was staying behind to talk to reporters. Because he was out of the group, the cops were able to arrest him for "disorderly conduct." The charges were eventually dropped. But it just goes to show how there is safety in numbers.

Another project SDS worked on was the creation of a student union. It got off the ground pretty well, we managed to sign up one fifth of the school in the matter of a month. We held a general assembly and talked about tuition hikes and how we wanted to organize ourselves. I hear that the organizing around this got too connected to sds to get off the ground, but it was still pretty awe-inspiring. It did contribute, though, to some significant reforms in the student government, which was essentially entirely undemocratic and worthless.

The student union was also part of an overarching accessibility campaign to lower the cost of tuition so that the school could be more economically diverse. We started off pretty well with this campaign. We got alot of signatures on a petition. We formed the student union. We really managed to build support and make it publicly noticeable that we had a ton of support. And perhaps my greatest college activist accomplishment was that I helped start this campaign. After a year of organizing for this, sds won. In spring of 08, Brown announced that students whose families make under 60,000 will not have to take out loans. So amazing. When I started being an activist, I didn't think it would be this easy. Apparently all you have to do is make a big enough stink about something and it will happen. I feel soooo good about helping start this. It seems to be in the tradition of activists at Brown. The only reason I was able to go was because of needs-blind admission. And that was an initiative of the Young Communist League, who managed to get a big coalition on the left together and push for it. So I continued the tradition, by getting better financial aid for those who come after me, just as those who came before me did for me.

Activism has kind of calmed down for me, since I came to Cali. Sadly. I haven't been able to find a large group of people to work with. Plus, my job takes up so much of my time, it is really hard. I do have a few activist friends who I do stuff with, but it feels like there is no time and too few people.

I have always been on a path toward being an activist and raising a stink about injustice. I may try to be polite all the time, probably too often, but I have a very powerful urge to confront what I consider wrong. My friends from high school were not surprised that I was near the center of the re-invigoration of the left on Brown's campus.

I would credit alot of this reinvigoration to the intentional way I went about building community in the group and how other people took up the task. I tried to set a tone of caring, fun, joy and just general support. Most lefty groups do not have that, and they suffer greatly for it. When there is big trouble, they attack each other. Not the groups I helped build. When they have difficulties, they stick together and support each other. They don't blame each other for mistakes and are ready to forgive each other. At the 2008 national convention that I went to, there was a workshop on group emotional support and caring (yeah, sds is fucking awesome like that!), and the 5 members of Brown's chapter that were in attendance went to that one. Cause they know how important it is. And I feel greatly responsible for setting that tone. I am so proud of what Brown's sds chapter did after I left.
Now I just wish I could get the whole organization to understand it. And get them to use it against injustices, not just for good internal dynamics. Love is a far more powerful weapon than anything hate can throw at you. Love will win over enemies, hate has no such power. I really love Harry Potter's portrayal of this fact. Anyone who had any smidgen of love in their hearts could not be a true follower of Voldemort.

I still do stuff with sds. I would have gone to the national convention if it had not fallen on the same weekend as my cousin Jodi's wedding. Lets see, what do I do. I welcome new sign-ups to sds in the western half of the country. I work to try to maintain communication between chapters out here, which is tough cause they are few and far between. And I maintain a news archive of everything that gets reported on sds nationally (google alerts are amazing for this!). I am constantly amazed at how much news we get. On average, during school semesters, we get about 3 news stories mentioning us every day. Utterly fantastic. (I have stepped back from most of these in mid-2010)

One of the reasons I have remained so committed to sds is because of its willingness to approach things like emotional support. And because it is the only group I have seen where people of differing ideologies come together and manage to get along somehow (how the Maoists and the Anarchists get along in sds, I still don't know, but they do it, somewhat). This is not a common thing on the left. Plus my job does not provide me with the organizing fix that I crave, so I help out sds the little bit that I can all by my lonesome out here.
In case this hasn't become apparent, I will be an activist for the rest of my life. It is my career, so to speak. The life path that has seemed apparent to me ever since I discovered my purpose. I know I will never be defeated by any momentary burnout I feel. I have survived years in the wilderness in KY, and years of overwork at Brown. Those two extremes are often the cause of burnout. I have survived unpleasant organizing environments and managed to convert them into good ones. That is also a prime burnout causer, bad social environments.

Just so you know, i didn't used to be so confident about all this stuff. It has taken me years of self-reflection to really KNOW all this, and understand it, even if my intuition has pointed me in this direction since I can remember.

Content from a letter to Sarah #3

Written around July 1st 2009

So, to start telling you some of my history with political activism... here is a quick and dirty rundown. I think I have always had an anti-authoritarian streak in me. In school, especially high school, I would always complain about what bullshit so much of what we were doing was. I might have told you this story already... in middle school, when the school board passed a rule saying people couldn't wear images of Malcolm X, my Mom encouraged me to wear a Malcolm X stamp on my belt (the same belt I am wearing to this day). She explained that it had multiple symbolism, it wasn't just breaking an unjust rule, it was pointing out that the US government endorsed such images as good. If I had the courage I do now, I would have worn a Malcolm X every day until they did something. Then I would have gotten some of my friends to do it. I would have made it a big deal, and shamed the school board into reversing their decision.

In high school, I would have started organizing if there had been people who wanted to organize. But sadly, no one but me was into activism. So I joined the school newspaper staff, and senior year I wrote an op-ed against the Iraq war when it started. Then, when I gave a speech at graduation (I was 5th in the class and got to give a speech) I gave an anti-war speech. It was awesome, I bet I surprised alot of people in the audience.

Then my freshman year in college I looked and looked for activists to organize with, but as I would later learn, the entire activist left had collapsed in early 2003, before I was at college. So, toward the end of my Freshman year I started up a discussion group around envisioning an alternate society. Never got too many people to attend, but lots of good conversation. So my sophmore year was pretty quiet, activism on campus was basically non-existent. The beginning of my junior year, an anti-war meeting was called and like 30 people showed up. I was one of them. This meeting would shape the Brown activist left for the next 4 years, as so many of the leading activists in the community attended and really started their activist careers at this meeting. I feel honored to have been there. We had a few meetings to determine what we wanted to do and started organizing. We called ourselves "OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom, anti-war group)" People who were at those meetings went on to dominate BEAN (Brown Environmental Action Network), SLA (Student Labor Alliance), The Brown Democrats, SuFI (Sustainable Food Initiative), SSDP (Students for a Sensible Drug Policy), Democracy Matters (public funding for elections), SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), and a few others that I can't remember.

So, in 2005, we started organizing against the war. We wrote articles for the newspaper. We brought some speakers to campus. We tried to raise our profile and make the war an issue that was talked about on campus. We got together with a few local community groups and did alittle Truth in Recruitment. We went to the large anti-war marches in DC. There was this one rally in Providence when it was single digits outside, and we rallied for 2 hours. I was so cold, I had like 5 layers on, but I was still cold. There were about 200 people there, and their commitment was so amazing to be out in the cold for so long. Very inspiring.

This is a picture of the first time I addressed a political rally. So far, it has been the only time. I gave a short intro for a professor who was speaking. It was cold that day. You will notice Bucky is the left-most person in the picture, holding a sign. We were holding a protest of Hillary Clinton in 2005 because she was promoting really Hawkish policies and saying Bush needed to escalate the war in Iraq. So yeah, we protested, it was fun.

At the end of my Junior year, we started talking about getting a group together that could tie together all the issues everyone was fighting for. And it just so happened that one of our professors was hosting the first Students for a Democratic Society conference since the 1960s at Brown. It re-formed in Jan 2006, and we started a chapter in March. I spearheaded this group for most of 2006. We held the conference and started organizing the left community at Brown. Then in May 2006 we started laying the groundwork for the Social Justice Network to get all the small groups on the left in campus talking. I am proud to say that alot of the impetus for this came from me. It is still going strong, they have potlucks I hear. So over the summer and my first semester of senior year we worked on the SJN and getting a Disorientation Guide published to help with the SJN. Here is a copy: http://www.campusactivism.org/server-new/uploads/browndisorientiationguide-2006.pdf I wrote about a third of it. I also designed the front cover graphic.There is more to tell... but i think it will have to wait for the next letter.

Thoughts on Non-Violence

Social proof, that is what it all comes down to. Without a significant number of people believing something, it isn't going to happen. Non-violence needs more social proof to be seen as a mainstream solution. Luckily, even the under-developed ideas that currently constitute non-violent thought show how powerful it can be at creating social proof.

The best way to do this is to develop a body of knowledge on how non-violence works, as well as a group of people to go around and exercise these methods. It is only in acting on these ideas and principles in a very public way that we can prove their effectiveness. So, we need to both develop an institute to study the subject (already a few in existence!) and a systematic group to practice and refine methods. There are plenty of groups using non-violence out there, but they do not do it systematically and experimentally, nor do they take meticulous notes on it. Non-violent Peaceforce comes as close to this as I have seen. As much as I love them (they are friggin' amazing!) I wish they would put more effort into smaller scale trainings that would empower locals to fight their own battles as well as be part of the NP network. While I totally dig their interventions in the Phillipines and Sri Lanka, I think there is so much more potential than only in those two places. I want something with the capacity to train thousands in the U.S. every year.

I also think that NP focuses too much on peacekeeping as a third party activity. Part of what makes non-violence so powerful is employing it to fight a conflict, not just as a third party peacekeeper. I want to prove to the public that we can fight and win a war non-violently. And to do that, I think it will take thousands of people across the country using non-violent techniques against violent attackers and winning... and making the point that the only reason they won was because of the use of non-violence.

I will give some examples of what I have in mind... I want an organization that can train:
Unions to be more effective at their struggles.
Groups fighting for civil rights issues (racism, sexism, homophobia)
Poverty fighters
College activists
Copwatches - I want them to have the legal authority to intervene if a police officer is doing something illegal, and they will have to win that.
Environmental activists.
People to deal with day to day conflicts in their own lives...
The list could go on for awhile.

I want to help develop an alternative to the violent military and something that can win against the military-industrial complex. I want to disabuse the global public of its infatuation with and belief in violence. I want to give the movement a weapon more effective than violence so that we can transform this world.

sds at Brown

8 members of Students for a Democratic Society at Brown are being brought up on disciplinary charges for entering University Hall when The Brown Corporation was meeting and trying to present them with a petition signed by 1000 students, faculty and staff. They are being charged with allegedly hurting Brown University employees (i.e. Brown police). None of these injuries required hospitalization. But this raises some questions. Why are only 8 of them being charged? Does the University administration think that sds intentionally hurt people? Or is this just some authorities scared to lose their power, so they are trying to make an example out of a few people to scare the others off. That is what it seems to be. They are just out for retribution for a very public disruption of a Corporation meeting and the threat that 1000 supporters wanting democracy presents to this governing group.

These charges are arbitrary and unjust, and it just seems like they were created to have something to charge sds with. I am happy, however, to see Brown sds in the news so much, and making such a large impact on the minds of students. That takes organization, time and effort. I know that if sds keeps this kind of pressure up, they will have some measure of success.

I hope, though, that sds arranges a face-saving way out for the Corporation to take. Giving them an out will allow sds to determine the way this ends and provide a win-win situation for sds and the Corporation. Sds will get some consessions, and the Corporation will get this embarrasing issue out of the news and out of people's minds. Then sds can start another round of demands, make a big fuss about it, get alot of media coverage and support, and give the Corporation a way out that benefits both groups. That way, we achieve their consent to doing what we want, without the often fruitless battle of chicken that two groups with indomnitable wills tend to fall into. There is no sense in a total war mentality that demands the complete surrender of an opponent when one's opponent has a strong sense of pride that will always prevent them from taking a step that they feel will humiliate them. Better to understand this about one's opponent and use it to one's advantage than to try to force capitutlation, because that almost always will never come.

The same goes for the Corporation. If they understood sds, they would try to work something out, because sds is not going to be cowed by a disciplinary hearing or even having some of its members suspended from school. That will only back sds into a corner and cause them to fight harder. But no, the Corporation is arrogant enough to think it can ignore the widespread wish for more democracy at Brown and do as it wishes because it is the authority. More democracy would teach Brown students how to be better citizens and how to compromise and resolve conflict. This would be an objective improvement in the atmosphere at Brown as well as the educational environment. It is so sad to see a group charged with improving and sustaining the Brown community can have its vision of clouded so thouroughly by pride.

Thoughts on the future and Obama

I can't lie, Obama has moved me. And while I hope he institutes a progressive policy, it would not surprise me if he did not. Politicians have a responsibility to the public to do what the public wants, and if they think the public wants them to do A, they will probably go along with it. So while I am celebrating Obama being elected, I do not buy the "he was being centrist to get elected, he is really a progressive-wolf in centrist-sheep's clothing."

I would say the most moving part of his story, though, and the reason I am more hopeful of his ability than most other politicians are his self-reflective nature and his community organizing roots. Atleast according to various exposes of him in various forms of media, he spends alot of time contemplating himself, trying to develop self-knowledge. Self-reflection is so key to so much in my life, that I can't help but have some confidence in a leader who appears to have a similar relationship with it. That and various anecdotes that speak to the kindness in his heart give me cause to hope.
Now, if he can manage to transition his campaign arm into a grassroots organization with the purpose of passing progressive policy, oh man, that would make for an interesting future. The creation of a Democratic grassroots "machine", so to speak, that would have a progressive agenda of its own, plus an ameniable President and congress could be a recipe for significant change.

This is a rare opportunity. If the left can mobilize a grassroots mind-changing campaign along side a policy changing campaign, then we could see some real change. I hope sds manages to jump on this opporunity, because we could sway large numbers of people if we can manage to get our voice out there in a relevant and meaningful way.

Another interesting development that Obama's campaign's extreme grassroots nature could produce is a substantial uptick in the pariticipation of the public in our government. It could be the beginnings of a culture of participation, which will only lead toward participatory democracy. I wonder if Obama realizes the impact he could have on the way government works if he can transition his grassroots campaign organization into a more permeanent institution.

This campaign has also shown that you can get marginalized groups mobilized and involved, as well as the average citizen. They just need to be inspired and she the disillusionment that our system of government seems to naturally produce in people because of its unresponsiveness.

Politicians and power

Real power is not a commodity, it is consent.  Specifically, consent from large groups of people. Power can only be bought when people consent to being bought off, and it can only be stolen when people consent to giving it up through some form of intimidation.  But there is a difference between active consent and apathetic consent.  Active consent produces real, tangible power that can move mountains and change the wheel.  Apathetic consent produces the shadow of power, people go along with it, but their hearts aren't in it.  Consent to the activities and policies of politicians fall into the second category.  Only half the population is motivated to spend one hour or less to do something as easy as voting, now that is apathetic consent to be governed.   

Too many people believe politicians are able to do things, that they have power enough to make decisions themselves.  That is not the nature of the beast.  It was the nature of Monarchs and Emperors, back when people put more stock in the authority of their leaders and were much much more willing to act on their leader's wishes.  But it is not so today.  If a politician asked me to do something, I doubt I would do it unless it was something I was going to do anyway.  I bet the same is true for most of you out there.  We are forced to apathetically consent to their existence, because there is no alternative, as of yet.  Because they receive this type of consent, politicians do not have latitude to do what they wish.  We have stripped them of that power by our lackluster enthusiasm.  Like most of us, their hands are tied, they are stuck in Weber's iron cage of rules and regulations, and without support, they are unable to do what they want just as much as we are unable to create what we wish. 

I am reminded of a story about FDR.  During the early days of his administration, he met with labor leaders, they gave a presentation to try to convince him to adopt their policies.  At the end, FDR told them that they had convinced him and he completely agreed with what they were saying, and that now they had to go out into the public arena and force him to do it.  Hating politicians for being spineless and unable to do what we want is like hating grass for being unable to remain rigid against the wind.  If we want to shift the way the grass bends, we have to change the direction of the wind.  

I don't bother getting angry at politicians anymore.  Not worth the effort, they just do what they do and that won't change until we change our system of government.  Getting some active consent going for a policy will change policy, but it will not change the anti-participatory nature of our republic.  

It seems to me that too many people on the left focus on the people at the top levels of our government, and focus on them for failing to live up to America's ideals.  But they don't have the real power.  The population that apathetically consents to their existence has the REAL power, and they nullify it by being apathetic.  If we ever want to change our society, we have to change the minds of the population and get them organized and acting.  Politicians are a moot point, when the population's minds are changed, the minds of politicians will be changed. Just look at the environmental movement's success in converting the general population.  Even Republicans are now trying to appeal to green-minded voters.  We shouldn't waste our emotional energies decrying politicians and fighting the power-structures unless these activities are aimed at changing people's minds and mobilizing them.  And unfortunately, they often are not aimed at this, they are aimed at forcing authority figures to do what we want.

A Revolution is Just a Spinning of the Wheel

I mistrust the notion of revolution.  Far too many people put stock in it as an effective way to change society, but even a brief gloss-over of history tells me that it is not particularly effective. Take Russia for example.  They have had several revolutions in the past 200 years both violent and peaceful, yet they still have an authoritarian government, it may be composed of different people, but it is still essentially the same as the Tsar monarchy or the Soviet-style government. China too, several revolutions, still authoritarian.  Then there are countless third world countries that have had revolutions galore, and we can see how well that has worked out for them. We could take the French revolution as the archetype of revolution.  They overthrew an absolute monarch and large, powerful factions such as the Sansculottes pushed for direct democracy.  The core of the intellectual support for the French revolution supported more democracy, and indeed has inspired the rest of the world with its idealism.  Yet they ended up empowering Napoleon in the near absolute power of an Emperor.   If there were to be a revolution in the typical sense in America, I do not believe it would achieve the ends we desire. 

I am reminded of the analysis provided in 1984 about before Oceania's type of government:  there were always revolutions that would overthrow one group of oligarchs and replace them with another group.  Indeed, a republic is designed to institutionalize this process, stabilizing the switching of control and reducing disruption.  It also stabilizes the groups who maintain power, allowing them to entrench themselves more effectively and simply change places with each other every few years.  Kind of scary to think that a republic, what we have now in America, is an institutionalization of the cycle of revolution.  I am not particularly interesting in changing who has the reigns of power, which may be why I am never had a particular interest in working to elect politicians or bothering rich people to do things.

  

True to its definition, revolution is just the spinning of the wheel, you always end up where you started.  Myself, I am not interested in spinning my wheels... what I want to do is change the wheel itself.  History, again, can aid in understanding this.  There have been numerous wheel-changing events in history, among the most prominent are the industrial revolution and the enlightenment.  They both defined the lenses that the world has been seen through since they came about.  What is phenomenal about them is that they were not specifically directed at the power structures themselves, they were simple shifts in our view of the world and how one acts in it.  

I have come across the idea of wheel changing events before; something that happens that changes everything.  For indigenous populations, exposure to western civilization has been wheel-changing, their cultures are disrupted, and they are often forced to abandon their way of life.  Forced in the military sense, or in the generational shift-sense when the next generation has to stop living the way they did to survive.   But, the best description of a wheel-changing event that I have come across yet comes from literature.  The Riverworld series describes how an ancient society accidentally developed an artificial soul generator that automatically bound souls to new sentient beings.  So, this society changed its newborns without even knowing it, and in the space of only a couple generations, all the beings without these souls were gone because of old age.   This is a great metaphor for generational change.  One generation develops something, the next generation is imbued with it and it becomes an indestructible part of our society.

This seems to be the main wheel-changing method that humanity has at its disposal, and it can be boiled down to mass education, motivation, and changes in each of our ways of life.  To change society, you really have to change the way people think and act, because what else is society but the aggregate of all of our thoughts and actions.  

The industrial revolution was a revolution of mind, it shifted the priorities in life more directly toward profit, productivity and self-interest away from the typical human priority of social networking and the reciprocal economy.  It manifested itself in the day to day behavior of people and in their way of life.  It was compelling enough to spread like a plague across the earth, infecting all those it touched.  

I also think that the 60s was a wheel-changing event in opposition to the industrial revolution's, as it prompted people to change their priorities away from profit.  In fact, I believe that the old sds's long-haul strategy of radicalizing (educating) young people was key in the effectiveness of this specific event.  Without a de-centralized yet organized education and motivation effort, wheel-changing events are much harder to produce.  

Without this hard work of changing minds, we will not see success in our movement.  In the eternal words of Monty Python: "Power is derived from a mandate from the masses, not some farcical aquatic ceremony."  Too often people on the left focus on the power structures in a society, when we should be focusing on the real power in human society - each other.

Bread and Roses

I have been listening to some classic labor songs lately, and they are so awesome. One of my favorite lines is from the song "Joe Hill." It goes like this: "Takes more than guns to kill a man, says Joe 'I didn't die'... says Joe 'what they can never kill went on to organize'"
This is such a powerful message, that when people stand up for something and die in its defense, that their spirit lives on in others. They inspire people with their sacrifice and their selflessness. Joe Hill was a Swedish-American labor organizer and a Wobbley (term for a member of the Industrial Workers of the World aka the IWW) in the early 1910s. He traveled around the country organizing people to fight for their rights, and penned songs, poems and speeches. He coined the term "pie in the sky" referencing religious figure's claims of rewards after death but apparent apathy toward the living conditions of the average person. His execution was a sham of justice. He had recieved a gun wound (he said it was over a woman) the same night that two people were murdered. During the crime, one of the two murders was wounded, and of the five people with gun shot wounds who went to doctors in the area that night it would be the labor organizer who was tried, convicted, and executed. No motive could be determined for why Hill would have committed the crime, and many of the facts just didn't fit. But he was still convicted. The trial was very controversial and the media made a big deal about it. Hill gained a bit of fame from it, and his loss has been morned in the labor movement since he was murdered by the government.

Another song which tugs at my heart strings is "Aragon Mill" by Peggy Seeger. It describes the economic desolation caused by the closing of the mill in a small rural town. The mill was the main employer, and once it pulled out, it left a void of unemployment. It reminds me alot of my hometown, with its 23% poverty rate, and the darkness that a lack of jobs creates in a community. This lyric always gets me, sometimes I tear up from it: "Oh, I'm too poor to move, and I'm too young to die, and their's no where to go for my family and I, cause the mill has shut down, its the only life I know, tell me where can I go, tell me where can I?" There is such pain in her voice in that lyric. The level of helplessness that she is expressing is really staggering. Maybe if I had not seen this type of economic situation with my own eyes as I was growing up, I wouldn't be as sympathetic. But this song plucks my heart strings like few others.

Then there is "Bread and Roses." People need more than just subsistence. Earning a wage just for survival is not the way people were designed to live. My favorite lyric in this is "hearts starve as well as bodies, give us bread, but give us roses." People need beauty, fun, and love in their lives or they will starve as assuridly as if they did not get their daily bread. I have seen many people whose hearts are starved. Interestingly, most of these people are not in economic need, they are quote well off. But they have no time for the things that are truly important in life. And this leaves them starving. They try to fix this hunger with material goods. But that is like eating empty calories to fight malnutrition, it does nothing to heal the body, just fills the stomach for a short time. True and lasting happiness comes from other people and the beauty in human interactions, not from consumption.

sds National Conference Account I Wrote up for Tikkun

The following is an account of the sds National Conference which I wrote for Tikkun.  It will probably go up on the Tikkun website under Current Thinking soon.  

The new incarnation of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) is alive and thriving.   SDS convened its third national convention in College Park, Maryland on July 24th 2008, with the mandate to pass a national structure.  The University of Maryland chapter of sds along with the help of other DC sdsers, played host for over 140 sds members from across the country.  The long plenaries were broken apart by singing, meals, collective liberation activities, workshops, caucuses and socializing.  After trudging through a very long and rushed two days of discussing structure, the convention passed a resolution outlining a National Working Committee as the administrative (and possibly somewhat executive) body of the organization.  This structure will need to be ratified by the chapter base to go into effect.   

Political/Spiritual Analysis

SDS is a complicated political entity.  It has a very politically diverse membership, ranging from Anarchists to Maoists to a smattering of mainstream liberals.  The majority of the membership is anti-authoritarian and very distrustful of hierarchy, and yet we managed to compromise on structure to allow for some hierarchy when it comes to coordination of the national organization.  This bodes well for the future of sds. Being able to unify a diverse group of political outlooks toward positive social change will build the power of the organization and encourage membership growth.

SDS has a very strong vein of spiritual analysis in it, although very few sds members would frame it that way.  Recognizing how people are disenfranchised and dehumanized, having compassion for those suffering around the world, feeling compelled by their consciences to resist an unjust system, believing a better world is possible, and developing human-need-oriented structures are all key elements of a spiritual analysis of society which sds has whole-heartedly embraced. It is still discussing spiritual issues surrounding the humanization of one's opponents, suffering as a method of social change, and interfacing with the spiritual/religious community. 

Religious/Spiritual Issues

Like any community of left-leaning people, there is a certain amount of anti-religious fervor.  This is mostly directed at religious institutions for their role in oppression and causing injustice.  There is however, some deriding of religious/spiritual people as simplistic and foolish.  Sds has taken a mature approach to this issue through starting a discussion around stereotyping religious/spiritual people and the counter-productivity of blindly attacking religions as monolithic-ally bad.  The discussion touched on the extremely high standards that religions are held to by anti-religious people.  The point that religion institutions are run by humans, so they have the same flaws as every other institution was made.  Unfortunately there was not much time for discussion and the development of a mutual understanding to develop, so continuing the healing of this rift will have to wait for another day.     

Community

More impressive though, is the role that sds has been able to play in the lives of political activists.  That is, the establishment of a national community of like-minded people.  Connecting new people into the network, and having groups for across the country for sdsers to join when they move.  Prevention of the overwhelming feeling of isolation is essential to the health of the movement, and sds's network fulfills this beautifully.   Whenever a high school sds chapter graduates a class of sdsers, they spread like seeds across the nation to build new or reinforce existing sds chapters.  When students transfer, they can plug into a nearby chapter.  When a college chapter graduates a class of sdsers, they inject veteran organizers into the real world, organizers who often believe they will dedicate their lives to the pursuit of social justice.  This community causes dedication like none I have ever seen.  It effectively shields its members against ghastly burnout and provides a sense of security that is hard to find in the present social system. 

And this community is often deliberately created and cultivated.  There was a workshop at the convention titled "Building a Community of Support within sds" where the group discussed what in sds made them feel isolated and dis-empowered and what made them feel hopeful, fulfilled and empowered.  This discussion was very healing for those who attended.  Events such as this will help us develop the behavioral technology to protect our communities from the corrosive effects of isolation, fear, mistrust, personality clashes and misplaced anger.  In addition to this excellent workshop, the organizers of the conference created an emotional support and conflict resolution team to attempt to heal many of the frustrations, anger, and miscommunication created during the convention's decision-making process.  While sds does not always focus on how to adapt its current structures to fit human needs, this conference did a substantial job of creating a setting that facilitated the creation and protection of community.

Campaigns

The National Convention gave its seal of approval to one campaign, the "Student Power for Accessible Education" campaign.  This national campaign will, in the short term, push for fewer loans for students, tuition freezes, more grants, lower textbook costs, and many other needed changes to the financial interactions between students and their colleges. Mid-term goals include establishing student unions across the US, and building student power.  The long term goals include fair and free education for all, since after all, education is a right.  Individual sds chapters, as well as any other organizations that want to join us, can plug into this campaign simply by beginning to act on their own campus.  The idea is to not only push for change in the education system, but to build a student movement with the confidence and the skills to be able to have a decisive impact on the greater society. National coordination or activity is a possibility, but that will likely wait until there is a significant presence of chapter campaigns. 

Funk the War on the Poor

On Monday the 28th, DC sds hosted an action for those attending the convention to attend.  It was a roving dance party (essentially a march) that protested the construction of the NAFTA Superhighway, I-69, through many poor communities in the Midwest and South.  This highway is actually going to pass about 60 miles from my home town, so it was surprisingly relevant to me.  The tactic of dancing was quite effective in keeping a good group energy and appealing to on-lookers.  The police showed up in force, nearly 50 of them to our 100.