RYM and societal change.

RYM.  The Revolutionary Youth Movement.  It is something I have been thinking about alot lately, analyzing and reflecting upon its historical impact. 

RYM was a strategic vision that SDS laid out in the 60s, not to be confused with the sds sectarian groups that named themselves RYM I (which eventually became the weathermen) and RYM II (that went maoist and communist and eventually gave birth to countless splinter groups).  Now, I don't think I am getting this exactly correct... but what Michael Lerner described in one of his unpublished books is the basis for this understanding of RYM...  The strategy was simple and very long-term.  The idea was education based: you make a concerted and structured effort to teach as many young people as possible about progressive politics, ethics, and ideas.  You convince them and give them a reason for investing themselves in those politics. When they leave school they will go into the world and spread the ideas, and live their lives by them as much as is possible inside the system.  This will have a culture shifting impact.  Their actions will shift the perceptions of those around them.  Their contributions to their communities will change localities.  

This strategy combines the finest strengths of the left.  Strength of ideas, education, embodiment of principles, decentralized structure and grassroots action are all combined into an extremely long-term strategy that appears to have been quite effective.  It acknowledged the shifts that always occur when generations turn-over.  As new generations come and older ones leave, culture changes.  RYM takes advantage of this natural process of culture change by attempting to reform society by reshaping the minds of new generations.  

Unfortunately, RYM was only practiced for... perhaps the better part of a decade, if not less.  But it's impact is striking.  Take the issue of racism for example.  50 years ago, racism was the dominant viewpoint among large swaths of the American public, including in my hometown of Edmonton.  But now, racism has been forced underground.  It is now a shameful thing to be seen as or acting as a racist.  

But aside from issue oriented changes, I would also like to see how 5 to 10 years of RYM affected the life of a single person... me.  I am proud to say my parents were both products of RYM, whether they know it or not.   The ideas they garnered from the 60s allowed them to move to rural Kentucky and raise me there.  My mom's strong strain of feminism probably would have not been able to develop had it not been for RYM, and I would have lost one of the major positive influences on the way I structure my behavior toward everyone.  My Dad's political side also had an immense impact on shaping my perspective and direction in life.   

The compassion and dedication both of my parents have shown through their social work were, in part, inspired by their politics which were shaped by RYM.   Their dedication to helping others, even if you have to live "in the trenches" as my Dad has said, has consistently inspired me to live up to their example.  

Now lets look at the town I grew up in.  It is a town of 1500 people in rural Kentucky.  The poverty rate is nearly 25%. According to my Dad, there were duels in the streets in the 50s.  However, over the past 3 decades things have calmed down.  There are still plenty of problems, but since the influx in the 70s of hippies and people shaped by RYM, the culture of the county has changed.  Many of these hippie settlers have become community leaders.  Their children have gone on to change the minds of their peers and further the reverberating effects of RYM.  I can see the culture-shifting affects in my hometown of the concerted efforts of relatively small group of tens of thousands of young adults over the course of several years trying to institute RYM.  If between 5 and 10 years of instituting RYM can so drastically change our society that a small rural town in the middle of no where Kentucky is impacted this much, then imagine what a organized effort of 20 years of RYM could do.  With this technique we could restructure the very foundations upon which our society rests over the course of the next 100 years.  

"Students Against Hippies in Trees"

On Monday, I opened "The Daily Californian," the student paper of UC Berkeley, and I was greeted by a picture of a fellow I had just met on Friday at a welcoming party held by the Metta Center (a center for spreading education about non-violence). In the picture, he is just standing next to a tree, and cops are swarming him. He had been sitting in a tree on campus for the past couple weeks, trying to raise awareness about the undemocratic nature of the UC Board of Reagents. He was arrested on Friday around 2:15 and I met him around 4 at the party. He introduced himself as "Fresh," and I talked to him for awhile about the Democratizing the Reagents campaign. Pretty interesting stuff, he had alot of the same complaints that Brown students have, and is organizing around issues that sds is organizing around.
It is nice to see that even in places where sds does not exist yet, there are people organizing around some of the central issues which sds is doing across the nation. I am planning on contacting some of the other organizers of the campaign and tell them about sds, with the hope that they will hook into the sds network to help their cause (as well as maybe become an sds chapter :-) ).
But what I found hilarious about the article in the Daily Californian was that there is actually a group called "Students Against Hippies in Trees." And they showed up to protest the protest. Gotta love counter-protests, they are always kind of funny, especially when they have ridiculous names like that.
The thing that still boggles my mind is why the University cares that Fresh was in a tree for two weeks. It is not like the Oak Grove tree sit where they wanted to build something on the site. They had no designs on cutting down the tree that Fresh was in, so why did they make such a big deal about it? If they had just ignored him, his protest probably would have slowly trailed off and ended unceremoniously. But instead, they invested a tremendous amount of time, energy and symbolic investment into Fresh's protest. When he came down, it was in front of 150 people and he was arrested on the spot. Now that is an awesome climax for a protest, and bound to get plenty of attention, which is what he was after. If the administration had ignored him, I doubt he would have made it into the press very much. It is only because they responded that he even made a splash. It reminds me of that part in Harry Potter where Dumbledore is explaining to Harry that the only reason the Prophecy would come true is because Voldemort put worth into it and let it affect his actions. He sewed the seeds of his own undoing by putting faith in the truthfulness of that prophecy. Indeed, the prophecy is self-fulfilling, as long as he believed in it. The same is true of this protest. The administration believed that this protest would have an affect, and consequently, they reacted strongly to it. Strong enough to try, in the words of Fresh, a "sneak ninja attack" at night, and ban him from campus for a week when he came down. If they had just ignored him, I doubt anyone would have showed up to see the drama of a confrontation (there would not have been one if the administration had ignored him). Nor would the press have cause to write an article where there was no tension (they are annoying like that). The administration could have defused the tension of the situation by ignoring him.
All in all, this just shows the strength of non-violence. When your opponent strikes out, it only makes you stronger and your message more prominent. And while I am not sure how effective sitting in a tree for two weeks is toward democratizing the reagents (aside from getting press to the issue)... it sure makes for a good story.