Note from Brian: The following is an article by X from New Brunswick. Its a very interesting analysis of the multi-class alliance that elected Obama and the potential for that alliance to aim more progressive aims on a path to revolution. I’d like to see a discussion of the class analysis in this article, so comment if you have ideas. Beyond that, I’ll note that I do not agree that the development of the “new SDS” is a positive development. From my experiences as an organizer and founder of the group, I think it has taken a very backwards turn. Any strides it has made are stuck in the culture, politics, and “strategies” of the 20th (or 19th!) century. But beyond that, this article is superb i think. Here it is:

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The Obama movement is a spontaneous upsurge of the most advanced workers in the country. It is an emerging class alliance of the progressive social forces of the new economy.[2] Whereas Clinton and McCain supporters desperately cling to the old economy of the 20th century (each in their own way), the diverse constituencies uniting around the Obama campaign are natural economic, political and cultural allies in the 21st century. The millions of students, Afro-Americans, Latinos[3], grassroots and netroots activists, unions in expanding industries, technicians, artists, engineers, and other professionals that support Obama’s candidacy all share an unyielding commitment to democracy, creativity, productivity, diversity, collaboration and progress.[4] They also share uncanny abilities at self-organization, mobilization and networking (each in their own way). They represent the potential for a revolutionary democratic coalition that could challenge the unfettered rule of capitalism in the US if we, as progressive and revolutionary organizers, recognize the opportunity before us and do all that we must to empower this movement to come into its own, strike independently and realize its aspirations of freedom for all.

Waiting for Lefty

We cannot succeed in this critical task unless we shake off the ideological hangover of the traditional US Left that remains mired in 20th century worldviews rooted in the disappearing old economy. Among the “established” groups contending today for the title of “leadership” on the grassroots activist Left, proposals for activity in this landmark election year range from timidity to wishful thinking to nihilism.

Some recommend that we support Obama unconditionally so as to not jeopardize his chances to defeat the Republicans (and we know how well this worked out in 2004 with the Kerry campaign). Others propose that we give Obama only “conditional” support while criticizing him from the “left” (as if the Obama campaign cared about the support of hopelessly fragmented and isolated activists). Others yet remain on the sidelines as armchair critics of the two-party system (stating an obvious problem and offering no viable solution). Worst of all, the most recklessly self-important propose to “recreate 68” and glorify pointless disruptions with dangerous consequences at the hands of police well trained in “crowd control.” This last and most reprehensible proposal willfully ignores that 1968 saw the assassinations of the most progressive mainstream political leaders (Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy), ushered in the collapse of the revolutionary Left (from Students for a Democratic Society to the Black Panther Party) and gave us the Nixon White House that served as the training ground for the maniacal Neo-Cons currently misruling the country (Cheney anyone?).

The common thread in the traditional US Left narrative is the failure to comprehend – or even to attempt to comprehend– the profound political, economic, cultural and social changes that have taken place in the capitalist system in the past decades. This revolution in the production process transformed the US economy from an industrial “old economy” mostly based on physical labor to an information-based “new economy” mostly based on mental labor. Each of these economies is powered by very different classes of workers and capitalists. For the past several decades, these various class forces all contended over who will control the future. The forces of the “new economy” steadily grew along with relentless technological development while the forces of the “old economy” desperately clung to power in one incarnation or another.[5] And whereas this complex struggle mostly took place between different sections of capitalists financing the political campaigns of Democrats and Republicans, the sudden rise of the Obama movement represents not only the final ascendency of the big capitalists of the new economy in the US but also the first mass mobilization of the workers of the new economy whose newfound means and ability to produce and reproduce our society has emboldened them to stake their own claim to the future (if still so tentative).

Whether they call themselves anarchists, socialists, communists, radicals or situationists; whether they are committed to identity politics or to organizing “industrial workers”, the “poor”, the “oppressed” or the “alienated”, most leftist activists cannot account for –and much less take an active role in – the rising 21st century progressive class alliance because they rely on outdated understandings of what makes people revolutionary. They do not grasp that all of the diverse constituencies coalescing in the Obama movement play key roles in the new economy. They do not grasp that all of these constituencies are natural allies because together they possess the means and the ability to empower the great majority to take control of society, rescuing it from the capitalist system that can never deliver on the promise of democracy. Predictably, traditional leftist activists do not offer any plan to engage the Obama movement in any concrete activity (beyond tailing the Obama campaign and encouraging voter registration or protesting it to no avail), vainly hoping to draw a few stragglers to the musty old leftist political programs of yesteryear.

Revolutionaries actually interested in building a new society based on the principles of democracy, equality and progress need to do more than talk or posture about challenging the absolute rule of capital (or imperialism or the “system”). The Obama movement gives us a first glimpse of the extraordinary potential of the rising 21st century progressive class alliance coming together at breakneck speed before our eyes (and hinting at the potential speed of radical changes to come in the near future). Our primary concern should not be Obama the candidate, and much less the Obama campaign. We must focus on the role we must play in the Obama movement. And in a much broader sense, we must focus on the role we must play in the 21st century progressive class alliance that began before, currently energizes, and will outlast the Obama movement far into the future.

It is incumbent upon those of us committed to revolutionary democracy to:

• understand what 21st century progressive class forces are coalescing in the Obama movement, how they came to be, why they are revolutionary and what they could accomplish should they consolidate into a revolutionary democratic coalition independent of the Obama campaign;
• understand what we as revolutionary organizers must do to facilitate this consolidation and empower the Obama movement to become fully conscious of its own revolutionary potential;
• develop and put forth our own proposals, analyses, plans for action and strategy for revolutionary democracy and engage the Obama movement in concrete activity to build and seize revolutionary democratic political, economic, cultural and social power wherever they are.

Obama’s candidacy has revealed and greatly accelerated the unification process of the 21st progressive class alliance. It is up to us to organize and empower this alliance to become conscious of itself as a revolutionary democratic movement that can lead us into the future.

[Read more →]

Inside the Obama campaign, almost without anyone noticing, an insurgent generation of organizers has built the Progressive movement a brand new and potentially durable people’s organization, in a dozen states, rooted at the neighborhood level.

The “New Organizers” have succeeded in building what many netroots-oriented campaigners have been dreaming about for a decade. Other recent attempts have failed because they were either so “top-down” and/or poorly-managed that they choked volunteer leadership and enthusiasm; or because they were so dogmatically fixated on pure peer-to-peer or “bottom-up” organizing that they rejected basic management, accountability and planning. The architects and builders of the Obama field campaign, on the other hand, have undogmatically mixed timeless traditions and discipline of good organizing with new technologies of decentralization and self-organization.

Win or lose, “The New Organizers” have already transformed thousands of communities—and revolutionized the way organizing itself will be understood and practiced for at least the next generation. Obama must continue to feed and lead the organization they have built—either as president or in opposition. If he doesn’t, then the broader progressive movement needs to figure out how to pick this up, keep it going and spread it to all 50 states. For any of that to happen, the incredible organizing that has taken place this year inside Obama’s campaign—and also here and there in Clinton’s—needs to be thoroughly understood and celebrated. Toward that end, here are glimpses from several days of observations and interviews in Central and Southwest Ohio. This article focuses on the field program’s innovative “neighborhood team” structure and the philosophy of volunteer management underlying it that is best summarized by the field campaign’s ubiquitous motto: “Respect. Empower. Include.” [Read more →]

“Direct action gets the goods”

The person who wrote this definitely could have meant “social power gets the goods”. But they just as easily could have thought that the use of direct action, the tactic itself, is the essense of what makes an action effective. Those who think that direct action is what brings about victories are often confused, annoyed, or frustrated when it fails to do so. It is important to move beyond simplistic slogans like this, and especially dogma around everything from direct action and voting, to issues of state power and reform struggles. Without breaking through these simplistic concepts, we will be ill-equipped to maximize our chances of success and effectively analyze our failures and setbacks.

Most good organizers who use direct action as a tactic would agree that greater numbers and higher consciousness among participants will increase the likelihood of success. But unless a correct understanding of the nature of power is central to their “conceptual toolbox”, they are less likely to convey the correct lessons to those they lead, or are more likely to convey them in a language which is misinterpreted by newer members. If the central slogan they use is “direct action gets the goods”, and they have an implicit understanding that direct action works best with large numbers and with a high level of political unity, then they can be effective leaders. Unfortunately, their use of the term often gives newer members with an incoherent and/or poorly synthesized perspective on organizing, power, and action. Effective organizers would do well to say precisely what they mean: organizing that builds evermore social power is what “gets the goods”, and direct action is often an extremely useful tactic in the context of an well-planned strategy. We should not elevate tactics to the level of strategy nor should we misattribute causal attributes (i.e. incorrectly attributing to the success of a campaign to direct action, compared to correctly attributing the success of a campaign to the organized social power of progressives who used direct action as part of an effective and well-planned strategy).

As more youth organizers correctly grasp the nature of power and strategy, our movement will flurish in ways previously unseen.

I wrote this post a few months ago. I’m reposting it. Seriously though. If you want to win a new world, read The Art of War by Sun Tzu. And study strategy. Study your opponent. Study the art of winning.

“It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The Art of War, written in the 6th century BC by Sun Tzu (Master Sun), is a 13 chapter Chinese treatise on military warfare and strategy. When read metaphorically, its a brilliant addition to those studying political strategy, and especially for those seeking fundamental social transformation.

Steve Bucknum posted an article called “George Lakoff vs. Sun Tzu” two years ago on BlueOregon where he recommended the ancient text to those interested in building progressive political power. Referring to text in the context of Oregon he said:

“Study of the ‘Nine Terrains’ (a chapter in the ‘Art of War’) is a good metaphor for having political strength in one part of the State, but not others — and how to maximize our strength and minimize the power of the other side. (If we attack their homelands, and cause them to defend their base, then they will not have enough strength left to attack our base. — Makes you want to spend more time/effort/money in Eastern Oregon!) There is a lot of good advice for strategy in these works — ‘When you are committed to employing your forces, feign inactivity. When your objective is nearby, make it appear as if distant; when far away, create the illusion of being nearby.’ These works have stood the test of thousands of years, in fact that some of it has risen to the level of ‘common sense’ in that we have heard parts before.”

Its a short book too, depending on the version & translation you get, the actual text is about 60-75 pages - and well worth every page. The translation I have can be bought here.

SEAC Election Guide: We’re excited to inform all our members of two great new pamphlets by SEAC and RAN. The first pamphlet, edited by SEAC National Council Member Dave Shukla and designed by Slim Lopez is called “Now and After: SEAC’s Guide to Student Organizing Around the 2008 Elections“. The guide explores why engaging with the 2008 elections and our current political moment is so vital to the success of building movements into the next year. Essays over topics ranging from analyzing our political moment, to advocating that we organize heavily to prepare for the first hundred days of the next presidential administration and congress, to why the climate movement needs to win economic democracy in order to achieve justice and equity.

RAN NVDA Pamphlet: Secondly, the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has produced an amazing pamphlet on Nonviolent Direct Action called “Get Some Action: Taking Our Place in the History of U.S. Social Movements“, written by Joshua Kahn Russell, a RAN staff member and SEAC National Council Member. Like Dave and Slim’s pamphlet, it stresses the importance of the climate crisis and taking bold action at this point in history in order to advert catastrophe. Drawing from the rich history of movements for social justice and their strategic application of NVDA, it outlines the basics of this method, its history, and why its a vital tactic in winning the fight against climate change, dirty energy corporations, and environmental injustice. Josh can be reached at josh(at)ran.org

“You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed, and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you just how deep the rabbit hole goes.” - Morpheus offering Neo the choice in The Matrix

In the movie The Matrix, Redpills are those whose minds have been freed from the Matrix. When you take a red pill, those who are waging a war against those who run the system (the “machines”), unplug you from that virtual world and allow you to see the truth for the first time in your life. You might have known that “something” was wrong with the world around you, but you never made the deeper connections as to how the whole system actually operated. And you certainly didn’t see an alternative to the world around you or any way to change it.

As organizers for social change, we are constantly faced with the question “what will be the ‘redpill’ for large numbers of people?” What will be the final piece of evidence, story on TV, book, event, or personal experience that finally makes someone start to radicalize? Its different for every single person. Some people radicalize due to personal experiences. Some people radicalize from education. Some people radicalize because of empathy for others and perceived wrongs going on around them. We can’t possibly know when a person is willing to step down the rabbit hole, but we can provide them with lots of opportunities to do so. Those opportunities need to be predicated on efforts that will actually make them more likely to take us up on our offer.

In The Matrix, one of the main characters, Morpheus offers Neo the choice between the two pills. But before Morpheus offered Neo the choice to be freed (we’d call it a “radicalizing experience”), Neo was selected for this opportunity because he was a computer hacker. He was actively seeking out “answers” and wanted to know more about the Matrix (a.ka. “the system” in our terms). If Neo hadn’t previously been a hacker - someone who didn’t exactly follow all the rules or buy into the official story of how things worked in the world - he quite possibly could have taken the blue pill and called it a night. A hacker is an example of one such person who might take the red pill. It doesn’t ensure they will, but it does increase the likelihood.

Whatever keeps people in line (i.e. prevents them from taking red pills), is called “hegemony”. Its the collected set of laws, processes, rules, regulations, and norms which keep people from making the connections needed to see themselves as people capable of leading free lives. How do you determine what are some of the major barriers to people changing their minds? Well, you can usually start by thinking of things that annoy the Right.

Rightwing positions which seem irrational or absurd are usually quite intentional. They are rational in that conservatives hold those positions for a reason. They know that their power is based on people following certain rules, without which other areas of their power would be challenged. When conservatives say that drugs, divorce, separation of church and state, free speech, free press, reproductive freedom, socialized programs, and gays will lead to the downfall of “Western civilization[sic]” they aren’t just serious, they’re quite right. They mean that the form of society in which they are on top will cease to exist if these things happen in increasing numbers.That’s because freedom is, well, addictive. Once you get some, you’re gonna want a lot more!

They only care about our sex lives insofar as keeping us (especially young people) scared of sex & sexuality will keep us obedient and allow them to maintain their power. They understand that drugs, and sex, and good education, and cooperative workplaces, and grassroots citizen media will lead people to take the “red pill” and free their minds. Its why they are against it.

Its also why those of us on the left need to take cultural issues seriously. Sure sex education, same-sex marriage, and  reproductive freedom are all moral issues. But they are also cultural issues that maintain the dominant hegemony. Its our job to break that hegemony. Leading campaigns against backwards laws, opening youth centers and alternative schools, and educating young people about our vision of the future should all be at the top of our priorities list. The Right will push back on these things without a doubt. We should respond to this push-back with an article alternative worldview, rooted in progressive values. If we are strategic in our efforts, we will win battles and expose the hypocrisy of the Right while we do.

In particular, revolutionary education necessarily includes (among other things):

• Sex and health education;
• Accurate information about drugs and alcohol;
• Diversity education so people shed stereotypes about other races, cultures, genders, classes, and sexualities;
• Time and places for young people to form real community;
• Information and experiences that show how solidarity, equity, diversity, and self-management are the most morally-just and efficient ways to organize society;
• Information about how the world really works, alternatives to the current institutions of society, and ideas about how they can create change.

The Left needs to take battles around culture very seriously. If we do, people will start to beg us to show them just how deep the rabbit hole goes. I guarantee it.

Hey There!

Whether this if the first time you’ve come to my site, or you’ve been here a few times before, I’d love to hear your feedback, see where people are reading my site from, learn from what you’re doing in movements, political organizing, activism, the academy, work and more.

Do you like the site? What could make it better? What would you like to hear more about? What isn’t clear enough? What could I clarify? Do you know of any resources that I might want to read or might help improve the content of my site?

I’d especially love to start communicating with more people (seriously). Post a comment on this page (even if you view if months from when I’m writing this), or send me an e-mail at brian (at) walkingbutterfly (dot) com. Lemme know where you’re from (city/state/country), what you for for a living/school/political organizing, and what you think of the site!

Can’t wait to hear from you!

Brian Kelly

brian (at) walkingbutterfly (dot) com

“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far,… go together.” - African proverb

Conversations around revolutionary change almost always unearth concerns about issues of violence, repression, police, and imprisonment - and for good reason. Most obviously, these concerns are central in the minds of those who believe that a violent revolution is necessary in the United State. For those who see revolution differently, especially those who believe that a mass, popular, and largely-nonviolent revolution is possible, the questions stem from a different concern. From what I’ve seen so far, revolutionary democrats often ask: “could we really win?”

Its an important question to explore.

The Battle of Seattle

My friend Michael is a staff member at ZNet & Z Communications, which is an independent progressive media and political education organization in Massachusetts. He recently told me about what news coverage in relation to the resistance to the World Trade Organization (WTO) meetings in Seattle in 1999 looked like. First, for anyone that doesn’t know, the protests against the WTO were held in November of 1999, in response to the WTO’s role (along with the IMF and World Bank), in pushing countries in the Global South / Third World, into even greater poverty through “liberalizing international trade” (i.e. giving countries loans they can’t pay back, at high interest, in return for them opening up their markets to multinational corporations, cutting progressive national/regional regulations against pollution, worker/human rights violations, etc…).

What Michael explained to me, is that for the months leading up to the demonstrations, ZNet (and most left media outlets), received increasingly more news reports, calls-to-action, proposals for new organizations, photo/audio/video submissions, analysis articles, visionary proposals for the future, ideas about movement building, and so on, that people wanted to publish on ZNet. These continued to be submitted to ZNet in ever greater numbers as November 30th approached.

People were excited about building popular, democratic power. They were determined to shut down the WTO meeting and all it symbolized. They were talking about hope, change, democracy, feminism, racial justice, solidarity, and the future. Movement building was framed in positive, compassionate, and creative ways.

But when the meetings begun, something very different happened. Almost instantaneously, the talks about “peace, democracy, hope, change, vision, strategy, and a better world,” Michael said, “turned into nonstop submissions what the police were doing.”

The state repression that was brought down upon many of the protesters, caused many to allow their actions, their hopes, their story, and their message, to be silenced. Not only was the state violence harming protesters and leading to arrests, it allowed the greatest uprising against a meeting of world capitalists in history be portrayed as an ineffective mob of unruly, stereotypical leftists/protesters in the corporate media, and allowed revolution to be framed in terms of “opposing the cops” and “stopping repression” (as our main goal), in our own independent media. The Government didn’t just attack the Left, it got us to forget what we really were fighting for, it got us to slip off message, it got us to stop talking about our vision.

Could We Really Win?

Back to the question in the first paragraph I said I hear repeated a lot: “Could we really win?”

Seattle and its aftermath didn’t mark some dramatic break from a visionary, relevant, and strategic progressive movement that existed before November 1999 - that would be an exaggeration. What it did represent is a clear example of how large segments of that movement which are on-message, and talking about relevant things, can be thrown off-message, and made to lose the clarity of their focus.

What is fairly generalizable on the revolutionary left is when we talk about social transformation, we give the State much more credit than its due. That is, we make it seem more powerful than it actually is. While the United States Government is certainly one of the most violent institutions ever created, and American capitalists control some of the most concentrated institutions of wealth imaginable, the progressive movement overestimates how hard it would be to bring them down. What I mean is this: if you see revolution as a pitched (or surprise) , violent, insurrectionary battle between “The State” and “The People”, then of course you think that revolution is some impossible task (or worse, your ideology and dogma blind you from how ridiculous this idea sounds and the fact that no sane person in the U.S. will listen to you - let alone the millions necessary to win).

However if you define a revolution as a fundamental change in the defining institutions and social relations of society. If you think that to achieve that transformation you need to engage in careful, patient, yet urgent, organizing - slow, intentional growth. If you believe that if we are to attain desirable ends, we must use desirable means. If, after looking at revolutions in the past, you see that to avoid undesirable ends, we need to talk about and plan what desirable ends would look like - that is, we must think about, talk about, write about, and experiment with, visions of what a future society could look like. If you think that we need to relate to millions of people, that indeed our revolution will be a popular and widely-waged one. If you think that our revolution needs to be of the mainstream, and not against it. And if your central concern is the number of revolutionaries in the United States (let’s say 100 million people), and not the number of cops and national guard who might oppose you, then your ideas about what a revolution in the United States would look like change significantly.

You begin to see what is plainly obvious: that institutions - including those that make up the United States Government and U.S. corporations - are built consent and cooperation, much more than on than violence or repression. When asked with the question of how could a revolutionary movement possibly defeat the United States Military and urban police forces, the obvious answer surfaces: by organizing them.

I’ll end with a Gene Sharp quote, which I saw in one of his speeches on Google Videos. I’ll take the direct quote from Aaron’s blog post “On The Shaking of Governments” (brilliant post title) since he’s been reading a lot of Sharp’s stuff. Here it is:

“Is shaking a government to the point that they disintegrate and nobody is left to surrender naivete and weakness? … There is nothing weak about a technique of struggle which can take the legitimacy away from a repressive government, which can produce a defiant population uncontrollable by the police and military forces sent to repress them.”

Finally, two great readings on nonviolent revolutions:

Globalize Liberation, George Lakey

From Dictatorship to Democracy, Gene Sharp

Much, much more to come later. Here’s what I have so far…

Organizing

• Comments to New SDS Regional Meeting by Robert Ross
• Organizing vs. Activism in 1968 by Mark Rudd
• Remembering Tomorrow: From SDS to Life After Capitalism by Michael Albert

Communication

• Simple Framing by George Lakoff: An introduction to framing and its uses in politics
• Don’t Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate by George Lakoff
• Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think by George Lakoff

Envisioning the Future

• There Is An Alternative by Michael Albert
• Government in the Future by Noam Chomsky (audio talk)
• Parecon: Life After Capitalism by Michael Albert: A book exploring participatory economics - an equitable economic model. How could we organize economic life in a more just, equitable, and solidaristic manner?
• Real Utopia: Participatory Society for the 21st Century edited by Chris Spannos
• Realizing Hope: Life Beyond Capitalism by Michael Albert

Nonviolent Action

• Strategy for a Living Revolution by George Lakey
• From Dictatorship to Democracy by Gene Sharp
• The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part One: Power and Struggle by Gene Sharp
• The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part Two: The Methods of Nonviolent Action by Gene Sharp
• The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part Three: The Dynamics of Nonviolent Action by Gene Sharp

Social Epidemics / Tipping Points

• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

Strategy

• The Art of Warfare by Sun Tzu
• Start Making Sense: Turning the Lessons of Election 2004 into Winning Progressive Politics edited by Don Hazen and Lakshimi Chaudhryx

Power

• The Matrix

Race

• The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere: Making Resistance to Antisemitism Part of All of Our Movements by April Rosenblum
• White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son by Tim Wise

GI Resistance & Dismantling the Military

• Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War by David Cortright
• Democratizing Defense Resource Archive by Liberty Tree, Foundation for the Democratic Revolution

Environmental Justice

• “Communicating our Vision for National Climate Policy” by Green for All
  • Podcast
  • Talking Points
  • Media Tool Kit: “Using the Media to Frame the Debate”

Education

• Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

U.S. Civil Rights Movement

• I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Summer by Charles M. Payne

Revolutionary Theory

• Unorthodox Marxism: An Essay on Capitalism, Socialism, and Revolution by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel

History

• A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present by Howard Zinn

Publications and Websites

• ZNet
• Z Magazine
• Democracy Now!
• Left Turn
• Liberty Tree
• Monthly Review
• Real News Network
• Rockridge Nation
• Wiretap

Blogs and Sites

• Joshua Kahn Russell
• Michael Albert
• John Cronan
• Madeline Gardner
• Pat Korte
• Meaghan Linick-Loughley
• Aric Miller
• Aaron Petcoff
• Becca Rast
• Mark Rudd
• Matt Smucker

Organizations Promoting: Leadership Development, Political Education, Vision, Strategy, and Capacity Building

An ongoing compilation of Organizations Promoting: Leadership Development, Political Education, Vision, Strategy, and Capacity Building. I will soon add links to their websites and descriptions of what they do. In the mean time, you can find them by googling their name. Want to help build the movement? Donate these groups and support their work - they are the people who build the capacity of the movement’s best organizers and leaders! Enjoy!

Beyond the Choir - Beyond the Choir is an analysis, strategy and training project serving groups and campaigns struggling for social and economic justice, peace and the environment. We are a collective of organizers, trainers and designers who seek to spread tools, skills and strategies to build movements strong enough to realize the change we imagine.

The Brecht Forum - The BRECHT FORUM is a place for people who are working for social justice, equality and a new culture that puts human needs first. Through its programs and events, the Brecht Forum brings people together across social and cultural boundaries and artistic and academic disciplines to promote critical analysis, creative thinking, collaboartive projects and networking in an independent community-level environment.

Campus Camp Wellstone - (a project of Wellstone Action) Campus Camp Wellstone trains students nationwide on how to run energized, community building, winning campaigns. We focus on campus and community organizing and young voter engagement.

The Center for Political Education - The Center for Political Education is a resource for political organizations on the left, progressive movements, the working class and people of color. It is anchored by a collective of individuals active in day-to-day struggles in the Bay Area. Our political approach is non-sectarian, democratic, and committed to a critical analysis of local, regional, national and global politics.

The Change Agency - The Change Agency is a collective of activist educators and researchers. We work with community organisers to help people clarify their purpose and develop plans that will enable them to be heard, focus their energies and achieve social and environmental justice outcomes. We research social change, activism and advocacy. What is successful and what isn’t? How can people organise and work together more effectively? Based on our ongoing research we facilitate workshops for activists and community organisers and also share many of our resources on this site.

Albert Einstein Institution - The mission of the Albert Einstein Institution is to advance the worldwide study and strategic use of nonviolent action in conflict. The Institution is committed to:

• defending democratic freedoms and institutions
• opposing oppression, dictatorship, and genocide, and
• reducing reliance on violence as an instrument of policy.

This mission is pursued in three ways, by:

• encouraging research and policy studies on the methods of nonviolent action and their past use in diverse conflicts
• sharing the results of this research with the public through publications, conferences, and the media, and
• consulting with groups in conflict about the strategic potential of nonviolent action.

Electoral Action Training (EAT) - (a project of the United States Student Association and Campus Camp Wellstone) The United States Student Association and Campus Camp Wellstone have teamed up to offer a comprehensive training to give students the skills to register, educate and mobilize their campuses for the 2008 election and beyond. With a combination of workshops, exercises, and discussions students will be equipped with tried and true electoral organizing skills (plus creative new tactics) and a sophisticated understanding of student power.

Grassroots Organizing Weekend (GROW) - (a project of the United States Student Association and the Midwest Academy) USSAF’s GrassRoots Organizing Weekend (GROW) is a comprehensive three-day training for student organizers. The GROW teaches students how to be more strategic in their fight for justice on campus and in the community. The training is a series of presentations, exercises, and discussions that teach a set of skills and concepts, which will increase the effectiveness of your student organizing. The GROW trainers are seasoned student organizers from around the country who teach by using their own personal organizing experiences. Usually 20-40 participants attend each GROW. As a participant of the GROW you will learn how to:

Highlander Research and Education Center - Highlander serves as a catalyst for grassroots organizing and movement building in Appalachia and the South. We work with people fighting for justice, equality and sustainability, supporting their efforts to take collective action to shape their own destiny. Through popular education, participatory research, and cultural work, we help create spaces — at Highlander and in local communities — where people gain knowledge, hope and courage, expanding their ideas of what is possible. We develop leadership and help create and support strong, democratic organizations that work for justice, equality and sustainability in their own communities and that join with others to build broad movements for social, economic and restorative environmental change.

Hollyhock Leadership Institute: A School for Social Change - The Hollyhock Leadership Institute empowers current and emerging leaders to create high impact social change. We build alliances, catalyze new visions and re-kindle inspiration.

Paul Kivel - Paul Kivel’s work grows out of three decades in community education, engaged parenthood, political writing, and practical activism all focused on one overriding question: How can we live and work together to nurture each individual and create a multicultural society based on love, caring, justice, and interdependence with all living things? Paul believes we each have a responsibility to help create a world worthy of our children. As Rabbi Tarfon wrote many centuries ago: “It is not upon you to finish the work. Neither are you free to desist from it.” This web site offers you Paul’s articles and books, links and exercises, bibliographies and videographies, all to support personal growth, community education, progressive activism, and effective organizing.

Labor/Community Strategy Center - The Labor/Community Strategy Center is a multiracial “think tank/act tank” committed to building democratic, internationalist, Left social movements and challenging the ideological, economic, and political domination of transnational capital. The Strategy Center’s work encompasses all aspects of urban life in the United States: it emphasizes class-conscious labor organizing and fighting for environmental justice and ending climate change, immigrant rights, and first-class transportation, as well as actively confronting the growing criminalization, racialization, and feminization of poverty. The Strategy Center synthesizes grassroots organizing-The Bus Riders Union and Community Rights projects-with education, policy development, and artistic culture production-Strategy Center Publications, The National Center for Transportation Strategies, the National School for Strategic Organizing, Voices from the Frontlines radio show, and AhoraNow periodical-to generate a creative and aggressive response to the growing power of the corporate-led political Right in the United States. The Strategy Center is committed to multilingual organizing, including the development of multilingual publications, productions, and visuals arts.

The Midwest Academy - Midwest Academy is a leading national training institute for the progressive movement. The Academy advances the movements for social change by teaching a strategic, rigorous, results-oriented approach to social action and organization building. The Academy provides training (introductory and advanced level) and consulting, equipping organizers, leaders, and their organizations to think and act strategically to win justice for all.

Movement Strategy Center - The Movement Strategy Center brings a cohesive plan to strengthen these emerging efforts and build the progressive social justice movement. They do this by supporting individuals, organizations, alliances and sectors to be more strategic, collaborative and sustainable.

New Tactics in Human Rights - The New Tactics in Human Rights Project, led by a diverse group of partner international organizations, advisors and practitioners, promotes tactical innovation and strategic thinking within the international human rights community. Strategic and tactical thinking, long used by business and military strategists, is an effective means for the human rights movement to expand options and possibilities of what can be done. Innovative tactics are emerging that may more effectively advance human rights and end persistent human rights problems. Many innovations have been valuable, yet are not well known outside their regions.

The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond - The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB), is a national and international collective of anti-racist, multicultural community organizers and educators dedicated to building an effective movement for social transformation. The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, affectionately known in the community as The People’s Institute, considers racism the primary barrier preventing communities from building effective coalitions and overcoming institutionalized oppression and inequities. Through Undoing Racism™/Community Organizing Workshops, technical assistance and consultations, PISAB helps individuals, communities, organizations and institutions move beyond addressing the symptoms of racism to undoing the causes of racism so as to create a more just and equitable society.

Project South - Project South is a leadership development organization based in the US South creating spaces for movement building. We work with communities pushed forward by the struggle to strengthen leadership and provide popular political & economic education for personal & social transformation. We build relationships with organizations and networks across the US and global South to inform our local work and to engage in bottom-up movement building for social & economic justice.

RANT Collective (Root Activist Network of Trainers) - RANT is a small collective that formed in February of 2001. Our primary purpose is to provide training, education, and information to local, national, and international organizations, groups, and individuals working for global peace and justice. We are consensus based, non-hierarchical and collectively oriented.

Rainforest Action Network - Rainforest Action Network (RAN) is made up of 43 staff members in San Francisco, CA and in Tokyo, Japan, plus thousands of volunteer scientists, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens around the world. We believe that a sustainable world can be created in our lifetime, and that aggressive action must be taken immediately to leave a safe and secure world for our children. Dubbed “some of the most savvy environmental agitators in the business” by the Wall Street Journal, RAN uses hard-hitting markets campaigns to align the policies of multinational corporations with widespread public support for environmental protection. We believe that logging ancient forests for copy paper or destroying an endangered ecosystem for a week’s worth of oil is not just destructive, but outdated and unnecessary.

RESIST Grants - RESIST funds activist organizing and education work within movements for social change. As a foundation, RESIST is unique because we are part of the movements we fund. We do the work individual donors don’t have time to do: reaching out to activist organizations and researching their campaigns and projects. We operate on a national scale and know the big picture, and we challenge grantees to connnect their own issues with the concerns of other activists. Our frequent funding cycle means we can respond to time-sensitive organizing campaigns. RESIST is more than a foundation. We’re also a resource center, providing grassroots organizations with technical assistance and information about other funding sources. Finding Funding: A Beginner’s Guide to Foundation Research gives progressive activists a quick entry-point for grant-writing. Resist also publishes a highly respected Newsletter.

The Rockridge Institute - The Rockridge Institute is committed to the democratization of knowledge about politics. Our mission is to deepen and broaden the public’s understanding of the political world. Rockridge studies the worldviews, values and ideas behind conservative and progressive policies, issues and political discourse. Using the tools of neuroscience and cognitive linguistics — combined with decades of practical political experience — Rockridge promotes the effective articulation of progressive values. We do this by monitoring public debate and suggesting both long-term and short-term options for framing that offer a progressive perspective. We work primarily at the level of values and ideas across specific policy areas. At the level of language, we point out ineffective word choices and suggest argument forms and phrasings that better express progressive values.

Rosenberg Fund for Children - The Rosenberg Fund for Children was established to provide for the educational and emotional needs of children whose parents have suffered because of their progressive activities and who, therefore, are no longer able to provide fully for their children. The RFC also provides grants for the educational and emotional needs of targeted activist youth. Professionals and institutions will be awarded grants to provide services at no or reduced cost.

The Ruckus Society - We are living in a time of extreme challenges: stopping the war in Iraq, thwarting climate change catastrophes, reclaiming the commons from corporations, conquering our addiction to oil, and protecting human rights. In order to effectively meet these challenges, now, more than ever, environmental and social justice organizers must develop winning strategies that are creative, nonviolent, and take their lead from impacted communities. By building on the traditions of leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., we, at The Ruckus Society, provide our partner organizations and activists with the tools, training, and support necessary to tackle these problems and achieve their goals.

School of Unity and Liberation - SOUL is working to lay the groundwork for a powerful liberation movement by supporting the development of a new generation of young organizers - especially young women, young people of color, queer youth and working-class young people. We believe that – in order for young organizers to build an effective movement for fundamental social change – they need support to develop the nuts-and-bolts organizing skills they need to mobilize their communities and to deepen their political analysis and their visions for fundamental social change. SOUL is a training center designed to support the growing youth sector of the social justice movement. We run political education and organizing skills training programs, designed specifically to meet the particular needs of our generation of emerging movement leaders.

smartMeme - The smartMeme collective is a group of skilled, creative and dedicated change agents who work to support grassroots movements with strategy and training resources, values based communications tools, and meme campaigning. We work to build a culture of strategy, vision, and change, connecting struggles for democracy, peace, justice, and ecological sanity.

Tools for Change - Tools for Change has been providing consulting, training, mediation and facilitation services nationwide for over 15 years. Founder Margo Adair formed Tools for Change to promote the integration of spiritual and political perspectives to promote personal, spiritual and political transformation to help bring about a just society. She and other associates around the country, have forged multi-cultural and multigenerational alliances in many different settings.

Training for Change - Since 1992 Training for Change has been committed to increasing capacity around the world for activist training. When we say activist training, we mean training that helps groups stand up more effectively for justice, peace and the environment. We deliver skills directly that people working for social change can use in their daily work.

War Resisters League - The War Resisters League has been resisting war at home and war abroad since 1923. Our work for nonviolent revolution has spanned decades and been shaped by the new visions and strategies of each generation’s peacemakers.

Z Education Online - ZEO stands for Z Education Online. It is an offshoot of the Z Media Institute that operates entirely online - and it is a component of Z Communications and ZSpace that includes (or will include in the future):

• do it at your own speed instructionals with associated forums for discussion…
• text and audio lectures
• special presentations and chat sessions
• and extensive faculty-taught courses in ZSchool with associated forums, etc.

Z Media Institute - Z Media Institute was started in 1994 by the cofounders of Z Magazine (1988) and South End Press (1977) to teach radical politics, media and organizing skills, the principles and practice of creating non-hierarchical institutions and projects, activism, and vision and strategy for social change. Classes are held around Eel Pond in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Of extreme use for progressive organizers - especially in relation to burnout and maximizing our potentials in organizing and movement building. You can find his 3-hour workshop that he did on Oprah here.

“It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The Art of War, written in the 6th century BC by Sun Tzu (Master Sun), is a 13 chapter Chinese treatise on military warfare and strategy. When read metaphorically, its a brilliant addition to those studying political strategy, and especially for those seeking fundamental social transformation.

Steve Bucknum posted an article called “George Lakoff vs. Sun Tzu” two years ago on BlueOregon where he recommended the ancient text to those interested in building progressive political power. Referring to text in the context of Oregon he said:

“Study of the ‘Nine Terrains’ (a chapter in the ‘Art of War’) is a good metaphor for having political strength in one part of the State, but not others — and how to maximize our strength and minimize the power of the other side. (If we attack their homelands, and cause them to defend their base, then they will not have enough strength left to attack our base. — Makes you want to spend more time/effort/money in Eastern Oregon!) There is a lot of good advice for strategy in these works — ‘When you are committed to employing your forces, feign inactivity. When your objective is nearby, make it appear as if distant; when far away, create the illusion of being nearby.’ These works have stood the test of thousands of years, in fact that some of it has risen to the level of ‘common sense’ in that we have heard parts before.”

Its a short book too, depending on the version & translation you get, the actual text is about 60-75 pages - and well worth every page. The translation I have can be bought here.

In capitalism, owners together with about a fifth of the population who have highly empowered work decide what is produced, by what means, and with what distribution. Nearly four fifths of the population does largely rote labor, suffers inferior incomes, obeys orders, and endures boredom, all imposed from above. As John Lennon put it, “As soon as you’re born they make you feel small, by giving you no time instead of it all.”

Capitalism destroys solidarity, homogenizes variety, obliterates equity, and imposes harsh hierarchy. It is top heavy in power and opportunity. It is bottom heavy in pain and constraint. Indeed, Capitalism imposes on workers a degree of discipline beyond what any dictator ever dreamed of imposing politically. Who ever heard of citizens asking permission to go to the bathroom, a commonplace occurrence for workers in many corporations.

Capitalism’s ills are not due to antisocial people. Instead, capitalism’s institutions impose horrible behavior even on its most social citizens. In capitalism as a famous American baseball manager quipped “nice guys finish last.” More aggressively: “garbage rises.” Witness Washington’s White House.

Participatory economics is an alternative way to organize economic life.

It has equitable incomes, circumstances, opportunities, and responsibilities for all participants. Each participant in a participatory economy has a fair share of control over their own life and over all shared social outcomes. Participatory economics eliminates class division.

It produces solidarity. Even an antisocial individual in a participatory economy has no choice but to account for social well-being if he or she wishes to prosper.

It diversifies outcomes and generates equitable distribution that remunerates each participant for how long and how hard they work as well as for harsh conditions they may suffer at work.

It also conveys to each person a say in what is produced, what means are used, and how outputs are allocated, all in proportion to the degree he or she is affected by those decisions.

Participatory economics, in other words, has completely different values than capitalism and to further its different values participatory economics incorporates different institutions.

It has workers and consumers councils where workers and consumers employ diverse modes of discussion, debate, and democratic determination. In a participatory economic, there are no corporate owners and managers deciding outcomes from the top down.

It has balanced jobs in which each worker does a fair combination of empowering and rote labor, so that all participants have comparably empowering circumstances instead of 20% of the workforce monopolizing all the empowering tasks and 80% doing only subordinate labor. In a participatory economy there is still expertise. There is still coordination. Decisions still get made. But there is no minority monopolizing empowering information, activity, and access to decision making positions while a majority is made subservient by doing only deadening daily tasks with no decision making component.

In a participatory economy, each and every job, which means each and every person’s work, involves a mix calibrated so that each participant has essentially equally empowering conditions. A participatory economy has no owning class. It has no technocratic, managerial, or coordinator class. A participatory economy has only workers and consumers cooperatively creatively fulfilling their capacities consistently with each participant having a fair share of influence.

It has remuneration for effort and sacrifice, which translates to remuneration for the duration, intensity, and harshness of the work people do. It rejects remuneration for power, property, or even output. Instead of gargantuan disparities of income and wealth, a participatory economy has a just distribution of social product.

It also does away with markets which pit each actor against all others, destroy solidarity, impose class division, mis-price all public goods, ignore collective effects beyond direct buyers and sellers, violate ecological balance and sustainability, and have many other faults as well. In place of markets it utilizes a system of workers and consumers, through their self managing councils, cooperatively negotiating inputs and outputs for all firms and actors in accord with true and full social costs and benefits of economic activities.

In a short article it is impossible to make even a quick much less a compelling case for an entirely different economic system. I can only offer a brief list of participatory economics’ values and institutions. I know such brevity is vague and hard for unfamiliar readers to give substance to. But here we have no room for clarification, supporting argument, or detailed discussion. My apologies.

What I hope, however, is that readers who know from their own experience that capitalist economies routinely cause us to fleece each other, deny us having a say over our own lives or force us to dominate the lives of others, distribute massive outputs to those who do the most pleasurable or even who do no work at all and distribute meager outputs to those who do the least pleasurable and the overwhelming volume of work, will hope that participatory economics is a real alternative.

I can hope, in other words, that instead of quietly accepting rich people’s passivity-inducing mantra that “there is no alternative,” we will all seek something better, beyond capitalism, and that, moved by our aspirations we will carefully consider participatory economics on its merits. One place that you might begin, if you don’t accept that humanity is forever doomed to suffer gross inequality and hierarchy via capitalist ownership, corporations, and markets, is at the Participatory Economics website.

So you wanna change the world? Great! I’d love to chat with you if you want more information on starting out as a political activist and organizer. You can reach me at brian@walkingbutterfly.com, or call me at 845-649-2146 or add me on Facebook or Myspace. You can send me a message on AIM or Google Chat at one address: butterflywalking (at) gmail.com (its my AIM Screen name too). For more information about me or walkingbutterfly.com click here! Like Diary of a Walking Butterfly? Consider subscribing by e-mail!

Featured Article: Language Warriors: How Language Can Change Politics

That being said, becoming political active is a process that takes years of learning and growing - its best to enter social movements with that knowledge in mind. Building mass movements to take on the systems of exploitation, to stop rightwing policies, or to bring down repressive dictators doesn’t happen overnight. It takes the careful, patient organizing by lots of diverse people organized into political organizations.

Here are some links, books, and so on, that can help you get involved…

What some ideas about what might replace our current economic system? Visit the participatory economics website for more information on a democratically planned alternative to both market capitalism and centrally planned socialism. If you are feeling cynical, or you buy into Margaret Thatcher’s claim that “There Is No Alternative” or “TINA”, its definitely something to check out. What she really meant was “TINBA” - “There Is No Better Alternative”. Participatory economics is that better alternative. But don’t take my word for it, if you want an economy based on solidarity, diversity, liberty, equity, justice, democracy, and efficiency, check it out and judge for yourself!

Z Magazine and ZNet are great daily news sources for learning about how society’s dominant institutions currently work, and what people are doing to change them. Remembering Tomorrow: From SDS to Life After Capitalism, a Memoir is a great narrative about Michael Albert’s life as a visionary and strategic organizer for social change. I’d definitely recommend people checking it out if you want an overall introduction to various concepts, ideas and stories about what it would take to change the world. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell , though written for business people, can also be applied to social movements and activism.

Don’t understand how American history got where it is today? Check out Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States! Its the definitive introduction to social movements in the United States.

Want to get right into it and join a group? Here are some:

What to join a youth organization? Are you interested in fighting global warming? Consider joining the Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC). The Student Environmental Action Coalition or SEAC is a grassroots coalition of student and youth environmental groups, working together to protect our planet and our future. Through this united effort, thousands of youth have translated their concern into action by sharing resources, building coalitions, and challenging the limited mainstream definition of environmental issues.