Beyond Magical Thinking: How to Really Make Change Happen

[Hannah Bell]

Since the summer of 2003, I've crisscrossed the country speaking at colleges and theaters and bookstores, first with The Weather Underground documentary and, starting in March of this year, with my book, Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen (William Morrow, 2009). In discussions with young people, they often tell me, "Nothing anyone does can ever make a difference."

The words still sound strange: it's a phrase I never once heard forty years ago, a sentiment obviously false on its surface. Growing up in the Fifties and Sixties, I - and the rest of the country - knew about the civil rights movement in the South, and what was most evident was that individuals, joining with others, actually were making a difference. The labor movement of the Thirties to the Sixties had improved the lives of millions; the anti-war movement had brought down a sitting president - LBJ, March 1968 - and was actively engaged in stopping the Vietnam War. In the forty years since, the women's movement, gay rights, disability rights, animal rights, and environmental movements have all registered enormous social and political gains. To old new lefties, such as myself, this is all self-evident.

So, why the defeatism? In the absence of knowledge of how these historical movements were built, young people assume that they arose spontaneously, or, perhaps, charismatic leaders suddenly called them into existence. On the third Monday of every January we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. having had a dream; knowledge of the movement itself is lost.

The current anti-war movement's weakness, however, is very much alive in young people's experience. They cite the fact that millions turned out in the streets in the early spring of 2003 to oppose the pending U.S. attack on Iraq, but that these demonstrations had no effect. "We demonstrated, and they didn't listen to us." Even the activists among them became demoralized as numbers at demonstrations dropped off very quickly, street demonstrations becoming cliches, and, despite a big shift in public opinion in 2006, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan droned on to today. The very success of the spontaneous early mobilization seems to have contributed to the anti-war movement's long-term weakness.

Something's missing...


http://www.alternet.org/story/144817/beyond_magical_thinking:_how_to_really_make_change_happen

[Tansy_Gold]

1. In the end, it's hard work. Maybe too many have forgotten

what that is. Or, given the state of the economy, many have never known it. It's all about instant riches, instant results, and "labor" is a dirty word.



Tansy Gold

[Hannah Bell]

2. yes, work. the book rudd mentions sounds excellent on the nuts & bolts of it.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0520251768/counterpunchmaga

The Organizing Tradition of the Mississippi Freedom Struggle

[Mixopterus]

3. Easy

They don't fear what the masses may do if they don't at least meet them halfway.

Call me old school in my political thinking, but demonstrations and movements mean nothing if there isn't force to back it up. Those in power are currently, effectively immune to any serious consequences due to their behavior, and they know it.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Every "activist" should read, and heed, this...

I remember King's work, and it was an exraordinary combination of the purity of his message, his personal charisma, and the discipline of his organization that got things done.

The discipline of his organization, and the real sacrifices those people made, is what's missing from anything that could be called a movement today. Showing up for a march on Washington (on the weekend when one is there) letter writing, speechifying, blogging and bragging about the "netroots"... all have their place but who out there is risking job, freedom, and life itself for a cause? Who is developing the strategies and training, and being trained?

We forget that the right has it easy-- their message is simply that if you do nothing everything will work out. Our message involves actual work and sacrifice for a goal and it takes much more than bloviating to get that across.

[Hannah Bell]

5. their message is simply that if you do nothing everything will work out.

i'd never thought of it that way - very true.


& true on the discipline of the civil rights movement, too, & the difference today.

[Tansy_Gold]

6. Actually, I think the right's message is a little different.

I think they do have the organizers -- the Grover Norquists, the Ralph Reeds, etc. -- who tell their masses "send us the money, and then we'll do everything for you so you can just sit back and not worry about it." They have their propaganda units -- Faux News primarily -- to spread the word and keep the rabble both informed and inactive. Rightwingers, the classic RWAs of Altemeyer's "Authoritarian," are notoriously lazy in the sense that they easily cede both authority and action to their "superiors."

The left doesn't have that. It seems to think that critical mass is sufficient. King knew differently, and so he had BOTH. Through the churches, through SCLC, through the student groups and CORE and so on, he used the organizers to involve the masses. Right now all we have are the masses, if polls are to be believed, in terms of support for more left than center policies, but we have neither a strong leader on those policies nor an organizational infrastructure that the civil rights and other movements had.



Tansy Gold

[clear eye]

10. The small issue organizations refuse to link up to create a critical mass

of active participants. I've had discussions w/ some of the top leaders of progressive groups, and reminded them at length about the history of effective grassroots motivated change, and they refuse to begin the process of forming an umbrella organization and surveying the groups for a common agenda to promote. Perhaps they are flat out scared that the first organizers to attempt this will have fatal "accidents". The history of serious dirty tricks is more extensive than it was in MLK's time. If they bashed your head in then, it would be out in the open, for the most part, and the media would report it. Then came the assassinations...

[BeFree]

12. True

So what do we have? What organization are we all a part of that can bring about change and is large enough for protection?

Through history, true leaders realized that even where they to disappear, the cause would go on. That works only when the cause is organized and pointed in the right direction and is free from internal meisms that destroy the fabric of the org.

So what org do we have as the umbrella? And how do each of us constructively contribute?

[Hannah Bell]

19. i've had the same experience with local units of national peace & justice orgs being

seemingly unwilling to link with other locals to do bigger things.

interesting.

[janet118]

13. Exactly right . . .

We need "think tanks" for the left. Then we can channel tax free donations to organize for change . . . Everytime I give a donation to Democracy for America, I get no tax benefit. What if it were Democracy for America Institute? Would that work? Rockridge Institute went under because of lack of funding. Maybe only corporations can provide enough funds to support these right wing propaganda spouting, job providing, skewed data producing foundations.

Here's the reason so many feel hopeless. We don't have the money, institutional foundation or leadership to focus our strength in one direction at a time. We are fighting corporate money and resources - which are unlimited and immortal. Meanwhile, we are bone tired from working two jobs. It's nice to glorify the past, but none of those massive street demonstrations or SDS inspired bombings did much to end the war. Nixon, running against anti-war candidate, war hero and long time Senator from So. Dakota, George McGovern, was re-elected by a landslide in '72.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

7. 40 years ago we were fighting a war and we had the draft

that will radicalize people real quick. You don't just get to sit in coffee house and criticize, they're gonna hold a lottery and actually send your ass over there. Protest was literally a life and death issue that suddenly intruded itself into every Americans household.

The problem with the modern Iraq protests is that coverage of them was completely suppressed or close to nonexistent. In the old days, the three networks would have covered them and had reporters in the middle of it and we would have all been glued to the set. This time they underestimated the figures and just ignored them. America said ho-hum because most were almost completely unaware of what was going on. The same with the protests at the RNC - OCEANS of humanity ignored by the same media that today will cover 12 Tea Baggers at a Safeway and call them "scores".

The stakes for protest are also a lot higher now. American prosecutors will label protesters as "domestic terrorists" and attempt to send them away to the gulag for decades, aka Minneapolis. We have been effectively terrorized, muzzled and suppressed by our own government who will not hesitate to tase, or in the future blow out our eardrums with sonic cannons.

[shadowknows69]

8. Spot on Phoebe and I've always known what was missing. Occupation.

The masses can't leave the streets. We have to set up camp outside Pennsylvania avenue and not leave until the war is over or they declare it on us as well and open fire. Then the whole world will be watching, and there won't be anything an obedient media will be able to do about it as evidenced by the stunning footage coming out of Iran. Is it defeatist to think it might still have to come to that? I know many of us were prepared for that eventuality during the Bush years. Perhaps though, more compassionate and smarter minds wouldn't take us over that edge. Which is what I'm still hoping we have in the White House right now, but my faith is waning fast.

[clear eye]

11. Yes. It's likely that people are justifiably afraid to take point on

large-scale organizing b/c of the terrorist laws (I said the same in a comment a couple of days ago), and others are afraid to participate b/c of the "non-lethal" weaponry that nonetheless maims. And even the biggest demonstrations can be ignored by the media these days w/o a readership drop in response. Why anyone bothers to read American papers mystifies me. The stuff they leave out exceeds in both importance and quantity what they include.

Where I have to differ w/ you is your implication that there is not a pervasive, widely understood issue impacting the citizenry that would drive them to the streets. People are beyond upset w/ the gov't's enabling of the banksters and the war machine to both clean out our Treasury and destroy the economy. In the days around the first bank bailout there were spontaneous street corner demonstrations all over the country. People aren't lying when they say they are demoralized by the ineffectiveness (and possibly the greater danger) of protest in these times.

It will take a level of bravery that we haven't needed since the days of the first union organizers to create effective protest now. Tactics like protest camps (as Cindy Sheehan is attempting) and gen'l strikes--actions that will interfere w/ business as usual--that will have to be used, and these will inevitably lead to arrests of the leaders for "terrorism". If we're lucky we'll have a new Bill Kunstler, a lawyer for the defense who is talented and colorful enough to both win and get coverage while doing it.

Perhaps you should be screening documentaries on the resistance in Argentina after its democracy was subverted. Unlike the early labor demonstrations, the resisters in Argentina were of the demolished middle class, like most American protestors would likely be. Our labor organizations can't even get the gumption to stick w/ organizing for single payer health care, as their convention proposed. So broad issue demonstrations would have to grow from issues NGO's whose membership is mostly the former middle class. Labor would come to the party later as they did w/ anti-NAFTA, when the movement is already established.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

14. Oh, I think people will eventually be driven into the streets

when they think they have literally nothing to lose.

[GliderGuider]

9. In 1971 we got the Powell Memorandum. At that moment everything changed.

The Powell Memorandum gave the corporations the conceptual framework they needed to develop a system that gave them a lock on both power and public attitude.

The "public attitude" aspect was most germane to the subsequent failure of activism on all anti-corporate fronts, from globalization to climate change.

The structure Powell envisioned was essentially in place by 1975, and it tolled the death knell for effective grass-roots opposition to corporate interests, through the "reeducation" of both potential activists and the public, to generate a pervasive feeling that activism is a threat to society. This reduced the tendency of young people to become activists (many decided they wanted to become stock brokers instead) and reduced the support activists had among the general public.

There's no mystery here. There has been no moral failure on the part of the young. The corporations organized. And when the corporations, the politicians and the media are all in the same camp, the result is a foregone conclusion. This effect can be countered, but we need to know our enemy.

For a little better look at the structure that has resulted, see The Guardian Institutions of Hierarchy. The Powell Memo is how that structure was cemented in place.

[lunatica]

15. In the Fifties and Sixties the media covered the demonstrations

In the ensuing 30+ years the media became privatized and corporatized by Conservatives and they created their lobbying industry. They also stole the elections and got the Supreme Court to go along with it.

But lets continue to blame the people for not mobilizing.

I think we Baby Boomers are in for a big surprise when the younger citizens finally do mobilize. And they will, just like they did to get Obama elected. Their future totally sucks right now and they're in the unenviable position of having to create a new future out of the conflagration we're presently experience. I believe in our young people.

[clear eye]

18. I don't think anyone's "blaming the people".

What the OPer said is that even though the deck is stacked even further against ordinary citizens, what w/ the intensification of the obstacles earlier demonstrators faced, there is no alternative to mobilizing to have an impact on an intolerable status quo. What other way for the politically and economically disempowered many to make a difference vs. the wealthy oligarchs?

As a Baby Boomer myself, I would love to be surprised by the younger generation. In fact I facilitate that eventuality every chance I get. I've already been impressed by the G-20 protests. I suspect that right now young people are trying to incorporate the courage they see in the young Iranian protestors. I think what Hannah Bell said was that while the one-off demo doesn't cut it anymore, the right kind and long enough duration protest can still make a difference.

[Ineeda]

16. Another thing that's missing...

is focus. The limited or non-existent media coverage was/is an issue, of course. But when I finally found coverage (on CSpan) of the anti-war protest of a few years back, I was dismayed to say the least. This was an anti-war protest and every speaker I watched represented something other than anti-war: gay rights, Latino rights, black rights, environmental issues, voting issues, etc., etc. Yes, we have a big tent, and yes, those issues are all vitally important, but this was an anti-war protest, not anti-everything-including-the-war protest. Each message got lost and diluted, IMO.

[Hannah Bell]

17. kik