Category: Mindset

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Consumer Issues, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Ethics in Government, Marketing Trends/News, Mindset, People Helping People, Politics, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , ,

Those of us in the US are probably used to hearing people go on and on about our high status in rankings of desirability. And in some ways, we are. (I am a US citizen and a lifelong resident, so in this post, I’m going to use “we” and “our” when referring to Americans.)File:Life expectancy vs healthcare spending.jpg

  • We are super-cosmopolitan, able to create cities where hundreds of different ethnic, racial, and religious groups not only live and work together but enjoy each other’s food, music, etc.
  • We introduced modern democracy to the world–a huge improvement over the divine right of kings
  • We have enormous diversity in geography, agriculture, weather conditions…whatever you want, you can find it somewhere in the US
  • US technology leadership sparked enormous progress in fields as diverse as computing, clean energy, and space exploration

BUT on a lot of other metrics, we fall alarmingly short. Consider, for instance:

I could go on,  but you get the idea. In metric after metric, the US was once the leader and now lags.

Isn’t it time to reclaim that greatness?

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Mindset, Politics, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , ,

The Guardian reports on a shameful attempt to criminalize the school district of Texas state capital Austin’s annual LGBT Pride Week!
When is the ultra-right going to recognize that non-heterosexuals are people too?
This is one part of the culture war that they aren’t going to win. Since the legalization of same-sex marriage, conservative heterosexuals have sat next to openly LGBT folks at Parent Teacher Association meetings, worked with them on community issues, and in many cases, discovered that beloved family members and friends and work colleagues were not hetero.
47th Gay Pride Parade, New York City, 2017. Creative Commons photo by Elvert Barnes
AND they noticed the sky hasn’t fallen, the sun still rises in the east and sets in the west, and the only thing that has really shifted due to that normalization (something I would not have predicted even as recently as 20 years ago that I’d live to see) is the crumbling of prejudices based on demonizing people they thought they didn’t know.
Sunlight and exposure, as usual, prove the best medicine against prejudice. That genie will no longer fit in the old repressive bottle, no matter how many idiotic laws the right-wing fringe manages to force through their state legislatures–and thats a good thing.
Maybe Putin would have had better luck if instead of invading to “denazify” Ukraine, he tried a nonviolent embarrassment campaign to denazify Texas ;-).
Personal disclosure: I discovered that I am bisexual at age 16 and spent about a decade where LGBT rights was the cause I was most strongly involved with.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Consumer Issues, Customer Service as Marketing, language, Mindset, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , ,

I just experienced such a screwed-up customer service encounter that I have to share it.

Do you pass the squeak test? - Victus Catering ConsultancyIn August, I received a letter from my primary care doctor announcing that he was cutting back on his patient hours. He has been my doctor since about 2003. In November, as COVID seemed to be easing, I called to schedule a physical exam for the first time in several years. I explained that I had several concerns and I really trusted my doctor’s diagnostic ability and asked if it was possible, despite his scaling back, to schedule with him. And I was given an appointment for today at 2:40 p.m.

Yesterday, at 4:12 p.m., less than 24 hours before my appointment, I received a call from one of the nurses that they were canceling my appointment because my doctor was scaling back and “needed to reduce his patient panel.” I said that they’d had four months to figure that out, that canceling on less than a day’s notice was extremely rude and unacceptable, that I had been willing to wait so long only because it would be with MY doctor. To their credit, they did offer me an appointment with a different doctor on Friday but I said very politely that I had specific reasons for wanting this practitioner and they had no right to snatch it away at the last moment for an issue they could have fixed at the time the appointment was set. She said the practice manager would call me.

This morning, the practice manager called back. Her customer service skills were atrocious. First she insisted that because I had received the August letter, that “it wasn’t our fault.” I explained repeatedly that I had been willing to wait more than four months only because I was promised an appointment with my chosen doctor. I actually had to say (several times) that while I understood it wasn’t her fault personally, it was absolutely the fault of her organization. I said I wanted a real apology that accepted responsibility organizationally, and she eventually admitted that yes, the organization made an error that was causing harm to me, and that she would review the interaction where I booked the appointment and find out why the person I spoke to had made an appointment that shouldn’t have been allowed.

Then I asked her how she was going to “make me whole.” She didn’t seem to understand what I meant. I said “how are you going to make it right for me?” She said there was nothing she could do. “I can’t talk to the doctor!”

Me: “Why not?”

Her: “I can’t talk to him.”

Me: “Could you explain the circumstances to him and ask that just this once, could he make an exception because of the promise made to me that it would be with him. I could find a new primary care doctor going forward but he really should keep this appointment as a one-time exception. I understand  if it can’t be today. I don’t mind if it’s later this week.”

Her: “The nurse spoke to him after talking with you. He wanted the appointment canceled.”

Me: “I doubt that she explained the full situation to him, that I was willing to wait the four months specifically in order to see him, and that you gave me inadequate notice. Would you please explain the full situation and ask him if under the circumstances, he would make an exception? Again, if it doesn’t work with his schedule today, I can be flexible about when I see him.”

Her: (big sigh). “Okay, I will ask him and call you back.” No word from her.

2-1/2 hours after she called and only 2-1/2 hours before I was due to show up, I called again. After checking their automated confirmation system, which had only the rescheduled appointment with the different doc on Friday. I spoke with a very pleasant receptionist who told me that the practice manager was in a meeting and would call before the end of the business day. I explained that this was about an appointment for today and I really didn’t want to discover after-the-fact that she had reinstated it. The receptionist said she’d have her call within the next hour. I wasn’t holding my breath and was not surprised that she hadn’t called as of the time I would have needed to arrive, or even by the time I probably would have been done. I have no way of checking, but based on her general attitude, I would be very surprised if she actually bothered to communicate with the doctor.

Customer Service is not my primary jam, but it is something I speak and write about fairly often. Done well, it’s an essential marketing function that turns customer problems into loyalists. The flip side of that is that bad or absent service converts loyalists into enemies–people who will speak up and leave poor ratings, tell their friends to avoid that business. Not the sort of messaging you want following your business around.

If I were training this organization, I would:

  1. First instill a culture of actually serving customers (patients, in this case)–of understanding that it’s not about your convenience but about making the customer feel heard and appreciated–and meeting customer needs.
  2. Teach compassionate listening skills and sincere, immediate apologies that accept responsibility.
  3. Empower the staff to offer suitable make-goods and think creatively about what the right make-good is in a particular situation. This is one time to be led by the customer; it’s totally okay to ask, “what can we do to make it up to you?” Often, their answer will be much more modest than you might have expected. In this case, I gave her what I needed: to have her offer to talk to the doc and see if he would reconsider–and even that faced a wall of resistance.
  4. Teach and model appropriate responses that make the customer feel heard.
  5. Teach the importance of keeping promises–as Google did several years ago when they actually went back and re-listened to the customer service call where I was told misinformation and cheerfully refunded the $200+ I’d been charged for following the advice I’d been given. They’ve now kept me as a cell phone customer longer than three previous companies.

As a customer of this organization, I not only had the bad experience above, but my wife has been getting the runaround for months on a chronic problem, with calls not being returned and a generally desultory attitude. At this point, they will be getting negative reviews in public places from us and we will make inquiries about other area practices that are accepting patients. I recognize that our area has a doctor shortage and we might be stuck with them, but we are tired of being kicked around and we certainly won’t recommend them to others.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Ethics: General, Innovation, Mindset, People Helping People, Politics, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Marchers at a rally for racial justice and immigrant rights, Holyoke, MA. Photo by Shel Horowitz.
Marchers at a rally for racial justice and immigrant rights, Holyoke, MA. Photo by Shel Horowitz.

I’m in Week Four of an 8-week training program from Pachamama Alliance, an environmental and social justice organization that promotes holistic thinking across all sectors while elevating indigenous voices, even in the corridors of power and commerce.

The course has been great so far, and useful even to someone like me with more than 50 years as an activist. And I am so loving this week’s focus, “Grounded Optimism,” that I need to share highlights with you:

From Pachamama’s co-founder, Lynne Twist:

Maybe in each one of these breakdowns — And I assert that it’s true — is the seeds of the greatest breakthroughs that we’ve ever seen. We have the opportunity with the pandemic in particular to rethink, reimagine, recreate, reset, reboot life — our health, our relationship with one another, our understanding of what it means to be at home, home in our homes or home in our hearts, home in ourselves. We have the opportunity to see how we want to be governed, how we want to be educated, how we want our children to live. We have such a huge opportunity in the breakdowns that are taking place now on this planet, which are bigger than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, to recreate life.
From historian Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States:
It’s clear that the struggle for justice should never be abandoned because of the apparent overwhelming power of those who have the guns and the money and who seem invincible in their determination to hold on to it. That apparent power has, again and again, proved vulnerable to human qualities less measurable than bombs and dollars: moral fervor, determination, unity, organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, patience.
From Alex Steffen, author of Worldchanging and Carbon Zero:
Optimism, by contrast [with cynicism], especially optimism which is neither foolish nor silent, can be revolutionary. Where no one believes in a better future, despair is a logical choice, and people in despair almost never change anything. Where no one believes a better solution is possible, those benefiting from the continuation of a problem are safe. Where no one believes in the possibility of action, apathy becomes an insurmountable obstacle to reform. But introduce intelligent reasons for believing that action is possible, that better solutions are available, and that a better future can be built, and you unleash the power of people to act out of their highest principles. Shared belief in a better future is the strongest glue there is: it creates the opportunity for us to love one another, and love is an explosive force in politics.
From essayist Rebecca Solnit (latest book: Recollections of My Nonexistence):

The organization Carbon Tracker, whose reports are usually somber reading, just put out a report so stunning the word encouraging is hardly adequate. In sum, current technology could produce a hundred times as much electricity from solar and wind as current global demand; prices on solar continue to drop rapidly and dramatically; and the land required to produce all this energy would take less than is currently given over to fossil fuels. It is a vision of a completely different planet, because if you change how we produce energy you change our geopolitics – for the better – and clean our air and renew our future. The report concludes: “The technical and economic barriers have been crossed and the only impediment to change is political.” Those barriers seemed insurmountable at the end of the last millennium.

A little later in the same essay,

One of the things that’s long been curious about this crisis is that the amateurs and newcomers tend to be more alarmist and defeatist than the insiders and experts. What the climate journalist Emily Atkin calls “first-time climate dudes” put forth long, breathless magazine articles, bestselling books and films announcing that it’s too late and we’re doomed, which is another way to say we don’t have to do a damned thing, which is a way to undermine the people who are doing those things and those who might be moved to do them.

From Christiana Figueres, chief negotiator of the 2015 Paris Climate Accord (and daughter of the Costa Rican president who abolished his country’s army):

Optimism is not about blindly ignoring the realities that surround us, that’s foolishness. It’s also not a naive faith that everything will take care of itself, even if we do nothing. That is irresponsibility. The optimism I’m speaking of is not the result of an achievement, it is the necessary input to meeting a challenge. It is, in fact, the only way to increase our chance of success. Think of the impact of a positive mindset on a personal goal you have set yourself. Running a marathon, learning a new language, creating a new country, like my father, or like me, reaching a global agreement on climate change.

And…

Many now believe it is impossible to cut global emissions in half in this decade. I say, we don’t have the right to give up or let up. Optimism means envisioning our desired future and then actively pulling it closer. Optimism opens the field of possibility, it drives your desire to contribute, to make a difference, it makes you jump out of bed in the morning because you feel challenged and hopeful at the same time.

But it isn’t going to be easy. We will stumble along the way. Many other global urgencies could temper our hope for rapid progress, and our current geopolitical reality could easily dampen our optimism. That’s where stubbornness comes in. Our optimism cannot be a sunny day attitude. It has to be gritty, determined, relentless. It is a choice we have to make every single day. Every barrier must be an indication to try a different way. In radical collaboration with each other, we can do this.

From Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, authors of Active Hope:

The word ‘hope’ has two meanings. The first involves hopefulness, where our preferred outcome seems reasonably likely. If we require this kind of hope before we commit to an action, our response gets blocked in areas where we don’t rate our chances too highly…

The second meaning of hope is about desire…This kind of hope, where we know what we’d like or love to take place, can start us on a journey. But it is what we do with this hope that really makes the difference. Passive hope involves waiting for external agencies to create the future we desire. Active Hope is about becoming active participants in the story of bringing about what we hope for.

Active Hope is a practice. Like t’ai chi and gardening, it is something we do rather than have. It is a process we can apply to any situation, and it involves three key steps. First, we take in a clear view of reality; second, we identify what we hope for, in terms of the direction we’d like things to move in or values we’d like to see expressed; and third, we take steps to move ourselves or our situation in that direction.

From Otto Scharmer, Co-Founder of the Presencing Institute:

Hope is not to be confused with delusional optimism. Hope and action confidence are grounded in radical realism: a realism that is not only in touch with what currently is, but also in touch with a field of possibility that needs us to manifest. In short: Action confidence is an “inside job” that requires us to tap into our highest (future) Selves.

From Frances Moore Lappé, food and democracy activist, author of Diet for a Small Planet and many other books:

The only choice I don’t have is whether to change the world. Because every choice I’m making consciously, or not making, every single choice is changing the world around me. And so the only choice I have, then, is whether I’m making conscious choices, choices to align, consciously align with nature and human nature. So that’s very freeing to me, to realize then, the power.

And…

So if we see the world through this frame of scarcity and limits, and the bad guys and fear, then that’s all we will see. And if we see the world through this mental map of possibility, of this sense of connectedness, continuous change, and cocreation, then the possibilities open for us. So I think of this as so foundational. We see what we look for. And if we’re not looking for what is life-serving, then we’re really, really not going to see it. And so that is why I try to take so many messages that keep us trapped in a fault filter, if you will, and try to open us to this worldview, mental map that is ecologically aligned…

We know what the solutions are. They are either right here showing up someplace, or they’re just around the corner. I just attended a brilliant conference with scientists from around the world talking about renewable energy. Scientist after scientist said there is no physical obstacle to a hundred percent renewable energy in the next few decades, no physical obstacle. We know how to do this. Germany, cloudy Germany, the size – about the size of Montana, produced half the solar energy in the year 2010. So if Germany can do that, come on already. We know how to do this. So solutions are known, whether they be to hunger or to renewable energy. We know how to do this. And also, I’ve realized that a lot of people care. We think in the United States that we’re so divided on such basic issues like climate change. And yet, when you ask people, the vast majority want more action on the part of the public sphere on climate change, for example. The vast majority want more solutions coming forth on the part of the public spheres for poverty eradication, for example. So there’s a great deal of unity, actually. Beneath all of the images of division, there’s a great deal of unity in view, and a lot of people really care and want to make a difference. I think the problem is, most of us don’t know how. And that’s really why I love this kind of program, because it’s allowing people to say, oh yes, I could do that. I am not powerless.

From psychology-of-positivity researcher Jacqueline Mattis:

Hopeful people do not wish – they imagine and act. They establish clear, achievable goals and make a clear plan. They believe in their agency – that is, their capacity to achieve the outcomes. They recognize that their path will be marked by stresses, roadblocks and failure. According to psychologists such as Snyder and others, people who are hopeful are able to “anticipate these barriers” and they “choose” the right “pathways.”

And for activists involved with long-shot causes?

Research demonstrates that for people working to bring social change, particularly anti-poverty activists, relationships and community provided the reason for hope and ignited their conviction to keep fighting.

Connection to others allowed activists to feel a sense of accountability, to recognize that their work mattered and that they were part of something bigger than themselves…Hopeful people stake their trust in data, particularly in the evidence of history. Research demonstrates, for example, that anti-poverty activists drew hope from knowing that, historically, when people joined together in resistance they were able to create change.

I can validate and add to Mattis’s conclusions about lost causes. I’ve been involved in quite a few that seemed hopeless on the surface, including stopping a development project that was “supposed to” steamroll through the permitting process and ruin a local mountain. Community was extremely important in that effort–and so was mindset. I always knew we would win, even though the “experts” were moaning variations on “this project is terrible, but there’s nothing we can do.” And I’ve seen a lot of the causes I’ve worked on these past 50+ years go from fringe to mainstream to successful. I never imagined when I went to my first meeting of my college’s gay-lesbian student group that same-sex relationships would be normalized and same-sex marriages legalized within just a few decades. I never imagined when I took part in the Seabrook occupation of 1977 that we would almost instantly create a national safe energy movement that helped to vastly reduce the risks of nuclear power because no new plants would be built for decades. And I certainly didn’t think that catastrophic climate change would jump out of the scientists’ silos and build an international mass movement.

One of the resources was this wonderful list of good things that happened around the world this year, many of which went unreported in popular media.

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By Posted on Posted in Corporate Social Responsibility, Demographics/Psychographics, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Green Business, Green Marketing, Innovation, Mindset, People Helping People, poverty, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , ,
Hiring fair picture. U.S. Army photo by Bryan Williams, licensed under Creative Commons
Hiring fair. U.S. Army photo by Bryan Williams, licensed under Creative Commons

I’ve long been an advocate of hiring practices that give a leg up to those who don’t have a stable or steady work history. In fact, my most recent newsletter (published less than two weeks ago) highlights a company that pioneered this and now consults with other companies on how to implement open hiring. That article focuses on the positive bottom-line benefits their clients experience as they hire “unemployables.”

Today, I stumbled onto another great  example: a company whose products are deliberately eco-friendly, allowing reuse of old rubber and keeping thousands of pounds out of landfills (or worse, incinerators)–and whose workforce is roughly half ex-cons–with great results. Rather than paraphrase, I invite you to read the original article (the link is in this paragraph).

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Environment, General Commentary, Mindset, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

It’s easy to get discouraged when we look around and see all the problems. But it’s also crucial to see our progress and celebrate our victories. The massive outpouring following the murder of George Floyd is one recent example of a people’s movement that made change. His murderer, a white cop who would have been expected to get off, was convicted, and many communities have been grappling with the role of police.

Nonviolent peace demonstration in Britain
Nonviolent peace demonstration in Britain

I am 65 years old and have been an activist for 52 years. In my short time, I’ve seen people’s movements achieve many victories for human rights, for the planet, and for ending poverty. Yes, the pace is too slow. But yes, the wheels of positive change are turning. When I was a child, segregation was still the law in the American South and in openly racist apartheid regimes like South Africa and Rhodesia. If women worked, it was mostly as teachers, nurses, and domestic. Lesbians and gays were completely marginalized and ridiculed–and bisexual or trans people were invisible. People with disabilities were often warehoused in horrible institutions. Agriculture was so focused on overprocessed foods with the nutrition stripped out and chemicals put in. Most people had never even heard about the environment and concern around climate change was almost unknown–while factories spewed toxins into the air and water. The UN Sustainable Development Goals would not be written for decades. Nuclear power and fossil fuels were all that people thought about for energy, and no attempt was made to conserve or recycle.

WE, THE PEOPLE, CHANGED ALL THAT! And we can do it again and again. We may not live to see the change we want, but we CAN make a difference when we work together for change. If future generations have better conditions because of our efforts, our work is not for naught–just as the work of people in the 1980s, 1970s, 1960s, 1950s, and all the way back for centuries made things better for us.

Knowing that moving the business world is crucial to leverage change, I’ve focused much of my career as a writer, speaker, and consultant on showing that when business chooses to operate in ways that make a difference for such issues as hunger, poverty, racism/othering, democracy, war, and catastrophic climate change (to name a few), they can succeed financially as well. I’ve set up a website at https://GoingBeyondSustainability.com to provide resources for that transition.

On the activist side, I’ve been involved with many causes over the years, and have had a few victories, including starting the movement that saved a mountain threatened by a disgusting real estate development. Because we always had the mindset that we would win, we did, and it was quick–just 13 months. My current main cause is immigration justice–but all the issues are related and we have to seem them holistically.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Eco-friendly, Environment, Mindset, Psychology Tagged with , , , , , ,

I found myself deeply touched by Jennifer Atkinson’s essay arguing that grief is necessary not just when a loved one departs, but when we act as climate allies. “In similar ways, when we openly grieve for the loss of other species or forests or rivers, we’re asserting that nonhuman lives are also worthy of mourning. We refuse to accept their exclusion from human circles of compassion.”

She goes on to discuss the connection between grief and love–and even to claim that grief is an aspect of love.

It’s short and only took me two or three minutes to read. Well worth it.



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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Corporate Social Responsibility, Democracy, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Gratitude, language, Mindset, People Helping People, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , ,
I went through a course from Pachamama Alliance called “Awakening the Dreamer,” a prerequisite for an activist training course I signed up for.
Near the end, I was asked, “Identify and write down the actions you will take to express your commitment to creating a thriving, just, and sustainable future.
And, for added effectiveness, include the date by which you will complete the action.”
My response has a lot to do with who I am, who I have been, who I hope to become, and why I do what I do. I’m sharing it in full:
  • Continue to work on immigration justice through Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice (ongoing since 2019).
  • Continue my career path of showing business that meaningfully addressing climate change, hunger/poverty, racism/otherism, war, etc. through core products, services, and mindset can be a success path (ongoing since 2003).
  • Continue to nurture democratic impulses in my own town/region and help some of them run for local office (ongoing since 1983).
  • Continue using my writing, speaking, and organizing skills to spotlight important issues locally, regionally, nationally, and globally (ongoing since 1972)–and strengthening these skills through continuous learning (which is why I signed up for this training).
  • Continue to be an activist who shows up to make a difference and be counted whenever practical (and sometimes when it’s not).
  • Continue to act on my belief that each of us can make a difference, and that difference is greatly amplified by working with others.
  • Continue to celebrate the victories I help achieve or passively support.
  • Continue to find ways to evolve as a person: to be more supportive of others, to recognize barriers others may face, and to face new experiences with gratitude and enjoyment.
None of these have completed-by dates. Most will not be completed in my lifetime.. I will do this work as long as I can.
<End of my response>
Three quick takeaways I want to leave you with:
  1. Each of us can have an impact, especially if we go about our work with focus and determination
  2. That work is amplified when we collaborate with others in an organized way
  3. We are all growing and changing and evolving–ideally, into our best selves; that journey never stops

For the past few years, I’ve been doing Chris Brogan’s exercise of picking three words to guide my year. In 2020, they were Clarity (20/20 vision), Justice, and (perhaps presciently) Healing. Last year, Rethink, Pivot, Transform.

This year, I’ve picked a single word after reading this article by my friend and mentor Sam Horn. My Word for the Year is EVOLVE–and it’s an acronym:

Enthusiasm

Vision

Optimism

Leverage (getting my message in front of more influencers, and more people generally)

Victories along the way (which we achieve through both small and large steps toward a more just, eco-friendly society)

Evolution (a better world)

 

And how are you framing YOUR 2022? May it be a blessed one for you your loved ones, and all of us.

 

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Activism, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Environment, Innovation, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Mindset, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

George Lakey, nonviolent theorist, author, and activist, speaks on “How We Win, 2018

I listened to a great 2018 talk, “How We Win,” by one of my many mentors, nonviolence theorist George Lakey (that’s the first chunk. You’ll see a link on that page to Part 2.). How We Win is also the name of his latest book at the time.

Lakey sees the increasing polarization of modern US society as a forge: a way of generating the heat necessary to create lasting social change (toward freedom and equality or toward authoritarianism—“the forge doesn’t care”).

This is not a new trend. The Scandinavian countries had their huge social revolution of the 1930s in times of great polarization (something he chronicled in his earlier book, Viking Economics). The trick is to harness that energy and channel it toward gaining mass support. He walks his talk, too; in the summer and fall of 2020, he led or co-led numerous workshops on what to do if the Trumpists tried to seize power after losing the election, training thousands of people.

He charges us to express our best concepts—not just what’s wrong with the system but the vision to make it better—in ways that feel like common sense to working-class people who want the system to work for them, too. After all, most of us actually do want a system that promotes equal access, a fair economy, and real democracy. We have to show them that our vision “has a spot for you,” even if that “you” finds the movement’s tactics disruptive and uncomfortable.

But he says progressives have largely lost that vision since the 1970s; we need to get it back. If we can get the diverse movements working together to confront their common opponents, we foster an intersectional “movement of movements” capable of creating real change—as the Scandinavians did then, with farmers, unionists, and students joining together to drive the moneyed elite from power. He warns us that polarization will get worse, because economic inequality is built so strongly into the culture. He says that we should consider organizing campaigns as “training for [nonviolent] combat.”

And we should expect those campaigns to take a while. Campaigns are well-planned (but adaptable) and sustained over time. It might take years, but you can win. One-offs (like the Women’s March at Trump’s inauguration) don’t typically accomplish change on their own. Traffic disruptions don’t make change; they just piss potential allies off. Disrupting banking operations is much more strategic because the bank is the perpetrator of the evil. How is the specific goal of the campaign advanced by this action? If it doesn’t advance the cause, don’t do it. A campaign he was involved with moved $5 million into credit unions and cooperative enterprises in one campaign that started in a living room and grew to encompass 13 states.

Oppression is only one lens we can look at things through—there are many others (he didn’t elaborate). The elite seeks to divide us (by color, gender, values, etc.)—but canny organizers look for the cracks in those divisions, and expand them. And stays optimistic, not getting stuck in “can’t be done” but figuring out how to do it.

Campaigns often start small. We can build our skills when the stakes are lower and make our mistakes then. Later, as the big challenges arise, we know how to handle them. You can lose a lot of battles and still win the campaign (eventually). And any tactic will be greeted with “this will never work” skepticism. But “Anyone who is arguing for impossibility” should remember the Mississippi Summer volunteers. When news got out of the abduction of Goodman, Schwerner, and Cheney, Lakey (a trainer of volunteers for trhat movement) expected most of the next volunteer wave to abandon their commitments—but nearly all of them stayed, mentored by Black SNCC activists who had been living with the overt racism for decades.

The best-known antidote to terror is social solidarity. Get close to people. Organize campaigns not just with those who share your goals but those who are “willing to be human with you.” Make your peace with the personal risk, face it head-on. We risk by driving on the highway, we risk by NOT meaningfully addressing climate change. Accepting the possibility that you might die in service of the common good is liberating (and it’s not the worst way to die).

SNCC survived in the Deep South without guns; they would not have survived with them. Erica Chenoweth shows us that nonviolent movements have twice the success rate of violent ones.

Framing is crucial. The Movement for Black Lives put out a mission statement that was so well framed, even American Friends Service Committee signed on [I think it might be this one].

If you want innovation, conflict helps to get you there. Yet, conflict resolution is a crucial skill, and it’s expanded enormously in recent decadesWe need those tools and people who will jump into the fray (to use them). But if our tools are too highly structured, you need to add interventions in informal settings.

Lakey expects surveillance and isn’t worried about it: “I think it’s a wonderful thing. We take that as pride: we are so important that they put staff time and energy into knowing what we’re up to—so we’re making a difference. Gandhi told India, if you gave up fear of them, the British would be gone. If people spread fears about Trump, invoice him for the hours because you’re doing his work.”Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Corporate Social Responsibility, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Green Business, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Innovation, Mindset, Social and Economic Justice, Socially Responsible Investing, Technology Tagged with , , , , ,

Earth Lightning, by Stephanie Hofschlaeger
Photo by Stephanie Hofschlaeger

While it sounds deeply pessimistic, I was actually extremely encouraged to read this quote by ecopreneur Paul Hawken in Sierra Magazine (part of a long excerpt from his new book, Regeneration):

Most of the energy we use, whether it be coal, gas, or oil, is wasted, meaning the energy does no useful work. Energy, in its thermal or electrical form, powers systems that are badly designed and poorly engineered, including our buildings, cars, and factories. According to the National Academy of Engineering, the United States is approximately 2 percent efficient, which means that for every 100 units of energy employed, we accomplish two units of work.

Why? Because if we are wasting 98 percent of our energy that means all we have to do engage in a drastic campaign to increase efficiency and conservation. I’d guess that if we can get our efficiency up to 50 percent, we’d never have to drill for more oil and gas or mine for coal and uranium. If we can reach 80 percent, we’d be actively reversing catastrophic global heating. While the technological challenges are steep, they’re not insurmountable—and even if we can go from 2 to 10 percent efficient (and THAT I think we can do easily and relatively quickly, since other parts of the world, including Northern Europe, use far less energy per capita than we do in the US), the changes will be enormous. A lot of this can be done just by thinking different. For example, most of the fuel a car consumes is to move the car itself, not the passengers. If we can cut the weight of a car in half, or carry more people at a time, more of the fuel goes to moving the people and less to moving the vehicle.

Hawken says 82 percent of our carbon output is from burning coal, oil, and gas. So, since we’re wasting 98 percent of the energy those combustion reactions produce,  being more efficient will lead directly to less carbon going into the air and sea.

He concludes with a clarion call to address social justice here and now, as a necessary step to cleaning up our energy act:

To reverse global warming, we need to address current human needs, not an imagined dystopian future.

If we want to get the attention of humanity, humanity needs to feel it is getting attention. If we are going to save the world from the threat of global warming, we need to create a world worth saving. If we are not serving our children, the poor, and the excluded, we are not addressing the climate crisis. If fundamental human rights and material needs are not met, efforts to stem the crisis will fail. If there are not timely and cumulative benefits for an individual or family, they will focus elsewhere. The needs of people and living systems are often presented as conflicting priorities—biodiversity versus poverty, or forests versus hunger—when in fact the destinies of human society and the natural world are inseparably intertwined, if not identical.

Social justice is not a sideshow to the emergency. Injustice is the cause. Giving every young child an education; providing renewable energy to all; erasing food waste and hunger; ensuring gender equity, economic justice, and shared opportunity; recognizing our responsibility and making amends to myriad communities of the world for past injustices—these and more are at the very heart of what can turn the tide for all of humanity, rich and poor, and everyone between. Reversing the climate crisis is an outcome. Regenerating human health, security and well-being, the living world, and justice is the purpose.

As Rebecca Harrington has pointed out, “In a single hour, the amount of power from the sun that strikes the Earth is more than the entire world consumes in an year.” Multiplying that hour by 24 hours in a day, 365 days in a year, we learn that just from the sun, we have 8760 times as much energy coming in as we use. This doesn’t even count wind, hydro, geothermal, and many other promising, truly green technologies that can be designed and deployed in ways that minimize harmful impact (that’s another area where we need to work; not all alternative energy deployments are well-thought-out).  I personally favor small-scale, decentralized installations that are designed with the particular site in mind and are easy and clean to install, service, and eventually disassemble–along with solar and wind on non-forest locations that have already been built upon. Building and vehicular rooftops, parking lots, and highway median strips are all very promising places for green energy deployment, to name a few possibilities.

In short, once we make the transition–and we absolutely need to–we can live perfectly well without the dirty and destabilizing fossil and nuclear technologies we currently rely on–and the first step is getting more work out of the energy we’re already using.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail