Tag: authoritarianism

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Business-general, Consumer Issues, Democracy, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Ethics in Government, Ethics-International, Green Business, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Innovation, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, Mindset, Politics, poverty, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , ,

The first thing I do when I get online each morning is read a few things:

  • Poems of the day from Rattle, The Academy of American Poets, and Second Coming.
  • Heather Cox Richardson and Robert Hubble for analysis of the craziness in the US government right now and how people are fighting back.
  • Seth Godin for his deep insight, creative thinking, and common sense in the business and learning worlds, and news roundups from among The Guardian, New York Times, and/or Associated Press. (Disclosure: I donate to The Guardian and Associated Press)
  • Bob Burg, with his daily sermon on succeeding by treating people right, is often on the list.

Today, Godin opened my eyes to a completely new understanding of economics with one sentence:

The price variation in any market reflects not what the market will bear, but what the people in that market can bear to charge.

Brilliant. And I don’t think I’ve come across this anywhere else. It changes everything, doesn’t it?

He backs up his thesis with examples as different as the pricing of luxury handbags and concert tickets. He discusses how rock musicians who allow promoters to scale tickets out of the range of affordability for most of their fans pay a price in loyalty. And he talks about how that particular dynamic came out of outsourcing concert pricing to third party vendors like Ticketmaster who don’t really give a flying f about the fans as long as they can find enough who are willing to pay hundreds of dollars when they could just as easily spend $10 on a movie in the theater or nothing to watch it at home.

I’ve made those choices many times. I paid $6 in 1972, as a 15-year-old without a lot of cash, to see the Rolling Stones in Madison Square Garden. That’s only $46.24 in today’s money. Most of the time, if a concert or theater ticket is more than $100, I will choose a different form of entertainment. I think I have made four exceptions: The Who, my all-time favorite rock band that I had never seen in concert; tickets for touring Broadway productions of “Hamilton” and “Wicked”; also an actual Broadway show, but I’m not sure which one it was.

The three that I remember were actually worth the money and I didn’t regret spending it. But if I had spent that much for some of the mediocre concerts I’ve seen by top acts, I would have been furious, feeling totally ripped off. I saw many of them as either a concert reviewer or an usher, and thus didn’t pay to be ripped off. But it was frustrating even to give up an evening for something that wasn’t worth it and was charging a lot, even though I wasn’t paying. it was an insult to the fans.

But concerts are by definition discretionary purchases. Let’s look at price elasticity in other contexts that Seth didn’t mention—such as necessities.

Many have jumped in price far beyond inflation. Housing is one of them. But housing is something we have to have. Other societies consider housing a basic right. There is no homelessness problem in Cuba. Medical care and higher education, two other sets of services that have shot up in price here in the US, are also provided to everyone there. But they have an authoritarian government and they have deep poverty.

When I visited in 2019, the biggest complaint that I heard, and I heard it from almost everyone I met, is the inability of wages to keep up with the cost of living. Most workers make about $20 US a month. Doctors make $60 or $70. Our guide told us that the only reason his wife is able to afford to be a doctor is because he makes far more than the typical Cuban income from his clients’ tips. Sometimes, it is about trade-offs.

But sometimes, it’s not. Europe proves that decent, democratic governments can afford to treat healthcare as a right and keep higher education extremely affordable as well (housing, not so much). And they’ve also made huge progress in greening the economy.

China also has an authoritarian government. But the streets of its cities are crowded with relatively inexpensive electric cars (which is to say, still totally out of reach for most Chinese—but enough can afford them that massive traffic jams are common). This transition was quite conspicuous between my first trip to China in 2016 and my return in 2024. I rode in several of them and was impressed with how well they seem to be designed. Those stubborn trade-offs with their moral dilemmas.

Yet, for the past year, we have an authoritarian government in the US. The ugliness of its actions and policies would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

But unlike Cuba and China, the benefits are not accruing to ordinary people. This government is about benefiting billionaires and openly, blatantly lining its leader’s and his friends’ pockets while collecting undeserved and insincere tributes from those who understand that they can flatter their way to what they want, even if they want things that are absolutely at odds with the interests of us ordinary people.

Seth’s thesis is not the whole picture, though. It’s a both-and, not an either-or. Price sensitivity is certainly an issue in purchase decisions—but so is sensitivity to what your market could pay without feeling exploited and ripped off. In my own business, I’ve kept my pricing far lower than most, because that makes me affordable to the solopreneurs and microbusinesses I enjoy serving. I don’t want to live in the corporate world enough to charge too much for my preferred clients, and those huge corporations have in-house people who do what I do. I also recognize that money is one means to an end, and there are others—such as what I referred to earlier: volunteering or reviewing instead of buying tickets

It is also quite possible to make a good profit serving the bottom economic tier. I recommend two great books on this: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits by C.K. Prahalad (out of print; that’s a link to a used copy) and Business Solution to Poverty by Paul Polak and Mal Warwick. That link takes you to bookshop.org, where your purchase supports the independent bookstore of your choice instead of lining the pockets of an oligarch who has aided and abetted the authoritarian government that has taken over the US.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, censorship, Ethics: General, General Commentary, language, Mindset, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

I’m still on Facebook—but I took it off my phone. I also removed Proton and Signal, as well as fingerprint logon from both my phone and computer. Any guesses about why?

Here’s the sad and scary reason: I can no longer trust my government.

The Constitution is supposed to protect US residents against unreasonable searches and seizures. It’s right there in the Fourth Amendment. But the current government is violating that every day. US citizens are being dragged out of cars, homes and workplaces. Immigrants who followed all the rules and have the right to be here are being torn from their families. And of course, those who are here without papers—the vast majority of whom have done nothing wrong and who in many cases have been productive and contributing members of our community for decades are being thrown into gulags under extremely cruel conditions.

All of this is immoral—but it’s happening. This man calls himself a Christian, but his actions show either total unfamiliarity or total nonalignment with the words of Christ. Christ was about welcoming the stranger, helping the needy, breaking down barriers across cultures. Just think about the Good Samaritan parable, embracing the goodness of a member of a despised ethnic group or the—“he who is without sin” invitation that bought an adulteress the ability to continue living.

I’m someone who has always had a low need for privacy and a high transparency level. I strongly suspected in the 1970s when my housemate worked for an anarchist newspaper and I was doing safe energy organizing that our phone was tapped. We were low on the totem pole, so they didn’t waste a good quality tap on us. Our phone made all sorts of noises that our friends’ phones didn’t. I had two responses: One was to be sure I didn’t discuss anything confidential over the phone, including who might be planning what activities. This was easy, because I wasn’t part of a terrorist cell and wasn’t doing anything that would be a problem if the government knew about it. But still, I was careful not to mention people’s names over the phone.

My second response was to tell them I knew:  Every once in a while, I’d say something like “Hey, government agents, you must be bored. Go get a pencil. I’m going to give you my recipe for three-minute chocolate mousse.” (The secret is to use ricotta cheese instead of eggs, by the way).

But times are different now. Instead of governing, our government is trying to crush dissent. And they have tools like AI-powered social media scraping that they haven’t had before. I have been a frequent public critic of Trump and Netanyahu, and an occasional public critic of some of Trump’s other friends, like Bolsonaro and Putin. While unlikely, it’s not beyond possibility that I’ve been put on some kind of extra-screening list, and that the government might try to get into my devices even without the judicial warrant they’re supposed to obtain. Low probability, but certainly not impossible.

And just as I didn’t name names over the phone fifty years ago, I no longer tag my comrades in Facebook or show recognizable faces when I’m writing about protests unless I’ve gotten permission.

I deeply resent that all this precaution feels necessary now. We are supposed to be a democracy. Yet, it was exactly this kind of outspoken public speech that led to several high-profile arrests of Muslim foreign students in the first few weeks of the Trump II administration—including Rumeysa Ozturk in my own state of Massachusetts. Yes, I was born here. Yes, I am White. But the thing about fascism is it starts with the most marginalized and spreads to the mainstream population. And even if it wasn’t spreading, it is not okay to yank people off the street and throw them in a hell-hole for exercising their First Amendment rights. Among other things, my phone-cleaning is an act of solidarity.

Meanwhile, the president of the United States has overseen the murder of at least 69 Venezuelan and Colombian civilians for no viable cause, in multiple attacks (as of November 7). He claims they are drug runners, but evidence points to most of them being fishermen. And even if they are running drugs, you deal with that by stopping and searching the ship and seizing it if it’s true, then making arrests and turning to the courts. Not by blowing them off the face of the Earth.

He has called for execution by hanging of six courageous US military veterans in Congress who made a video reminding soldiers that they are not under obligation to follow illegal orders (such as deploying against US civilians)—and in fact are obligated NOT to follow those orders, because the allegiance they swore is to the constitution, not to any thin-skinned power-mad multiple-felon would-be dictator.

He has pressured numerous companies to make settlements that have been labeled extortion or profiteering, illegally using the presidency for personal and family and corporate financial gain, in direct disregard of the Constitution.

And oh yes, he has used the Justice Department to go after his political enemies, rather than actual criminals, wasting millions of our tax dollars for personal vendettas.

At the moment, I’m halfway through a flight from Asia to New York. If they want to look at my social media, they will have to look a little harder, because my phone and computer will be off and I will not turn them on for an agent who doesn’t have proper authorization.

I recognize that this only makes things inconvenient for them. They could easily use their own device to check my social media. They could somewhat less easily impound my devices. I also recognize that the odds are highest that they will ask me where I went and what I purchased—then simply say, as usual, “welcome back,” and wave me through.

Hopefully, by the time you read this, I will have cleared immigration control without incident and be settling down to celebrate Thanksgiving with family. But if they do try to poke into my business, I will at least slow the machinery of oppression down a bit.

POSTSCRIPT: Compared with an hour-long wait in Saigon, the passport control line at JFK Airport was only ten minutes long, we were waved through without any questions, and I’ve reinstalled FB on my phone until the next time I leave the country.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Ethics in Government, language, Mindset, People Helping People, Politics, poverty, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I was not expecting to be totally blown away by a politician’s victory speech on Election Night. But I was moved to tears several times.

Whether you like his politics or not, you have to acknowledge his oratorical skills—both in the crafting of this speech and in the delivery, where he comes across to me as humble, inclusive, and committed. And if speaking is any part of your communications (which it should be), there are a lot of lessons in this speech.

The politician is Zohran Mamdani, just elected as the first Muslim mayor of New York City—a municipality with more population than 38 of the 50 US states.

You can view it at https://www.c-span.org/program/campaign-2025/zohran-mamdani-election-night-victory-speech/668370 (including the sweet family moment at the very end) and read the full transcript at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/nyregion/mamdani-speech-transcript.html (I had to set up a free account to see it).

He hits high notes immediately, quoting Eugene Victor Debs, “I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.” Debs ran for president as an open socialist—from his prison cell. Then Mamdani hits us with this powerful and poetic paragraph centering his working-class base:

Fingers bruised from lifting boxes on the warehouse floor, palms calloused from delivery bike handlebars, knuckles scarred with kitchen burns: These are not hands that have been allowed to hold power. And yet, over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach for something greater.

Next, a hat tip to his opponent, who he wishes “only the best in private life.”

Then came the only thing I would have edited out: “But let tonight be the final time I utter his name, as we turn the page on a politics that abandons the many and answers only to the few.” His deeper meaning is ambiguous, but it could be seen as holding some resentment, not wanting to even speak the opponent’s name again. I would have skipped the first clause and jumped to “We have turned the page on a politics that abandons the many and answers only to the few.” When I listened, I misheard the word “utter” as “honor,” and that may color my negativity toward the bit about not speaking his name.

But he pivots immediately to his mandate for change, for making the city affordable, and for including marginalized populations:

Thank you to those so often forgotten by the politics of our city, who made this movement their own. I speak of Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas. Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses. Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties. Yes, aunties.

He then tells stories of a few people he met during the campaign: a man who has to commute two hours each way because he can’t afford to live in the city, another who can’t afford to take a day off, and a woman who says she’d lost her love for her city.

His inclusiveness and focus on the glowing future expand to his enormous volunteer network:

This victory is for all of them. And it’s for all of you, the more than 100,000 volunteers who built this campaign into an unstoppable force. Because of you, we will make this city one that working people can love and live in again. With every door knocked, every petition signature earned, and every hard-earned conversation, you eroded the cynicism that has come to define our politics… To my campaign team, who believed when no one else did and who took an electoral project and turned it into so much more: I will never be able to express the depth of my gratitude. You can sleep now.

Then he acknowledges just how ambitious his goals are:

Central to that vision will be the most ambitious agenda to tackle the cost-of-living crisis that this city has seen since the days of Fiorello La Guardia: an agenda that will freeze the rents for more than two million rent-stabilized tenants, make buses fast and free, and deliver universal child care across our city.

Years from now, may our only regret be that this day took so long to come. This new age will be one of relentless improvement. We will hire thousands more teachers. We will cut waste from a bloated bureaucracy. We will work tirelessly to make lights shine again in the hallways of NYCHA developments where they have long flickered.

Safety and justice will go hand in hand as we work with police officers to reduce crime and create a Department of Community Safety that tackles the mental health crisis and homelessness crises head on. Excellence will become the expectation across government, not the exception. In this new age we make for ourselves, we will refuse to allow those who traffic in division and hate to pit us against one another.

From there, he segues directly into something even more ambitious: confronting a hostile federal government and the bigots who enable it—those who want to sow division and hatred, while he calls for unity and invokes, one after another, Jews and Muslims (two other groups who are often at odds on certain issues)—leading first with the community that he is not a member of, but that I am:

In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light. Here, we believe in standing up for those we love, whether you are an immigrant, a member of the trans community, one of the many Black women that Donald Trump has fired from a federal job, a single mom still waiting for the cost of groceries to go down, or anyone else with their back against the wall. Your struggle is ours, too.

And we will build a City Hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism. Where the more than one million Muslims know that they belong — not just in the five boroughs of this city, but in the halls of power.

No more will New York be a city where you can traffic in Islamophobia and win an election. This new age will be defined by a competence and a compassion that have too long been placed at odds with one another. We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.

This next bit could sound like bravado—I’d love to hear some specifics on HOW he will meet those high expectations—but to me, it comes across instead as another call for unity and actual bravery: being willing to stand up and be counted—and looking ahead to what future would-be dictators we will need to organize against:

They want the people to fight amongst ourselves so that we remain distracted from the work of remaking a long-broken system. We refuse to let them dictate the rules of the game anymore. They can play by the same rules as the rest of us.

Together, we will usher in a generation of change. And if we embrace this brave new course, rather than fleeing from it, we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves.

After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him. And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power.

This is not only how we stop Trump; it’s how we stop the next one. So, Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up…

So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us. When we enter City Hall in 58 days, expectations will be high. We will meet them. A great New Yorker once said that while you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose.

If that must be true, let the prose we write still rhyme, and let us build a shining city for all. And we must chart a new path, as bold as the one we have already traveled. After all, the conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate…

He goes on to poke a bit of fun at himself, listing several characteristics that would have been thought of as liabilities—then proclaiming, “I refuse to apologize for any of this.”

And he concludes with inspiration: another strong call for hope:

Let the words we’ve spoken together, the dreams we’ve dreamt together, become the agenda we deliver together. New York, this power, it’s yours. This city belongs to you.

Again, I suggest that you watch the speech, take notes on what you feel did and didn’t work, and think about what you can bring to your own presentations.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Ethics in Government, Innovation, language, Mindset, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , ,

Welcome to 2025, a year that’s only two weeks old and already fraught. This is a
challenging time. Business leaders who believe business can make the world better for
the planet and its residents will face intense scrutiny and pressure to fold our tents. But
if we stand firm, if we continue to act on our sense of ethics, our decency, and our
knowledge that environmental and social responsibility is a business success strategy,
we will eventually prevail!

My heart goes out to readers and their loved ones who have been directly impacted by
the dozens of recent massive climate events such as the floods in the US Southeast,
Libya, and Uganda, earthquakes in China and Vanuatu, fires in California, cyclones in
Mozambique and Sri Lanka, volcanic eruption in the Philippines…and by human-caused
disasters, including the brutal wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the massive migrations from
areas that are no longer safe, and more.

Speaking of human-caused disasters—here in the US, starting on January 20, we face
an openly authoritarian, openly bigoted, and openly corrupt administration that brags
about how it will undo our progress on environmental and social issues and attacks
personal freedom. This new government plans to act not as a force for the greater good,
but to enrich kleptocrats and make life miserable for “enemies” within.

And many senior executives are pushing hard to enable that undercutting within their
own organizations. Companies are shredding DEI programs, universities are struggling
to come up with something equitable to replace welcoming admissions policies deemed
illegal by a partisan Supreme Court, and both social and mainstream media are
adopting policies that kowtow to authoritarians, from eliminating fact-checks and
enabling hate speech to suppressing criticism of the new regime. And alas, similar
governments already exist in Hungary, North Korea, Russia, and elsewhere.

But there’s plenty of good news, too:

  • Several countries, including Brazil, Chile, and
    Columbia, have tossed out right-wing dictators.
  • Others including Germany and France turned back far-right candidates and slates.
  • In the US, many left-of-center candidates and ballot initiatives won even in states that went for Trump.
  • Under-the-radar organizing by progressive grassroots organizations is massive.
    And these groups are finally working together. I went to one national Zoom meeting that
    had 140,000 registrants, 100,000 attenders, and the active participation of at least five
    national grassroots groups. Individually and collectively, they’re crafting and launching
    to best create nonviolent strategies to resist Trump policies and nominees.
  • These organizing efforts marked its first victory in November with the almost immediate collapse of Matt Gaetz’s nomination for Attorney General, which culminated in the release of the US House ethics report on his long list of transgressions.

And that’s just the beginning. Visit this page from Nonviolence News for a torrent of more good news, most of which I hadn’t even known about until their newsletter crossed my desk. I don’t see
everything on their list as good news, but the vast majority certainly is.

So instead of drowning in doom and gloom, get active, get involved, get excited. Remember, as Nerissa Nields put it in her song, “Tyrants Always Fall” (written during the earlier Trump administration), “There are more of us than there are of them.” And become an even more effective agent of change!

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Consumer Issues, Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, language, Politics, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

The Washington Post’s Robert Kagan outlined a dismal road to fascism if DT is somehow elected in 2024. Read his piece and then come back here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/30/trump-dictator-2024-election-robert-kagan/ 

DT is likely to win the nomination, yes. And should he win in November, a second DT presidency would be far, far worse than the train wreck of his 2017-2021 term. The one thing DT tends to be truthful about is his penchant for cruelty and vengeance. His own and his advisors’ statements have made it clear that they intend to destroy the surviving parts of US democracy, seek revenge on anyone they see as an enemy, and create an authoritarian state that would imprison or deport opponents.

But Kagan is forgetting something really important: Winning the nomination is not the same as winning the election.

MAGA Republicans will nominate him, but moderate Republicans, Independents, swing voters, and of course, Democrats will not support another DT presidency. Add to that the millions of new young voters since 2016, the interest groups DT continues to alienate, and those who remember the DT years for the chaos, the dysfunction, the sowing of hatred against people of color, LGBT folks, women, scientists, Muslims, and oh yes, the attempted coup. Those who value women’s reproductive rights, voting rights for urban Black voters, diversity, education, religions other than White Nationalism disguised as a warped form of Christianity, the US’s status as a world leader, a Supreme Court that values settled precedent, and even ethical capitalism can find no home in a Republican Party led by a self-admitted sexual predator, a serial liar with 30,573 documented falsehoods just during his four years in the White House, an open bigot, a man who faces 91 criminal charges in multiple jurisdictions and has already been found to have committed fraudulent business practices, a deadbeat who doesn’t pay his bills and has no loyalty to even his most loyal henchmen, a man who continuously used the presidency for his/his family’s financial gain, who even his own first Secretary of State called a moron.

It is true that Biden will be a hold-your-nose choice for many. I am not happy with his horrible immigration policies, his greenlighting of environmentally destructive fossil fuel projects, and his lack of ability to curb violence against civilians in other parts of the world. But we don’t have ranked-choice voting in the US, and until we do, a vote for a third-party or a choice not to vote is a vote for DT, for authoritarianism, and quite possibly for fascism. I think enough people will realize this truth that if voters are allowed to vote and votes are counted honestly, DT will not win.

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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