Tag: Lech Walesa

By Posted on Posted in Activism, General Commentary, Marketing Trends/News, media-general, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

I posted a petition on Facebook, and someone commented, “Like this would make a difference?”

But here’s the thing: You never know what makes a difference. It was a pleasant shock to discover years later that Nixon was actually paying attention to the peace protests. I think the protests after the first Muslim ban and over the tearing of children from parents seeking asylum certainly made a difference. Amnesty International has made a demonstrable difference in the lives of thousands of political prisoners around the world. And I know that my participation in certain other actions, especially the Seabrook occupation of 1977, made a difference.

Nonviolent occupiers approach the construction site of the Seabrook nuclear plant, April 30, 1977. Unattributed photo found at https://josna.wordpress.com/tag/anti-nuclear-movement/
Nonviolent occupiers approach the construction site of the Seabrook nuclear plant, April 30, 1977. Unattributed photo found at https://josna.wordpress.com/tag/anti-nuclear-movement/

So we keep working and maybe sometimes we have far, far more impact than we thought we would. Who would have predicted how much traction the Arab Spring, or Tiannanmen Square, or Occupy would have gained, how much impact they had?

Who could have imagined in 1948 that all the Jim Crow segregation laws would come tumbling down, not only in the US but even in South Africa and Zimbabwe (then called Rhodesia)? Who could have predicted as recently as 2000 that same-sex marriage would be a legal right in all 50 US states and many other countries around the world? All of these victories are anchored in activism, sometimes decades of activism.

Who would have guessed that the incredible kids who survived the Parkland shooting on Valentine’s Day 2018 (toddlers when Massachusetts became the first state with marriage equality) would channel their angst into a movement that brought millions into the streets, tens of thousands to their voter registrars to register for the first time? Who knows which ones will grow up to be world leaders, and which long-time elected officials will be displaced by a wave of change?

In recent months, we’ve seen the cycle of impact quicken. Movements and memes that had been kicking around for years suddenly reach critical mass. Who would have expected the flowering of older and dormant movements such as #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter?

As an activist for more than 48 years, I remain optimistic, even in the face of so many defeats—because I also see these and many other victories. I see hope in so many people’s movements in the US, and in the complete change within two generations from a Europe ruled by power-mad fear-mongering dictators to one whose purpose actually seems to create a better world for the planet and its residents.

So yes, it makes a difference. Ordinary people can make a difference. Ordinary people make a difference constantly in fact: when I give my “Impossible is a Dare” talk, I cite examples like a seamstress (Rosa Parks) and a shipyard electrician (Lech Walesa) who changed their entire society.

What are you doing currently to make a difference? Please share in the comments.

 

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Customer Service as Marketing, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Innovation, People Helping People, privacy, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , ,

I started answering this question on Quora but ran out of room.

First, it does make a difference. Little things add up.

For instance, where I live in the northeastern US, many people turn the water on full blast and leave it running the whole time they’re brushing their teeth. So in many of my speeches and interviews I talk about a way to brush your teeth that uses teaspoons instead of gallons: turn the water on a trickle, wet the toothbrush, then turn the water off until you’re ready to rinse with another trickle. Let’s say that this saves even just one gallon of water each time.

Child brushing teeth (FreeImages.com)
Child brushing teeth (FreeImages.com)
If someone hears my message and lives for another 40 years and brushes twice a day without squandering that huge amount of water each time, that one person has saved 29,200 gallons. Now, if I can influence just 50 people a month and I talk about this for the next 19 years until I’m 80, that means a total of 332,880,000 gallons saved. And if just one person in each of those 50 goes on to influence just ten of their friends, the total savings become astronomical.
More and more places around the world are discovering that water is extremely precious, so eventually this will become the common best practice for brushing teeth.
And this is only one of hundreds of easy lifestyle changes we can make. Click here to see how to get your hands on 111 of them.
Second, it changes the way you look at the world. You start looking holistically, seeing connections among things that appeared random and unconnected to you before. Who knows—maybe you’ll be the person to make the next big scientific breakthrough in sustainability because of that shift in your thinking ;-).
Third, it changes the way you feel. You see yourself as someone who can make a difference in some small ways that add up to big ways. Guess what: Ordinary people can change the world–but only with a mindset that their actions make a difference. What’s more ordinary than a seamstress? Think about a seamstress named Rosa Parks. How about a high school student? Just in the last few weeks, a group of them in Parkland, Florida sparked a new national movement and managed to get a few restrictions on guns passed into law in Florida after decades of failures on this issue, less than one month after 17 of their schoolmates were murdered in a school shooting. What about an electrician working in a shipyard? That would be Lech Walesa, who led the movement to kick the Russians out of Poland and became its president. I personally started a movement that saved a local mountain.
I’ve been speaking and writing about this for several years. If you’d like to know more, check out my award-winning book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (endorsed by Seth Godin, Jack Canfield, and many others) and my 15-minute TEDx talk, “Impossible is a Dare!” (click on “event videos”).
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By Posted on Posted in Activism, language, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In the aftermath of the Charlottesville Massacre (a massacre that kills one person is still a massacre in my opinion, if deliberately intending to harm many—19 were injured by the madman’s car), an activist friend posted a cry for help. This is a piece of it:

…how can I fight this if I’m scared? And if I’m scared and it immobilizes me then who else will be able to face that fear and take action? And we must take action. We white people must take action. We must be at the forefront of this fight. With our sisters and brothers of color.

All my life I have fought for justice, for people, for equity. How do I step up to this fight with my full self and do what has to be done? How are you doing it?

Here’s what I wrote (slightly edited):

Singer, actor, activist and athlete Paul Robeson. Courtesy NY Public Library Digital Collections.
Singer, actor, activist and athlete Paul Robeson. Courtesy NY Public Library Digital Collections.
It’s OK to be scared, and then do the work anyway—that’s what courage is. I know you already know this, but maybe others reading here will take inspiration.
The times in my life when I’ve done this, and there have been several, have been among the most meaningful moments of my life. But I’m no great hero—and the times when I failed to step up and do the right but scary thing are some of my few regrets. Here are two successes and one failure that I’m thinking about in particular.
1. In 1975 and 1976, I ran the Gay Center (that’s what we called it back then) at Antioch College. I left when the semester was over and began a summer-long hitchhiking trip. A few weeks later, on July 5, 1976, I stopped by for a short visit. I still had the Gay Center key and was crashing there. During that visit, some creep threw a rock through the center’s window, wrapped in a vile hate-speech note with a swastika drawn on it. I not only went to the police [and the campus authorities], but I wrote a letter to the school paper, including the full text of the foul note, and called out the perpetrator. Nobody offered any protection [nor did I request any] and I kept sleeping there until I pushed west.
2. When the US bombed Libya in the early 1990s, I called up [local peace activist] Frances Crowe and asked her where and when the demonstration would be. She said she didn’t know of one. I said “noon at the courthouse.” I was out there by myself the first day, and the passers-by were hostile enough that I was worried for my safety. But I was back the next day with a handful of others, and the day after that with about 20 folks, and I watched the tide turn. By that third day, supporters passing by far outnumbered hostiles. I felt my actions had made a real difference.
The regrets are mostly about not having the strength to verbally interrupt oppression. I’ve gotten better at this over the years. Many of the incidents were when I was a child or teen and didn’t have the strength or the skills to do this in a positive way. But I particularly regret one incident in 1986 when I should have been able to think and act differently: I failed to interrupt a neighbor’s racist comment. We had just moved in next door and I was in his living room at that moment, getting acquainted. I let the comment go by as if I hadn’t heard it. 31 years later, I still feel shame about that.
As an activist for more than 40 years, I’ve been very lucky. I’ve really only risked my life or serious injury a dozen times or so. I’ve never had to spend time in a real jail; my one and only arrest (Seabrook, NH, 1977) was part of a movement too big for the state’s corrections system, so I spent a week in a large National Guard Armory room with 700 other comrades and we made it a school of nonviolence theory and practice.

But my greatest successes bore no personal risk. I faced no serious repercussions when I started the movement that saved our local mountain, or when I set the wheels in motion for the first nonsmokers rights regulations in the city where I was living. Nobody was going to crack a nightstick over my head while I was being paid to organize the Gray Panther chapter in Brooklyn, NY.

I realize just how privileged my place of activism has been when I think of the nonviolent warriors who fought for their rights in places like Nazi Germany, apartheid South Africa, and the American South in the 1950s and 1960s. I think of my long-dead friends and comrades Dave Dellinger and Wally Nelson, who served had time in prison for refusing to fight in World War II. I think of another dead friend, Adele Lerner, who came to the US to escape the Nazis and who was present at the Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill, New York that when the Klan attacked—and who was responsible for a lot of my political and cultural awareness in the early 1970s.She turned me on to Leadbelly (who’d been a friend of hers), Malvina Reynolds, and real cheese, to name three among many. I think of labor organizers, LGBT activists, and so many others who gave their lives so that my generation could have our freedom to protest. Their actions give me the courage to continue to work for a better world.
And I think about the power of ordinary people to step through the door that cracks open for a moment, to step into their greatness and change the world. The seamstress, Rosa Parks. The shipyard electrician, Lech Walesa. The activist serving a life sentence, Nelson Mandela. The humble priests Daniel and Philip Berrigan, who spent so many years in jail for direct action against the military. These and many other heroes put their lives on the line in a way I never had to.
Mind, I’m not beating myself up. I’ve chosen a path of “easeful activism” (as my yoga teacher might call it). I’ve found plenty of ways to be an effective agent of social change without getting beaten, killed, or thrown in jail. I haven’t found it necessary to be a martyr, but I deeply respect those who do. And I am prepared if the day comes where I am called to do as much or more. I will not allow fear of my own death to keep me from doing the right thing. I will continue to follow the path of nonviolent action for deep social change.
impact in the world? Please post your comments below.
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