Glancing at the national headlines it is easy to feel hopeless. Turning to the “World” section one becomes defeated. Scrolling through the social media, in between burst of joy from the cat/dog/baby videos, there is often pain and struggle. But alternatives are brewing on the horizon. Alternative ways of creating change and standing up for progressive causes.

I am talking about municipalism. It is hyper-local, yet not parochial. It is aspirational, yet deeply solutions oriented and practical. It traces its roots to the past, but is modern, inclusive and forward-looking. It is global, and taking hold across North America too. It has captured the attention of young and old alike.

Also known as radical municipalism and municipal socialism, it traces its roots back to the American anarchist Murray Bookchin. His life’s work was focused on finding ways to build an egalitarian society and erode oppressive power. He didn’t shy away from acknowledging that power exists. Instead, he questioned who has it and how it is wielded. Bookchin believed it should be the people, not the elites.

Bookchin left the world in 2006. However, his daughter, Debbie, is keeping her father’s ideas alive. Just last year, she made a strong case for their revival:

Municipalism — or communalism, as my father called it — returns politics to its original definition, as a moral calling based on rationality, community, creativity, free association and freedom. It is a richly articulated vision of a decentralized, assembly-based democracy in which people act together to chart a rational future.

Bookchin’s ideas have inspired municipal leaders across the world. In diverse places such as Barcelona (Spain), Jackson, Mississippi, and Rojava (a Kurdish area in Syria), among others. Activists there are championing causes such as promoting participatory budgeting, supporting workers starting cooperatives, piloting city IDs, re-municipalizing water and energy supplies, making public procurement gender- and eco- sensitive, introducing independent citizen audits of municipal budgets and debt, and utilizing online participatory tools for community engagement.

Under the leadership of a housing activist turned mayor, Ada Colau, Barcelona is leading the way in piloting radical ideas on a city level. Some of the specifically feminist initiatives implemented include: mainstreaming gender across all areas of local policy, especially in budget allocations; ending a city-wide ban on the use of full-face veils in public space; and expanding public childcare for 0-3 year olds.

Unsurprisingly, the municipalist movement’s first-ever conference took place in Barcelona in 2017, attracting more than 700 mayors, councilors and activists from across the world. In attendance were who’s-who of radical and progressive city-politics.

In July 2018, the movement, under the banner of Fearless Cities, is coming to North America with a conference in New York City. Up for discussion are topics such as solidarity economy, tools for participatory democracy, and ways to democratize and feminize local political institutions.

Discussions about municipalism in the U.S. are also entering the mainstream political media. Just this month, Politico spotlighted municipalist work in Seattle, to protect labor rights and standards in a rapidly changing economy. The efforts include initiatives such adopting a domestic workers bill of rights to protect those working in often the most invisible, highly exploitative, gendered and racialized sectors of economy.

These efforts are worth supporting, promoting and replicating. By working on a hyper-local level, we stand a chance against the forces of populism and pernicious nationalism. By working with our neighbors, while drawing on knowledge and examples from across the world, we can build inclusive communities at home.

Municipalism might just offer us a handy roadmap and framework to do this work. The late Ursula le Guin characterized it as “not another ranting ideology,” but “a practical working hypothesis, a methodology of how to regain control of where we’re going.”

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Recently, our nation has seen an uprising of activism by young people like me. There has been a lot of talk about this generation being the future, and demanding change, and winning. There is also debate about whether young people should be called millennials or iGen or Gen Z. Regardless of what we are called, our generation has potential and power. From the March for Our Lives to Youth and Government, young people have already changed the current state of democracy and used their voices as active citizens. Unfortunately, there are kids in this generation who are addicted to their phones or juuls or who eat tide pods, but others—young activists and change agents—are trying to participate in conversations that affect them and not allow politicians to push them aside.

After 17 people were killed in Parkland, Florida, the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School began a movement, talking about their experience and demanding change in government policies.  Youth and Government, a national program of the YMCA, allows students to participate in mock government, learning how democracy should work and giving young people the opportunity to have a voice and use it in the greater community. Both of these activities, as well as  many other schools, organizations, and groups of young activists, have seen injustice. They want an opportunity to make differences in their communities and in the nation at-large.  The Parkland survivors are on a Road to Change, traveling the country, having discussions with activists , and registering people to vote. Students participating in Youth and Government, Model UN, and the Conference on National Affairs are writing and debating pieces of proposed legislation and resolutions, addressing the issues of our world, and building a community of future lawyers, lawmakers, and citizens invested in bettering democracy. Young people are in the media, in the streets protesting, interning for politicians, representing states and countries, and becoming sources of active citizenship, world awareness and political power.

While many are inspired by young people and the work they are doing, others do not see a place for them in government. Some have criticized the Road to Change, saying that it does not do much, that it is only talk, that most people are registered to vote so there is no action that will create change, and that  government should decide policy and law. Young people hear the arguments that they are too young, not mature enough, or incapable of having their own political views yet. Many are seen as being used by adults, politicians, or corporations. As a young person, I find that argument offensive, because we are fully able to have our own morals and stances and express them as we see fit; most of us are not being exploited by people who see opportunity in using young people to further an agenda.

As much as I love being an “activist” and going to town halls and marches and all of these events that are “demanding change,” I want to see action. I want to do something. I can talk with other like-minded people, make as many signs as I can, protest everywhere in my city, attend town halls and ask politicians questions, but our government and nation need to take action and let the young generation have a seat at the table. The best way we can do this is by voting, registering people to vote, trying to reform voting, voting corrupt politicians out and true public servants in, getting young people into the national debate, and carrying out our civic duty. We need to create an increase in voter turnout, pass laws that uphold our standards of democracy, expect accurate media reports, engage in civil discourse across party lines, support organizations that help minorities, and promote political actions that are more about human rights than money.

Young people are the future. We are starting now with this movement and activism, learning how to be leaders and then becoming them. We are being told that we can do great things, and change the world, and fix the problems of prior generations, but are we being given the resources and opportunities to prepare and to be effective? Whether people like it or not, young people’s voices will continue to call out party politics and focus on what is needed in society. Yes, we will continue to march and protest and talk, but we need to act and to not only demand change, but to make change happen. Our actions will make the difference.

The post We’re young, we’re politically active, and we’re coming to your town appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The Keep Hope Alive Project, founded in 2016 in Hudson, New York, provides an outlet for those opposed to the divisiveness and rightward drift of the Trump era to express publicly their hope and commitment for a more inclusive, progressive, and just future for all Americans.

The concept to create an advocacy network of artists, businesses, nonprofits, and communities originated with Hudson Valley resident Cheryl Roberts. Roberts initially sought to create a symbol that would signal support for a positive vision for the future rather than the frighteningly negative and destructive one emanating from Trump, his administration, and his Republican enablers. A rectangular field of violet and white emerged as the subtle, yet powerful, graphic Roberts came up with to encourage public statements of solidarity for a wide-ranging and ambitious agenda. That list of issues includes support for the arts; racial and gender equality; universal health care; environmental sustainability; a free and independent press; freedom of religion; immigration and criminal justice reform; support for local businesses; and workers’ rights.

The project rolled out on inauguration day, January 20, 2017, when the first Keep Hope Alive flag was proudly hoisted in the City of Hudson, an upstate community located approximately two and one-half hours north of New York City.

Since that first roll out, Hope flags, banners, and signs have cropped up along Warren Street, the commercial drag in Hudson, as well as on the facades of private homes along Hudson’s side streets. The second upstate community to join the project was Chatham, New York, just a twenty-minute drive from Hudson, where residents and visitors are greeted by an impressive show of violet and white along Main Street. 

Of course, the organizers of this project have much larger ambitions than just flying the flags in small villages and towns in Upstate New York. The project seeks to expand across the country and internationally.

According to Linda Mussmann, co-director of Time and Space Limited, an arts space in Hudson and co-sponsor of the project, outreach to communities in other states is beginning to bear fruit.  This summer Asheville, North Carolina, becomes the first community outside of New York State to proudly fly the Hope flags and banners at twenty locations throughout the town.

If you’d like more information, would like to purchase a flag or banner, or find out how to organize your community to join in, go to www.keephopealiveinternational.org/about.

The post Upstate New Yorkers want to Keep Hope Alive appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I just graduated, but as I’ve been reflecting on how it has shaped me, I realized my most important lessons came outside the classroom. [Insert trite aphorism about learning happening everywhere here.] You’d think as a Human Rights and Political Science double-major I’d have spent a lot of time in class digesting social movements, understanding the complexities of justice, and studying to make the world a better place. But you’d be wrong. When I was working on a campus social movement, I even tried to research it. In the end, nothing quite substituted real world experience. These are 20 lessons my BAs didn’t teach me, but I learned anyway.

1. If you think justice is easy, you’re doing it wrong. Look, your tweets and Facebook posts are great, but if that’s all you’re doing while you call yourself a “social justice warrior,” etc., then you’re lying to yourself. Even if you bought yourself a “Nevertheless She Persisted” t-shirt or made a #YesAllWomen tweet or held up a sign at the Women’s March, you can’t call it a day and say you did your part. Justice and resistance are ways of life, not merit badges to earn because you did a thing once.

2. Protesting isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s okay. There’s more than one way to achieve justice. Sometimes people don’t want to be on the front lines, sometimes people can’t risk arrest, sometimes introversion or anxieties or disorders make it difficult or even impossible to protest, and sometimes people just don’t like that method of justice. So long as you don’t give up and you don’t stop, that’s okay. You can still call your Congressmen, educate your communities, distribute informational literature, or volunteer with Planned Parenthood or the ACLU or a social justice organization of your choice. Movements are made by far more than protests, and they need you. Find your niche. (EverydayFeminism has a quiz to find your activist superpower.)

3. Justice— doing something that matters— feels exhausting and excruciating, no matter what form it comes in. Justice comes from incendiary, heart-wrenching, emotion- laden protests. Justice is spontaneous demonstrations organized in a day. Justice is anger, heartbreak, and passion that wrench sobs from your throat and make your chest feel like it’s caving in because it just matters so much. And justice is tedious hours of community organizing. Justice is making signs and stapling packets and attending mind-numbing meetings because the devil is in the details. Justice is researching pages of cold, detached policy briefs and finding loopholes in legislation and still coming up empty so many times that you want to cry in frustration because can’t everyone see that it just matters so much.

4. Self-care isn’t selfish. Justice is exhausting and excruciating, and no one expects you to incessantly place yourself in a position to be tired and pained. In fact, you don’t do your best work when you’re not well-rested and healthy (and emotional health is real health!). Balance self-care with your resistance. Taking a moment to think about yourself and your needs is not selfish. It is necessary, or you will burnout. Do not crucify yourself for the cause, or the movement you’re martyring yourself for will only lose an advocate. In that, self-care is an act of resistance. Feminist Audre Lord said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

5. Optimism is not the same as naivete. Always have faith people can change, but never blindly count on it. If you don’t retain hope that things will change and you succumb to the seducing pull of cynicism, despair and frustration will eat you alive. Hold tight to your optimistic belief that you can make things better or you’ll lose the motivation to take action.

6. You can be angry. You can be angry. You can be angry. The world is a hostile place, and you can be angry about that. Use that anger to fuel you, channel it into your activism, and sustain yourself on that resultant passion.

7. Do not try to make yourself or your cause palatable. Tone-policing and respectability politics— ways of telling people the means by which they are expressing their demands for justice are too angry, impassioned, or honest to be palatable— suppress movements. When you censor and sanitize your emotions or your cause for the sake of trying to make the general public accept it or side with you, it only serves to (1) shift the blame from the oppressors to the oppressed by blaming their methods of expressing themselves for the continued injustice; (2) make you feel guilty for not protesting “right” (which doesn’t exist BTW); (3) and distance you from your truth. Be honest to your truth. Again, you can be angry. And you can express it.

8. There is a time and place for obedience, but never stop questioning the rules. Law cannot supplant morality. Apartheid, wife-beating, and child slavery were all legal once. And with the protection of the law, they were also given the benediction of morality, sedating the masses from questioning their ethicality. Rather than lazily relying on established rules and laws to dictate our sense of righteousness, we must always question “why?”. Please, read MLK’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” Blind obedience to unjust laws allows evil to flourish.

9. History was written by the victors. At the same time as I realized the significance of learning history to understand nuance and context, I also realized that history books venerate at the altar of moral supremacy. The version of history we’ve been taught was propagandized and weaponized with evangelical exceptionalism. It was white-washed, sanitized, and mutilated— designed to anesthetize us with assurances of American ideological purity. Sure, the morality of slavery motivated the Civil War in part, but capitalist economics also played a key role, no? What justifies the U.S. eugenics program or Japanese internment camps but condemns Nazi racial hygiene politics if not an inveterate belief in American infallibility? Read enough American exceptionalism, and you might start to believe it. Believe it long enough, and nothing will ever change.

10. The institutions are not designed for change. The evils and injustices in our country are too foundational to be easily eradicated. When institutions create “open spaces” and “dialogues,” they are trying to convince you they believe as you do, they respect your call for change, and that they are working to fix it. The goal is to create the illusion that by participating in those forums you have done your job to demand justice, so you don’t have to work any harder or more forcefully or more publicly. But if those fora changed anything beyond the superficial rhetoric of the administration— if they actually challenged the existing power dynamics— they wouldn’t offer them up on a silver platter.

11. Honeyed words are cheaper than material action, and it’s always about the money. Just because you’ve been promised change does not mean it will come about. Change often requires material action— and material action costs money and resources. On the other hand, those saccharine promises cost nothing. Do not celebrate your success before you actually see change. The promises were meant to pacify you; don’t let them.

12. The administration was never on your side. They will try to convince you their beliefs and their values coincide with yours, but in the end their interests lie with their continued power, money, and optics. They will give you awards and make promises and give speeches in response to your demands for justice in the community— all to try to assure you they want what you want, too, so you don’t have to push them so hard so publicly. They’ll claim to be “working behind the scenes” or “caught up in some red tape.” Do not let those sweet nothings make you complacent. Their interests are still their own, and if they do somehow coincide, it is because of the public pressure to act. Keep pressuring.

13. Sometimes people hate you; that means you’re doing it right. When you’re trying to change things, you are changing a system and an order that existed for years— maybe decades— so naturally there are going to be some people who don’t like being removed from power or told that the institution they have benefited from for years is wrong. If the people who have benefited from centuries of prejudice or who are resistant to justice dislike what you’re doing, then you are doing it right. If someone isn’t mad at you— if everyone likes you— you have failed to move towards real justice.

14. White liberalism is not a friend to the movement. When I say White liberals, I don’t necessarily mean White people who are liberal. I mean “the white moderate” MLK censures in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” He wrote therein:

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

Those who are more concerned with the “offense” of being accused of racism rather than the potential harm of their racism are part of the problem. Those who are more concerned with policing methods of protest than challenging the police brutality that necessitated it are part of the problem. Those whose activism can be delayed until it is convenient rather than demanding liberty and justice now are part of the problem.

15. There is always more to learn. Never assume you already understand everything. This is particularly true when talking about allyship. When allies assume they inherently understand the complexities of marginalization— or that they have become experts after reading one book or watching one YouTube video or even obtaining a degree about it— they appropriate the struggles, take up too much space in the movement, and impede the path of justice. Never allow your ego to convince you a little more education wouldn’t be beneficial.

16. Sometimes you are impotent at the hands of someone else’s pain. Trump won, children starved, refugees drowned, and bombs droned on while you held a sign. You felt the burden of the world on your shoulders so you held that sign high, but your sign did not save the world. Humanity dies while we look on. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like we’re accomplishing anything— like our efforts are futile, like we might as well give up. But just because you can’t save everyone doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to save as many as you can. Sometimes there is nothing you can do, but there is not always nothing you can do. Collective surrender enabled the evil you’re protesting in the first place.

17. There is no such thing as amorality. I have a sticker on my laptop quoting Desmond Tutu: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, then you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” It reminds me that neutrality is complicity and silence is violence. As Albert Einstein said, “the world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” Choose to do something about it.

18. The world is terrible, but never forget there’s always something you can do about it. Schedule a meeting with your administrators to talk about discriminatory policies. Call your Congressperson to make sure they know their constituents won’t look the other way if they pass a bias-motivated law. Volunteer your time or extra money at a local nonprofit like the International Institute or the Kingdom House in STL. Attend a local demonstration for worker’s rights or environmental justice or reproductive health rights. Educate yourself and your community on important sociopolitical issues. One person can make a difference.

19. Empathy can change the world. It is when labels divide and classify us, making the lives of some lesser, that we stop caring about the pain of others. If we see people halfway across the world as valuable and human like us, it becomes far more difficult to turn a blind eye to their suffering. Empathize— reject the idea that the “other” is lesser— and change the world.

20. Justice isn’t a hobby; it’s a lifestyle. It’s choosing to spend your money at minority-owned businesses, reducing your carbon footprint, standing up to prejudiced bullies, making sure diverse voices and interests are heard at the next group meeting, and any of the millions of other small choices people make to improve society. Yes, take every opportunity you can to create radical change when you can, but remember that between those massive undertakings are the everyday actions that shape society, too.

The post What My B.A. Didn’t Teach Me, But I Learned Anyway appeared first on Occasional Planet.

For me, 2017 has been marred with the knowledge that  it ushers in the era of Trump. The incoming administration has promised to push policies that slash rights for many already marginalized communities, ranging from the poor to women, to religious minorities, to the LGBTQ+ community, to people with disabilities, to immigrants, among others.

With inauguration day rapidly approaching, people are, legitimately and justifiably, terrified. As a Muslim American woman from a family of immigrants, I count myself among those battling to keep panic at bay as I contemplate the Trump administration. And on behalf of my closest friends and larger community, who are vulnerable as members of other marginalized groups, I am doubly scared.

So for me, 2017 means that now, more than ever, we all have the duty to be better citizens. We each have a duty to engage with our communities and get involved to every extent possible, if we want to roll back policies that will hurt us and those we care about. I don’t have any New Year’s Resolutions, but I do have these very pointed intentions to do whatever I can in the year ahead to make sure that my community does not suffer from a Trump presidency.

Hold politicians accountable

 Elected officials’ job is to represent us. Admittedly, the system doesn’t always work that way, and we often feel like our will is not being represented within our government. But it is our responsibility to persist. If we refuse to even try to hold our elected officials accountable at every level of government— local, state, and national— what’s to change the system? It is our responsibility to call our legislators, email them, show up at their offices and demand accountability. When a critical bill needs to pass (or get shut down), if we’re not out there demanding someone listen, then we can’t be the ones complaining later that it didn’t work out how we wanted. We are all responsible for holding our government accountable, and you can bet that I am going to do better keeping in contact with my elected officials and making my voice heard.

Allies, live your beliefs

Politicians aren’t the only ones who need to be held accountable. The past several months have seen a massive upsurge in legitimized hatred and bigotry, and we have to hold ourselves and each other accountable for fighting it. That means that right now, allies need to step up their game. All of us have some privilege, which means we all have the potential to be allies to a community that needs our support. Privilege is a responsibility to change the system. Privilege is a responsibility to call out our coworkers, friends, and family when their behavior is anywhere on the continuum from micro-aggressive to flat-out bigoted. Privilege is a responsibility to do better ourselves and to ensure we’re not reifying prejudiced systems. Privilege is a responsibility to shut shit down. And I’m going to take it very seriously.

Humanize the “other”

There are people different from us within American society: Learn about them. When we start to see people who are different from us as people rather than just as different, our world view shifts. Try checking out these books on the lives of people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, people with disabilities, immigrants, women, and people in poverty. It’s really easy to think we understand the struggles of another community, claim credentials about having a diverse friend, or just assume we already know enough, but there’s always more to learn. I’m going to try even harder to branch out this year and consume information from a wider array of sources, read more books from more authors, and connect with as many people from as many backgrounds as I can.

We are responsible for knowing the truth

Nothing will change if we aren’t informed about what’s happening around us. Fake news is abundant, and Facebook is really not how we should be learning about the world. We can’t blame anything but our own laziness for misinformation. There are abundant resources out there. I intend to ensure that I am constantly cross-checking my facts, finding reliable sources, and spreading the truth.

America is not the center of the universe

We live in an increasingly interconnected world, and if we only know what’s happening in the US, we’re missing out on a vast wealth of information. What happens halfway across the world most definitely affects us in the middle of the country, so I’m going to make sure I don’t skimp on the world news. (P.S. It’s also helpful to get information from sources based outside of the US because more perspectives are always critical to a better understanding of an issue. BBC and Al Jazeera are often favorites.)

Get involved

Yes, issues of inequality exist at the institutional level, but they impact people at the personal level, and there are abundant opportunities to do something. Protesting isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but there are plenty of other ways to make a difference. I’m going to make more time to volunteer within my community to make people’s lives better (and hopefully still attend rallies and marches, too). These are a small selection of St. Louis organizations you might consider helping:

• International Institute (support and resources for immigrants)
• Planned Parenthood (women’s rights and reproductive health are their main focus, but they also do work on labor rights, race issues, poverty, and a vast number of other issues)
• CAIR-STL (representation for Muslim Americans)
• Kingdom House (providing resources for low-income families)
• Women’s Safe House (domestic violence shelter)
• Employment Connection (providing the homeless, ex-offenders, and immigrants among others employment opportunities to pull them out of poverty)
• National Alliance on Mental Illness (nationwide coalition to provide advocacy for individuals with mental disorders and their families)
• Growing American Youth (support for LGBT youth)
• St. Louis Homeless Winter Outreach (groups of volunteers providing resources and rides to shelters for homeless individuals on nights the temperature drops below 20 degrees)
• ACLU (civil rights advocacy)

This is only a brief introduction to efforts we all need to collectively undertake to protect ourselves and our communities. A lot of us were left wondering after the election how this possibly came to be, and if we want to stop this from happening again then we have to make a change.

Let’s get to work.

The post How to be a better, more active citizen in the Trump era appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Standing in the rain outside a polling place today, touting my spouse/candidate for U.S. Congress–Arthur Lieber– I struck up a conversation with a young guy doing the same for two other Democrats–Tracy McCreery and Jill Schupp. His name is Rasheen Aldridge, and he was a ray of sunshine on a wet Election Day.

We talked for more than an hour, only stopping when the occasional voter showed up. It took only a few minutes for me to realize how remarkable this 20-year-old really is. And, if there are a lot more young people like him, a cynical old liberal like me can feel some renewed hope for the future.

We covered a lot of territory in our conversation. I learned that Rasheen has been fascinated by and engaged in politics for a long time. His mother ran—twice—for a seat on the City of St. Louis’ Board of Alderman, but lost. As a young teenager, Rasheen knocked on doors for her and helped out at the polls. I learned that, when he was just 8 or 9 years old, he found himself fascinated with vote counts, public-opinion polls and statistics that revealed political trends. By the time he was a teenager, he was already a political wonk.

More recently, he has helped organize minimum wage protests among fast-food workers. Last year, he lost his job at Jimmy John’s sandwich chain—presumably, he says, because of his political activism. He was fired for being three minutes late to work—an infraction that is not supposed to result in termination, unless you’ve been written up for similar violations three times, he noted. People rallied around him and staged protests to try to get Jimmy John’s to reinstate him, and that’s when he met one of the Democratic candidates for whom he was poll-watching —Tracy McCreery, who stood by him at one of the protests. “That meant a lot to me,” he said

Now, his early obsession with politics is evolving into a course of study: He’s a student at St. Louis Community College, where he’s working toward a major in—naturally—political science. He’s conversant with a lot of political issues: We talked about Claire McCaskill, Todd Akin’s 2012 “legitimate rape” gaffe, the sad prospect of a Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate, and the unfair, biased coverage of Barack Obama’s presidency.

“I think some people think Ebola is just another name for Obama,” joked Rasheen.

He gets it. He gets what politics is about, and what voting is about. He gets it in a way that too many younger citizens don’t, and that older activists—as much as we hammer away at it, have trouble getting across—because we’re….old. He’s working the polls, said Rasheen, because “politics has an impact on our lives,” adding that the people we elect make laws that affect everything we do—and too many people just don’t see that.

I love hearing that from a young person.

But what really got me about Rasheen was what he told me about his engagement in local issues—specifically, the situation in Ferguson, MO. He doesn’t live in Ferguson. But he cares, and he’s doing something positive about it. He told me that he has been in Ferguson for almost all of the 80 days since the Michael Brown/Darren Wilson incident, attending peaceful demonstrations and trying to raise awareness of the injustices of the current police and courts system.

He’s president of a group called Young Activists United, which is trying to get African-American students engaged in the political process. Right now, in anticipation of whatever announcement comes out of the St. Louis County grand jury’s investigation of the Darren Wilson case, he’s leading the group’s effort to stage peaceful demonstrations after the announcement. As we spoke, he took several phone calls from people wanting to know where the next meeting was, how to get the word out, and what the next step was going to be. [Yes, I eavesdropped a little. Sorry.]

Spending that hour or so with Rasheen was the best part of my day. I can only hope that there are a lot of other Rasheens out there, doing the political trench-work, not giving up, staying engaged, using their considerable energy, intelligence and talent to effect change, encouraging others to join up, and pushing for a better system. My generation tried, but from the looks of things on Nov. 4, 2014, essentially failed.

Rasheen’s story tells me that the torch has been passed and is in good hands.

The post A young activist just made my Election Day appeared first on Occasional Planet.

When I first got wind of the People’s Climate March taking place in New York City on September 21, my first thought was “will my personal responsibilities allow me to get there?” My second thought was of Howard Zinn, the historian and activist who, more than thirty years ago, authored the brilliant but still-debated alternative history of the American experience titled “A People’s History of the United States.”

Surely, I thought, if Zinn were still with us, he would be crisscrossing the country reminding us of our collective responsibility to demand that our elected officials set aside the partisan divide and their distrust of international cooperation and come together to craft meaningful policies addressing the multigenerational crisis that is global warming.

I imagine Zinn would not have missed this opportunity to link arms with fellow activists at what may turn out to be a historic march. Grassroots organizing and street action were, after all, mother’s milk to Zinn. From his first civil-rights marches with students at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, to his anti-war activism during the Vietnam War, Zinn never faltered in his belief that the fundamental obligation of citizens in a democratic society is to make our voices heard through organizing, gathering together, and protesting peacefully so that we may affect government policy and push for social change. Zinn, who passed away in 2010, believed with a passion that power must never be allowed to reside solely behind the closed doors of corporate boardrooms nor even within the halls of government, but must be claimed and reclaimed again and again throughout history by the people themselves.

But power, as Zinn reminded any and all who would listen, is only power if it is exercised. The People’s Climate March provides an opportunity to exercise that power.

The People’s Climate March is timed to take place just two days before the world’s leaders meet at the United Nations for what many hope will turn out to be a historic and game-changing climate summit. Organizers are predicting that the march through the streets of New York will be the largest ever. Among the one thousand participating organizations from the U.S. and abroad will be environmental, secular, religious, labor, business, and social-justice groups and schools. Supporting events are planned on September 20 and 21 in cities and towns across the U.S. and in countries around the world as part of the Global Weekend of Action.

The U.N. summit and the People’s Climate March come at a time when frightening reports about the effects of climate change assail us daily. Those reports remind us that we are surely living through one of history’s great turning points—a time when the challenge of environmental degradation is so immense it defies the imagination. With every grim revelation it becomes more difficult to hold on to a thread of hope. When I go down that road, I try to remember that Zinn’s life demonstrated that optimism and realism are not mutually exclusive. “To be hopeful in bad times,” Zinn observed, “is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.”

And when I fear that the cruel complexities of our time seem to be insurmountable, I return to Zinn’s speeches and writings in which he outlined a road map that is as relevant today as when he first shaped it. “What we choose to emphasize in this complex history,” Zinn wisely observed, “will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.” Zinn goes on to remind us that if we can recall “those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.”

On September 21, the hope is that the People’s Climate March will demonstrate to the skeptics and the cynical deniers and those we have allowed through our complacency to profit for far too long from unchecked environmental destruction that we, the people, are tired of waiting for action on climate change. With hope for the future, the march should send a powerful message to world leaders that the world has no choice—as Howard Zinn would remind us— but to send this magnificent spinning top in a different direction.
Read the full text of the invitation to the march below. You can find a map of events taking place in your area at http://peoplesclimate.org/global/.

Dear Friends,

This is an invitation to change everything.

On September 23, world leaders are coming to New York City for a historic summit on climate change. This is an opportunity to inspire the world’s most powerful politicians to ambitious action on the climate crisis.
With our future on the line and the world watching, the People’s Climate March will meet this moment with unprecedented mobilizations in New York City and around the globe.

From New York to Paris and Delhi to Australia, we’ll take to the streets to demand the world we know is within our reach: a world with an economy that works for people and the planet; a world safe from the ravages of climate change; a world with good jobs, clean air and water, and healthy communities.

There is only one ingredient required: to change everything, we need everyone. Join us.

The post The People’s Climate March, Howard Zinn, and why we all need to join in appeared first on Occasional Planet.

People marching in lines. Banners, signs and paraphernalia everywhere. A familiar scene at rallies and protests. At first glance, little beside the intensity has changed since the late nineteenth century when the street first became the stage.

Yet, take another look. The seasoned activists march with their chins raised high. The youth, on the other hand, keep their heads bowed and hug their smart phones. Tweet must be sent. Confirm. A photo is shared. If a protest is not tweeted, did it even take place?

We increasingly consume  information online and use social media for political rants. It’s fair to ask, then: Should we still be marching and protesting in physical space? Riots and rallies seem like phenomena of the distant past.

Enter the digital age. There #Kony2012 awaits. It was a masterfully orchestrated campaign by Invisible Children, a San Diego based group, which caught the world’s attention in 2012 and spawned numerous debates. Few still remember what this was all about (fyi, they have yet to catch that Kony guy). Now, it’s just a case study on how to tap into millennials’ idealism and meet them where they are: online.

The secret to their success is rather simple. Mix sleek graphics with a thirty-minute video laying out the issue in simple terms. Add some punchy lines and a memorable title,  then blast the message via social media. The Invisible Children capitalized on our obsessions with power and fame. They first nudged ‘validators’ of popular culture to tweet and share their simple message. From there, the grassroots took note and kept sharing away. Instantly, the media latched onto the story and spun it through the never-ending news cycle

But the droves of virtual protestors didn’t translate into meaningful change. On the contrary, if you visit the Invisible Children’s website today you will hear Lisa Dougan, Director of Civic Engagement, say “you can’t have a movement without moving.” The group recognized that mobilizing people in physical space is crucial.

Tweets don’t topple dictators; crowds in Tahrir can confirm that. The number of likes doesn’t correlate with the power of the movement. The Green Movement activists in Iran know this best. But when labor activists left the assembly line, there was quite a stir. The suffrage movement was effective because women banded together and marched, even when the bystanders yelled: “Where are your skirts?”  The marriage equality movement is real in some states not because we changed our Facebook profile pictures to equal and red. The movement exists because we continue to wage prolonged legal battles and bear witness to lives lost and love forbidden.

To march and rally is to build a community. Human touch and personal connections are becoming a rare commodity in our tech-enhanced world. The warmth of human bodies gives us strength and courage. Our voices echo louder when we are in a group. Even when there is no one to hear our chant, our cause will live on if we gather.

Yet, we must not become luddites, either. The job of a modern-day activist is to build a strong community using all available tools. We must tweet, record, post and share. Also, let’s not be afraid to test out new advocacy tools, such as Thunderclap – “crowd-speaking” platform amplifying ideas online. The audience no longer looks through the window for news or consults the community board. Instead, they stare at the screen, laugh at lolcats, and subscribe to updates in real time.

Will the new digitally enhanced efforts reap results? The answer is unclear. Decision-makers listen to the whispers of the special interests, while turning the volume of the masses down. We cannot let them get away with it. Instead, let’s turn up the pressure both offline and in the yet-uncharted digital advocacy realm.

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When Missouri Governor Jay Nixon vetoed the recent tax-cut bill, he was overridden by the legislature. Many people are blaming one person–State Rep. Keith English, a turncoat Democrat–for putting the veto override over the top. But they are wrong. In fact, it’s not just Keith English who is responsible. It is all of the Missouri voters and non-voters who don’t pay attention to what’s happening to our state and communities.

I am really sick of hearing people say they “don’t get involved in politics.” I’d like to push their face into some of the hard realities. They don’t make the connections between the sad state of affairs they experience all around them and who represents them in Jefferson City or D.C. Truthfully, I don’t know if the little bit of actual representative democracy we’ve had these past few decades is even worth saving.

I was going to write about something else this a.m., but I guess the two stories are really part of the same problem. On April 8th, 540 voters in the City of Pacific, Missouri elected a new mayor. That man has been a vocal critic of the past administrators for years. He owns a funeral home, and, from what I saw last night at his first official board of aldermen meeting, he has no qualifications to run a meeting, much less a city. As soon as he was sworn in two weeks ago, he fired all the department heads who know how to run the city’s business. There is currently no city administrator. The new mayor says he’ll take care of any work that needs to be done until he gets the board to approve his new staff.

Meanwhile, one woman got up during the public comment period and complained that visitors who came to city hall this week were appalled that the ladies room was a mess. So there you have it. Who cleans the bathrooms if no one is in charge? 540 people made the decision to elect a new mayor. Pacific has about 8,000 residents, so less than 6 percent of them made the decision that will affect not just those who live inside the city, but all of us who live in the surrounding area.

Visitors will manage to survive a dirty rest room. But will Missouri’s children, working poor and elderly be able to survive the destruction of public schools, health care programs and services that keep older folks independent?

How do we get people to connect the dots between decisions made in Jeff City and DC, and what happens in their own lives? Anyone breathing air from a coal-fired power plant has a stake in the political process. Everyone with children who may want to go to college should be paying attention to the override of Governor Nixon’s veto of the tax cut bill. Senior citizens generally vote in large numbers, but how do they vote? A friend lives in a senior living community where only 10 percent of the residents even bother to go to the polls. These are not wealthy retirees. Don’t they know what is being done to their ability to live out what’s left of their lives in a safe, comfortable environment?

My first goal as a candidate for state rep in a rural area of Missouri is to meet as many folks as possible and really listen to them. I truly want to understand what issues are important to them and whether they see the connection between their struggles and the decisions being made for them in the halls of power. I talked with a man in his 30’s last evening who needs surgery before he can do any kind of work that involves physical strength. But he can’t get the surgery without insurance. And the Republicans in Jeff City are hell bent on denying him that opportunity. He understands that, but I wonder how many others like him don’t?

So bottom line? We need to talk to everyone we know and make the connections for them one at a time. Share simple messages. Be as blunt as needed to make an impression that will motivate them to talk to others. Find a candidate you like and jump in with both feet. Democracy is not a spectator sport. Use it or lose it.

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Before dawn on a wickedly cold and rainy Thursday morning, fast food workers in black hoodies and t-shirts gathered on a parking lot on Lindell Blvd in St. Louis. They planned to have a peaceful pubic protest to call for a living wage for their labor. Also there: a crowd of people, including me, oft denigrated as “activists.” We marched to – and through – a McDonalds, heard prayers and short speeches in front of Dominos, Rally’s and Arby’s, then visited a Jack In The Box where the agitated manager locked the doors rather than have the crowd walk through.

Among the activists were several of us who in previous days had been to a “table talk” conducted by Senator Claire McCaskill’s office, visited Senator Roy Blunt’s Clayton office to talk hunger and food stamps, and attended a program on immigration reform.

Astrophysicists are working towards a Grand Unifying Theory, the next step past the Standard Model, to explain how interactions among electromagnetism and the weak and strong forces can be reliably described in terms of coupling constants. After that work is done, add-in gravity’s role and the elusive Theory Of Everything should come into focus.  In other words, the GUT leads to the TOE.

Fortunately, a small portion of this community keeps pushing for a Grand Unifying Theory of societal action. We firmly believe that everyone is better off if all are treated fairly.  All spheres – government, education, religion, employers and employees included – need to conduct themselves for the good of all. We’re well aware that Missouri’s motto “The welfare of the people shall be the supreme law” is more than gold lettering in the walls of the Capitol.  It is a statement of principle codified many generations ago by people (well, middle aged and old white men) determined to structure a state where every person was treated fairly, giving them an opportunity to earn success.

Supporting pantries which feed the hungry is a vital activity, and working for better pay and more job opportunities so most don’t need free food is the critical next step.

Despite noise and misgivings from Republicans, the New Deal and the War on Poverty made life better for Americans. Wires to provide electric and phone service reached remote farm families.  Factory owners had to follow rules on hours and wages. The old and disabled received a bit of help. Struggling families got food, access to medical care and other basic help. For an entire political generation, from the 1930’s through the 1960’s, the United States government and state governments (mostly using federal funds) made determined efforts to make life better for everyone. They carried out that quest despite economic hardship, the greatest war in human history, two other major military conflicts and a costly Cold War against the Soviet Union. Yes, government got bigger but life got better.  Poverty retreated from the lives of tens of millions of Americans.

Not everyone liked that success, however.

While today’s Republicans revere Ronald Reagan as their risen savior, the man who started putting government back in its small place, I think credit or, more correctly, blame ought to go to Richard M. Nixon.

Nixon came of age during that great era of government working to help Americans. He had seen at point blank range the positive impact of Interstate Highways, Social Security and other ‘big government’ activities. Yet, he knew that a portion of the population – a shadowy sliver – hated the good that government did and the people helped. Nixon courted the Tea Party’s grandfathers, especially in the South. Note that despite the presence of George Wallace on the ballot, Nixon carried both Carolinas, Kentucky and Tennessee, Oklahoma and Missouri in 1968.

Rather than promote consensus, Nixon’s administration encouraged division. From Vice President Spiro Agnew:

There are some people in our society who should be separated and discarded…and we’re always going to have a certain number of people

in our community who have no desire to achieve or even to even fit in in an amicable way with the rest of society.  And these people should

be separated from the community, not in a callous way but they should be separated as far as any idea that their opinions shall have any

effect on the course we follow.  [Washington Post 7-2-70 & other sources]

In other words, if you’re not like “us,” we won’t listen to you.

Country club Republicans, cordial GOP leaders like Ike, were moving off the stage. Despite the service of people with honor and principles (such as Missouri’s John Danforth,) the party moved to placate John Wayne and other members of the John Birch Society.

Ronald Reagan put a friendly face on the new philosophy but he did his best to widen the crack. He had learned (as have other Republicans) that the trick was to appeal to that radical right, then soften the message just enough so that minivan drivers didn’t feel guilty voting Republican.

Many of us active in the non-profit world remember the early 1980’s. Not fondly. During Reagan’s first term we had to form the food pantry association to assist those creating hundreds of new pantries about the region. No one wanted to open a food pantry but they realized their neighborhood suddenly needed one. Community action agencies found their money coming from state-administered block grants. The first thing Missouri did, as did most states, was carve a big chunk off the top for administration. To save oversight costs, Metroplex (where I worked for six years) got paid by the state for “registering” poor people – getting their basic information on a signed form – rather than for actually delivering needed services.

During Reagan’s second term, funding for HUD was chopped by 40%. As a result of that cut and subsequent neglect, each year fewer Americans live in affordable housing.

Both of the tag team Bush followed Dutch Reagan’s lead. The one time George H.W. Bush dared to compromise, with a very mild tax increase,  he soon had plenty of time to skydive and do other things in his retirement.

Newt Gingrich, Denny Hastert and now John Boehner work hard to exploit the divide Nixon opened up. The irony, of course, is that once you cater to the radical fringe you’re stuck with them as they keep moving the agenda further and further right.

Note that Grover Norquist and his “never never” tax hike pledge once represented the ideological edge of the right. Today he’s mainstream.

It’s become hard to find the place on the map where political ideas become even too far out for the modern Republican.  Here in Missouri our legislature actually passed a law making it a crime for federal law enforcement personnel to do their job. Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Louis Gohmert, both from Texas, routinely say things to reporters (for example, Gohmert implied that Senator John McCain had terrorist links) that even make many in the Tea Party cringe. Yet, Speaker Boehner gave Gohmert a half hour of precious House floor time to say Americans would be better off without health insurance. Then, when we went into the hospital through the emergency room, before treatment we could negotiate an inclusive price for our care and sign a promissory note: if we couldn’t agree on a price, we could go to the next hospital and strike a deal with them.  [CSpan1, 3:30 p.m. 12/11/14] Meanwhile, Cruz was on Fox News.

I don’t believe even as calculating an SOB as Nixon could have seen how his plan is destroying America’s middle class.

A member of the Missouri Secretary of State’s office recently told me that up to 40 initiative petitions may wind up getting approved for circulation this year. {Disclosure: I am a board member of the Missouri Association for Social Welfare which has filed suit over the condensed wording of one petition, to add a 1¢ per dollar sales tax for transportation. We’re not pro-pot hole, we are against regressive sales taxes.}  Besides calling for a sales tax for roads, there are already proposals to slash taxes on businesses and upper-income people, repeal limits on concealed guns, turn Missouri into a “right to work” state and other controversial topics working their way through the Secretary’s office. Without a Democratic governor, all those ideas would be one afternoon’s work for the current membership of the Missouri Legislature.

So, it’s time for a gut check.

You can join those of us working hard on many topics towards restoring the state motto and fighting Washington efforts to hurt our neighbors.  You can join those who want to create a state and a nation where the lucky and the rich thrive by kicking everyone else out of their privileged way. Or, like most people, you can sit back and complain but do nothing.

Choose wisely.

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