Social Change Requires a Collage !
So much of the politics of social movement building involves "Deconstructing" things. That is fine for the enjoyment of lively debates around coffee tables or within the walls of universities. In fact its critical , one cannot know where we are going unless we know where we have been. BUT where the rubber meets the road,in the trenches with the blood and the beer ,its critically important that WE who seek social change, a more compassionate egalitarian society put our differences aside. All of us have a different way of speaking, different life experiences, different passions and pursuits that consume much of our personal energies. When it comes to social change however, UNITY is critical ! "Purists" will accomplish some important things,in certain areas and that is FANTASTIC. Hell i have devoted my life to GLBT cause , but now see a broader set of issues to devote myself to as well. Sustainable Living, PEACE, social/economic justice, liberty - globally for all people. So this song is a reminder to myself and others - "THAT IF YOU SMILE AT ME I WILL UNDERSTAND CAUSE THAT IS SOMETHING EVERYONE,EVERYWHERE DOES IN THE SAME LANGUAGE"
We are a collage of people who care deeply about the same prize in general, and we need to work side by side, diligently in our areas of intrests, make our square in the quilt of change; and then sew em all together peacefully on the "left" and create the warm inclusive heavy blanket of Coalitions. We will freeze without coalitions,stitched together carefully section by section. And some patches of our "social change" quilt may not match exactly, that is OK, the blanket can still warm us all.
The song above is beautiful. All of us can sing along in unison, and yes some will sing out of tune..its OK ! sing out, sing your song ! And bring on the love, bring it, to the "quiet" revolution sweeping this country in every state, in tiny cities and villages. And no, it will not be televised.
12 Left us Notes:
of Watergate Summmer here...
I love the idea of a collage...I tend to think of us a quilt..and that sometimes the fabric gets frayed and thread rip.....but there is nothing that can not be repaired.
really good post..and love the Jefferson Airplane...
Coalition Building is a very hard business. Minority groups in fighting etc. Ends up too often with the baby been thrown at with the bath water. Classic example and there are tons - but take the ANSWER coalition some will avoid their demos because oh my gosh oh golly the people who care about the Palistinian Humanitarian Crisis and Israel's imperialism will show up to those demos. Or those who say why does Code Pink have to sooo well PINK, not to mention the fall out in the GLBT comm. over ENDA and the wounds and anger there. Now there are some new excellent groups forming solely for the T part of the movement..And some of these groups condemn other T advocacy groups who do work with the Human Rights campaign. I see there are enough rows to how in the struggle. DO both, the HRC needs TG/TS people willing to work with this big LGBT pac to hold them to their promises and not make deals with the devil. The other groups can also work along side. In the end its about ending the WAR, social/economic justice. And if Howard Zinn and political history has shown us anything at all - THE OPPRESSED MUST FIND A WAY TO HAVE SOLIDARITY - unions,labor, etc. When we fight one thing is certain the elite oppressor always ALWAYS win. In fact they count on infighting as a way to stay in power..old old story.
Glad you love the Jefferson Airplane Enigma, me too, volunteers, so many great songs, and WE LOVE YOU and all you do for our blog circle of friends. You are tireless and seem made of LOVE and help bring so many people together.
Well, I know *I* sing out of tune (truly, you can't imagine the dissonance when I try to harmonize), but definitely grock the beautiful quilt you speak of, which sections may not exactly match up, but still provides an overall unifying goal. We're really all we've got, if we can't work together, we might as well cede the earth now & be done with it. And really, we've all got soooo much in common, we have to stick together to fight the greedy bastards who would kill or enslave all humanity for bloody oil & power & more $cratch.
PProg, have you changed your blog front page? Your sidebar is gone & everything else is blank after the title to the post below this (the toolkit for revolution post). If you click on that post's title, everything from that point on comes up, including the sidebar. Just wanted to let you know, in case that's not how you wanted it.
Egads DK ! Is anyone else out there having that problem , things look ok on my end. ?? Thanks for letting my know though..LOL you and I have seen ghosts on this page. But i missed this one. hmmm blogger messing with us again ..who knows ?
PProg, this only started a few days ago. Your top post is displayed, no sidebar, no blogrolls, below that is your next post (not the post itself, just the title, you have to click on the title to get the rest). Also I see a little note ... !Page Error ... appear while I'm accessing your blog. MIght just be me, but this isn't happening on other blogs I look at. If it's not happening to anyone else & it looks fine to you, I'll have to investigate on my end, maybe some security access thingie.
Proud,
All of your threads after the Starship thread are gone.
It's like they've been deleted.
Great to hear Wooden Ships again. I used to have the Volunteers album that that song was from, but it fell through the cracks a few years ago (or was it decades?).
Who Hijacked Our Country
ok got the script problem reported to yahoo, folks who are using internet explorer are having probs as well in some cases to version 7.0
heard a lot of people had probs with IE 7.0 upgrades on WinXP, 2000, ME, and 98
and probs with the upgrade with an XP comp at any rate sorry about this and hopefully google blogger people wil fix it soon. Me for what its worth love firefox !
Meaningful social change requires a widespread understanding that while there may be many aggrieved groups, there is only one struggle.
Identity politics is the myopic pursuit of a bigger slice of the pie without an understanding that the pie itself is terrible, toxic pie and it is time to bake a better one from scratch.
Amen to that my brother Anarcho !
One toxic pie, and so many splinter groupings fighting for a bigger slice. And identity politics is getting so very convuluted that this oldster is having trouble keeping up with the names, labels which change virtually everytime a new Thesis comes out or a university sets up a new program...Now don't get me wrong, its vitally important,science,education, social theory and deconstruction etc. Its got its place for SURE - but when we splinter and split hairs..to the enght degree we can bring social action/change to a grinding halt. While one group puts its energy into differentiating itself from another or so on and so fourth.
WE DO NEED A NEW PIE - a simple recipe, a delicious nutricious flavor - HENCE WHY I LIKE THE GREEN PARTY VALUES AND PLATFORM SO MUCH.
Be it a movement or a viable third party - its a good place to start, addressing the practical unifying issues - of course for it to flourish we need to have 3rd parties be viable AND the system does everything in its power to make that a sysifisian task (u know the dude with boulder..lol)
I like your quilt analogy. I just got an e mail from someone in a peace group, planning a March anti war ggathering. Several peace groups participate, and there seems to be infighting. One coalition calls themselves Take Back America- a different (I'll leave them unnamed) group pitched a fit saying they would not particiapte wit this coalition, the concept of taking back america is dilusional...etc. A whole fucking rant, about a bunch of peace activists getting together for a peace vigil essentially. Holy Hell! I guess this person is very distressed about going on (who wouldn;t) and I am very pissed off & concerned about the shit hitting the fan in the ways it has under this nightmarish regime decider, but I refuse to throw inthe towel. I halfway feel like saying if you think it;s that damned hopeless, why bother at all?
Certainly there is the fuck up fatigue we've all struggled with at some time or another during the last 8 years of bushco, but then you step back, take a deep breath, recharge your batteries, or just give it a rest.... go with with a tree, or by the water & regain your composure.
Anyway this post was refreshing to read, after reading this activits friend have a kind of meltdown, but he;s been in that mode for a while now.
FRan that is exactly the point. This stuff ,infighting , "purity" tests its such a freakin waste of energy ! It fragments the people. It fragments all ALL social movement groups. I mean heck ..What if i want to bring a sign to a demonstration that says END THE DRUG WAR ! to a pro peace rally why not ?? The longer we lack the glue that create the keeps the masses together ..we just stifle ourselves. We need desparately to allow coalitions INVITE affinity groups to all demonstrations. Regardless of their particular focus..And realize that yes its a collage a patchwork quilt of people FROM all points of view...WITH ONE THING IN COMMON - changing our governments policies.
Invite all !!! ie. GLBT against torture. Jewish lesbian social workers who may carry signs that say that and FREE the Palistinians
It really doesn't matter..does anyone think that the media is gonna cover it anyway...DO WE THINK that the PRO PEACE MOVEMENT - is minimized because some might fit the MSM , right wing machine of being liberal moonbats who just don't get it ? I say Bullshit. IF YOU ARE A HUMAN AND WANT THE OCCUPATION ENDED and a few other things..come on COME TO THE STREETS . WE are all in this together and from every angle and walk of life.
Even wanting the LEFT to appear "SANE" enough is playing into a concept that stops the people from forming the critical mass needed to even get noticed in a sound byte.
Case in point the over 10 million or more who took to the streets globally before the "pre emptive war/occupation began. WE have got to get together. Stay together , stop infighting..nobody wins
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