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THE DEVOLUTION OF POLITICAL & SOCIAL ACTIVISM
Avoiding the systems you're trying to change
SAM SMITH - Like other systems, our systems of political and social
organizing have become greatly inflated and excessively complicated in
recent years. Part of it has been due to television - which has moved
us from actual to only virtual contact with one another; part of it has
been a cost of population growth; and part has been a result of mental
and verbal seepage from the reactionary capitalism of the past quarter
century.
It is hard to talk about because so many have known little else and have
bought into assumptions of which they may not even be aware, such as
believing that social and political change is largely the product of
marketing and advertising or of management practices promulgated by
business schools.
Although people still talk about grass roots organizing, there is far
less of it going on and it is hard to generate excitement on its behalf.
There is ritualistic talk of movements but in too many cases, a
movement is little more than a mailing list being asked constantly for
money and an occasional letter to members of Congress. The leadership of
these so-called movements often have more in common with Washington
corporate lobbyists than with those they are supposed to be leading. And
whatever their inner desires, their outer manner is heavily influenced
by the centrist foundations that feed them.
It is not a conscious thing; it has just become part of the contemporary
culture of activism. Even Green Party members, hardly part of the
establishment, seem far easier to engage on the topic of which
presidential candidate they favor to get all 2 percent of the vote next
time than in how you elect Greens to school boards and state
legislatures. We have been taught in so many ways that only the large
matters.
MORE
http://prorev.com/devolution.htm
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THE DEVOLUTION OF POLITICAL & SOCIAL ACTIVISM
Avoiding the systems you're trying to change
SAM SMITH - Like other systems, our systems of political and social
organizing have become greatly inflated and excessively complicated in
recent years. Part of it has been due to television - which has moved
us from actual to only virtual contact with one another; part of it has
been a cost of population growth; and part has been a result of mental
and verbal seepage from the reactionary capitalism of the past quarter
century.
It is hard to talk about because so many have known little else and have
bought into assumptions of which they may not even be aware, such as
believing that social and political change is largely the product of
marketing and advertising or of management practices promulgated by
business schools.
Although people still talk about grass roots organizing, there is far
less of it going on and it is hard to generate excitement on its behalf.
There is ritualistic talk of movements but in too many cases, a
movement is little more than a mailing list being asked constantly for
money and an occasional letter to members of Congress. The leadership of
these so-called movements often have more in common with Washington
corporate lobbyists than with those they are supposed to be leading. And
whatever their inner desires, their outer manner is heavily influenced
by the centrist foundations that feed them.
It is not a conscious thing; it has just become part of the contemporary
culture of activism. Even Green Party members, hardly part of the
establishment, seem far easier to engage on the topic of which
presidential candidate they favor to get all 2 percent of the vote next
time than in how you elect Greens to school boards and state
legislatures. We have been taught in so many ways that only the large
matters.
MORE
http://prorev.com/devolution.htm
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