Good News

CONTENTS:
--Gandhi Workshop Proves Fruitful
--Positive Response to “My Bottom Line”
--My Interaction with Van Jones

Gandhi Workshop Proves Fruitful

Last weekend ten Occupy activists including myself participated in a two-day workshop on “Gandhi and The Call to Integral Nonviolence” led by Chris Moore-Backman. All of the participants seemed to gain a great deal from the experience. I know I did. As we adjourned, we agreed to gather again on June 1 to consider whether and how to advance the holistic three-fold path that Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. practiced, which was the focus of the workshop.

The three-fold path integrates the personal, the social, and the political. Doing so strengthens our efforts and creates models of the change we seek. By engaging in ongoing personal development, we undo our negative conditioning and become more effective activists. By building counter institutions and structures with “constructive programs” that meet unmet needs we demonstrate creative alternatives and grow joyous communities that attract involvement. By undertaking political campaigns focused on winnable objectives and rooted in love, we build momentum by winning victories that improve public policy.

Efforts in these three areas reinforce one another. The stronger we are as individuals, the more we contribute to constructive program and effective political action. Strong communities nurture strong individuals and provide a foundation for effective political action. And effective political action enhances personal strength and builds social infrastructure.

For me, the most illuminating part of the workshop was the description of how Gandhi and his followers fully practiced the three-fold path on the 1930 Salt March to the sea. While marching, they regularly paused to meditate. They brought with them their spinning wheels with which they wove clothing, which was a way to boycott foreign goods and promote local industry. And once at the sea, their civil disobedience, making salt in protest of the oppressive salt tax, was itself a constructive program.

This information prompted me to wonder how we might conduct political demonstrations in a similar manner in the United States. I look forward to considering this issue with others in the future.

One issue that emerged during the workshop was the familiar controversy concerning whether, when, and how to compromise. After arresting more than 60,000 people, the British agreed to negotiate with Gandhi, which led to the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. This agreement accepted most of the demands made by Gandhi prior to negotiations. It withdrew all ordinances imposing curbs on the Indian National Congress (the independence movement’s political arm), ended prosecutions, released nonviolent political prisoners, permitted peaceful picketing of liquor and foreign cloth shops, returned confiscated properties of the protestors, permitted free collection of salt near the sea-coast, and lifted the ban on the Indian National Congress.

The Salt campaign also helped immensely to de-legitimize British authority, which contributed greatly to eventual Indian independence. Gandhi’s goal was not to defeat an adversary—but, through suffering at his hands, to initiate a process that enables minds and hearts to meet. For Gandhi, compromise was a natural and necessary step in the process of evolutionary revolution. Yet at the time and still today, many critics of Gandhi consider the Salt March a total failure because it did not lead more quickly to independence or Gandhi’s vision of local control. Discounting that compromise strikes me as misguided.

The workshop deepened my interest in helping to organize an Occupy Gandhi-King holistic project in an open, transparent, democratic, inclusive, and horizontal manner. To sustain itself over time, I suspect this project would need to reach some agreements early on concerning the nature of acceptable compromise.

Positive Response to “My Bottom Line”

The response to last week’s post, “My Bottom Line,” was particularly encouraging. Rhonda Magee who teaches meditation and “contemplative lawyering” to law students at the University of San Francisco and is Board President of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society responded:

Great comments and food for thought, Wade. Always, I struggle with the challenge of adding new projects to an already full plate -- and honestly, at the moment, I am getting invitations to new and meaningful engagement every single day! But what you are describing here is so foundational and potentially transformative that it bears reflecting on how to clear space and commit to making such meetings happen. Thanks again for the inspiration.

Subsequent dialog led to a plan to convene a gathering in her home.

Sharon Johnson, former executive director of the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women, commented:

I share the value of your dream. [Name deleted] along with a few others have been discussing similar dreams as your own and recognize the need of intergenerational/culture involvement with an integrity of which you address. We are planning a dinner discussion ... at [her] home, if you are interested. FYI: Our conversation for further thinking comes from the healthcare issues we continually face. Your articulation speaks directly to my thoughts.

I very much look forward to participating in that dinner discussion.

And Michael Larsen, a literary agent, offered the following, which should lead to another stimulating conversation, especially concerning the problems associated with people talking about themselves:

I share your dream, and I'm going to integrate the idea into the  attached perfect days piece that keeps evolving. 

 I'd be interested in participating in a group, if you think I can fit  into it and if members discuss ideas, not themselves. The risk … is self-indulgence, a challenge, especially for  people living alone. I love discussing ideas, endlessly mutable  abstractions that are only limited when we give them form. 

The world is poised on a knife edge of peril and opportunity. Ideas  are far more interesting to discuss and potentially far more valuable  than we are as individuals. Self-reflection is essential, but an  evening of people discussing themselves is therapy, not the synergy of  combined creativity that can be developed into something of value.
 In any case, good luck finding the kindred souls you see/ 

 Cheers,
 Mike
 Michael Larsen-Elizabeth Pomada Literary Agents
 Helping Writers Launch Careers Since 1972 / Members: AAR
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 Michael is the author of How to Write a Book Proposal and How to Get a Literary Agent, and he coauthored Guerrilla Marketing for Writers: 100 Weapons for Selling Your Work. 

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My Interaction with Van Jones

On April 17, Van Jones, Rebuild the Dream Founding President and author of Rebuild the Dream appeared at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. An audio podcast of the appearance is at: http://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2012-04-17/van-jones

During his remarks, he addressed a number of personal and spiritual issues.  In reflecting on his experience as Special Advisor at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Jones commented on how working in the White House is “a tough, tough job” with extreme pressure. “The level of psychological strength and maturity it takes to perform at that level, I did not have. And I don’t know how anyone gets prepared.”

In commenting on the widespread “sense of helplessness and frustration,” he said, “You should feel frustrated and angry, but you should not give up. If we all stepped into our power, Obama would be running to catch up with us. You don’t deny the pain, but you don’t let the pain have the last word.”

Referring to the extreme anti-government rhetoric of the Radical Right, Jones said, “I have some issues but I don’t hate myself so much that I’ll buy into that.”

When asked, “How do you manage to speak truth to power,” he replied, “I am a man of faith. I was raised in the church. ‘This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.’ We all have a gift. We have the obligation to put it out there. You know how I get myself psyched up. I listen to Michael Jackson. Like “Man in the Mirror.” Cause I got issues too.”

For me, his most interesting statement was: “We can be a nation of neighbors who help each other, sharing resources, making friends. To make that cool is the job of artists and spiritual people.”

Also striking was his closing remark, “You don’t know who you’re disempowering walking around mad at the world. Hope is contagious when people are glowing and sharing. I was so hurt (by being pressured out of his position with the Administration) I didn’t know what to do. I’ve gone through that. What I’ve got is I remember us and our movements. We have each other. We inspired Obama first.”

During the question-and-answer period, he argued that rather than relying on media-generated fleeting phenomena, “We need something that persists. We’ve got to get back to what [political] parties used to be. That’s called community. That’s called art. Bottom up people helping each other, hugging each other.”

I presented the next-to-last question, “Years ago you said activists need to be more confessional and less pro-fessional. You’ve spoken eloquently about spiritual development and today you’ve touched on the need for personal and spiritual development. But in Rebuild the Dream I didn’t see much of that. Might you address those issues more fully in the future and talk about how we might consciously support one another in our personal development?”

He replied, “It’s a good point. I felt I did cover some of that territory in my first book [The Green Collar Economy] and I didn’t want folks to think that I was repackaging the same ideas. I hope the whole idea of sharing and helping each other is imbued in the book if not the words.”

When the event adjourned, I offered him a letter expressing my concerns, which he accepted while commenting, “Good to see you again.”

Now that I’ve reviewed his remarks, I plan to read his first book, paying particular attention to what he says concerning personal issues, and email him with encouragement to develop his theme of neighborhood-based mutual support, which, to my mind, should include an explicit commitment to nurturing self development. I don’t expect him to have time to read it, but one never knows.

Regardless, I found his presentation to be inspiring and look forward to following his work in the future.