Media Consortium Cab Ride

The other day I gave Jo Ellen Green Kaiser, Media Consortium Executive
Director, a ride from San Francisco International Airport to her home in San Francisco. She had just returned from the East Coast where she had met face-to-face with some members of her alliance of progressive, independent media outlets that is dedicated to “amplify independent media’s voice, increase our collective clout, leverage our current audience and reach new ones.”

Peppering her with questions about her work as I often do with my passengers, I soon learned that a recent example of the kind of project she’d like to do again was the collaboration with 32 partners she organized to report on Occupy actions throughout the country on May 1. Calling themselves “Media for the 99 Percent,” these diverse outlets offered live TV and streaming broadcast, an interactive map, breaking news reporting, and coordinated social media coverage across their sites, reaching a combined audience of more than 50 million Americans.

After May 1, their website reported:

Some cities excelled at coordination among labor, immigration, and Occupy groups. In Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore, and Chicago, labor and Occupy groups worked together to lead mostly peaceful joint actions and sit-ins.
In other cities, protesters were less organized and elements of their groups engaged in property destruction. Local police in Seattle, Oakland, and Portland responded with crackdowns that included arrests, tear gas, and kettling. Some reports said officers were throwing people off their bikes and beating resisting protesters with police batons. But the isolated actions of a few individuals did not define the entire movement.
Leading a nationwide general strike is an ambitious goal, so it is no surprise that the number of May Day protesters was smaller than activists had hoped for. But May Day succeeded in its goal to be a nationwide protest that united activists in cities and towns across the country and signaled the return of the Occupy movement.

Her work on this project, it seems to me, provided her with a special overview of the Occupy movement. From her perspective, with the exception of the Bay Area where so many “professional activists” had already launched many organizations, in most parts of the country Occupy Wall Street inspired concerned citizens locally to fill a vacuum in a non-extremist manner to address the top two Occupy concerns: growing economic inequality and the corruption of our politics by big money.

Most Occupy activists nationwide, she said, have not been anti-capitalist or opposed to all government. Rather, they have wanted to fix the system with fundamental reforms so middle-class citizens like themselves will have more economic opportunity and a greater voice in governmental affairs. In the Bay Area, however, using the leverage afforded a small minority by the consensus-based decision-making process, as I reported last fall in Wade’s Weekly, hyper-individualist anarchists managed to define Occupy as a radical fringe group out of touch with the mainstream.

According to Kaiser, the May 1 actions demonstrated that Occupy still has legs in many areas of the country. Most of this activity, however, has a local focus, especially with actions focused on stopping foreclosures. Currently, there is no Occupy national thrust, no national presence. This lack is regrettable.

Now we need a model Gandhi-King campaign focused on the founding principles of the Occupy movement. Granted, the odds are long and the obstacles are many. But if we get our act together and do it right, who knows? We may be able to help spark a national Occupy renewal. Or perhaps the metamorphosis of Occupy into a new brand, “the social transformation movement,” or simply “the transformation movement.”

With no expectations, why not try? Why not act as if we can and give it our best shot? Given the urgency of our situation, if we are concerned about the future of humanity and life on Earth, aren’t we morally obligated to give it our best shot? All we can do is fail and be accused of utopian ambitions.

But that’s what most people thought about that small band of pragmatic idealists who occupied Wall Street last year. And even if we “fail,” it will be a learning experience. As Bob Dylan wrote, "There's no success like failure"

In “The Art of Failing Successfully,” Jonah Lehrer reported on how we can learn when we make mistakes. Initially, humans react to mistakes with a strong, involuntary response, followed quickly by a neurological signal that involves paying attention to the screw up. And those whose initial response is stronger and who focus more persistently on the error learn more from it.

Moreover, people with a “fixed mindset” who agree with statements like "You have a certain amount of intelligence and cannot do much to change it" learn less than those with a “growth mindset” who believe they can “get better at almost anything” if they work at it. The former tend to see failures as “purely negative” while the latter see mistakes as “an essential precursor to knowledge.”

When teachers praise students for "being smart," those students tend to fall into a fixed mindset and assume that mistakes are a sign of stupidity. But when students are instead praised for their effort, they’re more likely to adopt a growth mindset, be less afraid of making mistakes, and better able to repair their self-esteem and transform failure into success. Mindset matters.

As Lehrer concludes, “Dylan was right, but failure alone is not enough. We need to learn how to fail better.” So let us grow the self-confidence to set aside ego, endure failure, and do our best to help grow a potent, national grassroots movement to deal with this country’s obscene inequality and political corruption.

My Evaluation of the Caucus

If the Occupy Be the Change Caucus is to continue, I ask that it affirm clear support for holistic nonviolence. I do not ask that every member commit to practice that method personally. But I do ask that every member at least provide moral support to those who want to do so.

Thus far, it seems to me, the Caucus has failed to provide that support. I don’t know what adequate support would look like, but I suspect I’ll know it when I see it and believe that it would at least include the Caucus adopting at its next meeting something like the following policy: “To help achieve our mission, a top-priority method will be to promote the holistic Gandhi-King three-fold path.”

At the Occupy San Francisco (OSF) camp in fall 2011 a large banner declared, “A Living Example of a Better System.” Participants often referred to the need to “be the change.” The fragile community that emerged outdoors at Justin Herman Plaza aimed to be HOLISTIC, in that it:

• Encouraged participants to be whole (open, honest, transparent, true to their deepest self). 
• Considered the individual not as a separate self but as one interwoven with the whole world. 
• Addressed the whole person: the personal (which for many includes the spiritual), the social (including the cultural), and the political (which deals with governmental policy).  

The affirmation of the need for personal development was common. The importance of learning how to deal with interpersonal conflict was widely understood. Providing community services to meet unmet needs was central. And the weekly political action, protest marches, were vibrant and engaged onlookers. Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have appreciated this effort to practice the holistic three-fold path.

However, as I discussed in Wade’s Weekly at the time, OSF made certain mistakes that made it difficult for us to sustain our community. Since 100% consensus was required to make decisions, a minority faction, many of whom were prone to violence, were able to block efforts to grow a solid, holistic community and instead established their hyper-individualist version of anarchism (which differs distinctly from social anarchism).

So, while remaining active in OSF and trying to help improve how we operated, I initiated the Occupy Be the Change Caucus, hoping that the Caucus could provide a useful alternative model in terms of a more viable governance structure and also help strengthen the commitment to nonviolence within OSF by fostering inner and outer nonviolence as a way of life rather than merely promoting outer nonviolence in terms of behavior.

Before going into limbo, the Caucus made some progress. We planted seeds in terms of certain ideals and principles. We attracted and involved about 15-20 deeply committed, talented, experienced activists. And some of us experimented with the three-fold path on which the Caucus was founded (though we were unfamiliar with the phrase at the time) in that we:

• Explored a format for a peer-support group to nurture self-development. 
• Conducted a peer-learning circle as an alternative-education structure. 
• Established an affinity group to participate in the January 20 action in the Financial District. 

During the time of those activities, I told an old friend, “I feel like I’m finally doing what I’ve been wanting to do my entire life.”

In 1967, I dedicated my life to help organize “communities of faith, love, and action” – that is, the three-fold path. As I wrote in “An Evaluation of the Residence College” for my student newspaper that year, I was concerned about society’s “cruel, dehumanizing impact” on “the welfare of the whole personhood of the individual” as imposed by all of our institutions that “are all interwoven” and “extremely well-designed into a coherent pattern of vicious manipulation – designed to graduate reliable cogs in the marvelous machine of unparalleled material progress.”

I argued:

America is spiritually decadent…. [Our institutions] do not merely neglect but rather devastate vast realms of inner experience. The development of one’s own innermost experiential potentialities is truncated. Creative expression of one’s true self, whether in art, thought, or personal relationships, is not nurtured. Individuals are not encouraged to develop, to create their own vibrant sense of meaning and direction. Inner strength is seen as a threat; so the ground for a stable sense of autonomy is undercut. 

Instead, the emphasis is upon behavior. Children must learn to express themselves “appropriately.” They must be well behaved. They must develop self-control and learn the values of politeness and responsible citizenship. Thus, they must become reliable hoop-jumpers. They become dependent upon external pressures and external rewards. What is deemed most important is output….

Whether or not the student’s behavior is authentic is largely ignored…. In short, our educators demonstrate little concern with the souls of their students, even though they are in the very process of inflicting enormous damage upon those souls….

The student must develop a false, external self to cope with the demands of others…. 

Such a stability must be a precarious one. It must be a defensive identity which is unable to honestly expose itself to novel ideas or to open itself to new experiences….
So much is made of usefulness that man himself is reduced to a mere instrument…. 

What is needed is encouragement of integrity, rather than dishonesty; concern with behavior being congruent with experience, rather than with proper, high-level performance at any cost; …appreciation of the remarkable breadth of human creativity, rather than merely the powers of the intellect; illumination of the value of freedom, rather than the expediency of submission; nurturance of flexible autonomy, rather than brittle automatons;… recognition of the needs for ecstasy, as well as rational self-understanding; education, rather than manipulation; love, rather than mistrust….

The both/and perspective reflected in that litany and my commitment to holistic organizing has motivated me ever since. But a few years ago, I decided that I wanted to be more explicit and intentional with my efforts and look for others who clearly share the holistic perspective and want to openly, consciously pursue it.

So, given Occupy’s embryonic holistic culture and inspired by Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited (which was a self-help manual that Dr. King carried with him when he traveled), I circulated at OSF early drafts of the Occupy Be the Change Pledge, which was based on the holistic pledge that Dr. King required marchers to sign in Birmingham in 1963, which was based on similar pledges used by Gandhi.

Those drafts received a positive response. So, after incorporating input for suggested changes, a diverse group of twelve individuals signed the pledge and a few of us gathered signatures at the OSF camp and invited signatories to a meeting.

But the Caucus, including me, fell victim to the same over-emphasis on behavior that I critiqued in “An Evaluation of the Residence College,” as seen in the activist mania that afflicted OSF and pervades modern society. We too quickly jumped into action at our first meeting.  Consequently, like OSF, we did not establish: 1) a clear, shared positive vision; 2) written guiding policies; 3) membership requirements that clarified commitments and expectations, and 4) a viable structure and process for delegating authority and holding accountable those to whom authority is delegated.

On reflection, at that first meeting, we should have had more discussion about the proposed mission statement and pledge, including small breakout groups to surface concerns. Then, once we clarified our core principles, we should have established priority collective goals. Instead, in a rather individualistic manner, we quickly asked individuals to suggest and sign up for whatever working groups anyone wanted to propose (and ended up with too many working groups).

But feeling pressed by the urgent need for action, I assumed that the intent was made clear by our name, “be the change,” our mission statement – “to help transform ourselves and our society into truly nonviolent and compassionate individuals within a community dedicated to the common good of all humanity” – and the pledge, which includes: “to the best of my ability…, I avoid both selfishness and power trips [and] strive to be in good spiritual and bodily health.”

And I assumed that those who came to meetings did so because they backed the effort to grow a holistic community with members who support one another in our personal development (which for many people includes spiritual growth), provide community service, and engage in political action.

But as it turned out, those words did not mean the same thing to the same people. Not everyone got it. And some who got it weren’t into it.

The first sign of lack of unity had emerged at the planning meeting that preceded the first membership meeting. After having gone through an extensive process of writing and re-writing the pledge (which integrates the various forms of nonviolence: philosophical, strategic, living, respect for all life), at that planning meeting some of those who had been involved in rewriting the pledge and had signed it nevertheless persistently argued that we revisit that decision and adopt strategic nonviolence instead. This discussion persisted for an hour or so, which left us little time to plan properly for the first membership meeting. Instead, we hurriedly decided to just ask participants to form whatever working groups they wanted.

The main argument for a focus on strategic nonviolence is that it can attract more people because it only asks for a commitment to nonviolent behavior at a particular action, rather than a commitment to inner/outer nonviolence as a way of life. Some of us argued that our choice is not either/or but both/and. As did Gandhi and King, we can build a strong, core community rooted in holistic nonviolence, and then join in coalitions for actions based on strategic nonviolence.

At our first membership meeting, after the option of pursuing either holistic or strategic nonviolence was discussed and the pledge was adopted as an affirmation of the holistic option, and we amended the proposed mission statement to clarify that we wanted to nurture personal development, I assumed that we were in alignment. But such was not the case.

The lack of unity gradually became clear. When we invited members to a support group to explore how to support each other in our personal development, one member replied, “That just sounds like another meeting to me.” No more than four members ever came to a support group meeting. One member was disheartened by that lack of interest and what she perceived as a general lack of transparency with regard to honestly sharing feelings. When I posted a query about members’ perceptions of “activist shortcomings,” one member replied that activists are not weak but strong and effective, and quit. On a number of occasions, individuals indicated that they were drawn to the Caucus in order to promote strategic nonviolence within Occupy in a top-down, one-way process of “education” (which has been described as “moral gentrification”), rather than growing a holistic community rooted in problem-solving, peer education. When I facilitated a brainstorming session to surface potential goals in each aspect of the three-fold path and then tried to facilitate a process of evaluating and selecting from the options that surfaced, the agenda was set aside to “check in” about the recent January 20 action. Then the team that developed the proposed agenda ignored all that work on possible goals and instead proposed that the next meeting ask everyone what they would really like the Caucus to be. When I shared my vision, the primary response was “Is that all?”, laughter, and “Yea, like we could do that in a week.” At the next meeting, the last meeting so far, when we discussed organizing a public forum, some members wanted the focus to be holistic, or deep, nonviolence, but others wanted the focus to be strategic nonviolence, with us talking about holistic nonviolence “much farther down the road.” Also, no more than three members ever came to one of our learning circles, only one other working group ever actually met, and folks not following through on their commitments and doing what they said they would do became a chronic problem. For example, most members of the January 20 affinity group did not show up at the agreed on time and place and some unilaterally decided to alter their involvement after the group had decided on a plan.

So, after we decided to ask Chris Moore-Backman to lead a workshop on the three-fold path, I temporarily stopped trying to make things happen and the Caucus went into limbo. My hope was that Chris’ workshop would inspire more people to pursue holistic nonviolence. But when at the end of the workshop one member suggested that we meet again to consider whether and how to act on what we had learned, we decided to wait a whole month before gathering again and when we did, there was no mention of the workshop or the three-fold path for almost three hours and when I finally brought up the issue, the focus quickly shifted back to strategic nonviolence.

So it seems that we attracted mostly individuals who are willing to go to meetings but weren’t really into promoting holistic nonviolence. My sense of having found what I was looking for was an illusion, like a mirage on the desert.

I feel that the most serious roadblock is making an intentional commitment to personal development. As one member in the post-workshop gathering stated, it is “a bit scary” to engage in critical self-examination and to honestly share with close associates one’s observations about one’s own mistakes, all of which helps to foster self-improvement (if it’s not essential). The reasons for this apprehension are understandable and I certainly don’t have any magic solution. But I would like to pursue with other like-minded individuals how to make progress in this regard.

Fortunately, through it all, I feel that I may have found a few like-minded souls with whom I can collaborate on this project. And I feel good about the latest draft of a proposal for a “social transformation network” that I’ve begun to discuss with non-Caucus members.

Whether I continue this effort under the umbrella of the Occupy Be the Change Caucus remains to be seen. If at least four or five pledge signatories want to practice the three-fold path together in the name of the Caucus, I am available. Perhaps we can start over and do it better next time.

Other Caucus members who aren’t prepared to practice the three-fold path might take on other projects and/or meet only every 6-8 weeks to oversee and guide the Caucus, more like a governing board than a working group. Or maybe we should initiate a new project. I don’t know.

But I still seek a holistic community that would differ from the sense of community that I have found with fellow activists in the past. After having done so for 45 years, I’ll probably continue this effort in the future, in one way or another.

Sports, Teamwork, and Activism

Professional sports provide a valuable source of insight for progressive-minded activists. If we pay attention to how pro athletes are so successful, we can apply those lessons to our political activism.

Human beings are naturally attracted to highly skilled performances. We delight in the beauty of exceptional achievements and vicariously imagine ourselves in their shoes. With fellow fans, we experience community that dissolves normal barriers. Like gangs, we wear our colors proudly. Our favorite players are virtual icons, near religious idols to whom we are devoted. As we follow sports, we can learn better how to live, as youngsters can develop character from playing.

My favorite sport is baseball, partly because I grew up obsessed with it, but also because I like its pace, which corresponds more closely to real life than does football and basketball. Baseball, without much physical violence, requires a balance between being both relaxed and intense. But what interests me most about baseball is the importance of team spirit and how it is cultivated.

Long before the steroid controversy, I disagreed with my friends who said Barry Bonds was the greatest player ever. I argued he was not because his prima donna attitude undermined the team cohesion that is needed to win the World Series, which he never won. He wouldn’t even bother to show up for the annual team photo, which was important for many teammates who wanted to show their grandchildren that photo with Bonds in it. Being a great player involves more than physical skill. It requires inner skill as well.

When the San Francisco Giants won the World Series for the first time in 2010, their team chemistry was magical. But the next year the Giants clubhouse fell into a funk. Two under-performing players were unhappy they weren’t playing more than they were and they expressed their unhappiness in destructive ways. At the end of the season, a veteran leader of the team, Pat Burrell, without naming names, commented, “Everyone needs to be pulling in the same direction and if one player is pulling in the opposite direction, it’s a real problem.”

Contrast that dynamic to the role that Barry Zito played in the 2010 post-season. Zito, a former super-star, was left off the roster, unable to play in any of the games. I suspect most players in that situation would have gone home. But Zito stayed with the team, both in the clubhouse and the dugout, and cheered them on, probably offering helpful words of advice and encouragement from time to time.

Another telling story is a Giants’ relief pitcher, I believe it was Sergio Romo, who said that Brian Wilson, the Giants’ closer, once helped him get over the disappointment he felt when the manager would take him out of the game after a weak performance. Wilson told him that when he was young a mentor told him, “Look, you have to trust your teammates (who take your place).”  Romo said those words of advice were a real turning point for him. It’s not all about you, he learned. It’s mostly about the team.

There’s no guaranteed formula for growing a tight-knit, harmonious team. Reggie Jackson’s Oakland A’s fought vehemently and Willie Stargells’ Pittsburgh Pirates were “We are Family.” But some methods work more often than others and I’d love to learn more of those secrets. But one method that stands out is the importance of honest, clear communication between the manager and the players, so that the players know their role and what to expect. We can try to have “no expectations” all we want and some gurus may maintain that attitude. But we mortals need to have some reliable idea of what to expect from our close associates. And we need them to generally do what they say they will do.

It helps for team members to get to know and support one another as human beings. I recall that at one time all of the members of the Golden State Warriors basketball team all lived in the same small town, Alameda, near their home stadium, and socialized together extensively. A winning sports team needs to be like a family. The same goes for an effective activist organization.

Another key ingredient is humor. Athletes need to have fun together. Some credit Aubrey Huff with providing the glue that brought the 2010 team together when he started wearing a red “rally thong” in the clubhouse. When asked about the cross-dressing (which fit in San Francisco), Bruce Bochy, the manager, said, “Well, Aubrey is proud of his body.” So it was appropriate that Huff was waving the thong while riding in a motorized cable car on the victory parade and pulled it out of his pants and waved it at the conclusion of the victory rally in front of City Hall.

Brian Wilson also provided frequent comic relief, especially with his various pieces of performance art such as the notorious “The Machine” YouTube video that prompted praise from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at the victory rally.

I doubt any sports team has ever reflected the unique character of its hometown as much as the 2010 Giants, which may have contributed to their team spirit. The fans’ love of the team was returned by the team. This mutual bond certainly contributed to the team’s success.

But what is most critical, it seems to me, is Brian Wilson’s point. Each team member must primarily be committed not to her or his own self-interest but to the team. Transcending ego-centered focus, especially in our hyper-individualistic modern world, is not easy. But when it snaps into place, often mysteriously, it is powerful.

It’s easier for a sports team, or a residential community, to develop a sense of family, for they spend so much time together. Nurturing a similar sense of deep community in an urban setting with time-challenged members living in their own homes is more difficult. But it’s not impossible. Religious communities often do it, but the law prohibits them from joint, explicit political activity.

Activist organizations sometimes develop a sense of community naturally, spontaneously. But I believe we could grow deeper, more rewarding communities with a conscious, intentional commitment to that goal. How to do so, however, is another, more difficult question.

In addition to the development of a sense of family, sports teams are also instructive in that they constantly nurture skills development, including psychological growth. Athletes are never fully satisfied. They always want to get better and they know that improvement is rooted in their inner experience, their thoughts and feelings. When athletes talk about how they work on their mental attitude, they sound like Buddhist monks, or Benjamin Franklin spinning aphorisms.

What they seek more than anything is being “in the zone,” which involves the cessation of thinking and just reacting spontaneously. “See the ball, hit the ball.” It’s not that they aren’t aware mentally. They note the reality in front of them. But thinking involves getting absorbed in a train of thoughts and doing that while performing is deadly for an athlete. Based on my interviews of my taxi passengers, people in the modern world hardly ever stop thinking. We would do well to learn from professional athletes the benefits that can come from not thinking.

When they aren’t performing, athletes critically analyze their performance, whether watching videotapes alone or discussing issues with coaches and other players. But when it comes time to act, they try to put those thoughts aside. They aren’t always successful, of course. Getting into the zone can be elusive. As with other necessary inner skills, course corrections mid-stream are frequently necessary.

An inner strength that is frequently lacking with athletes is self-confidence. Given the intensity of the competition, doubts creep in easily and can be hard to shake. And there’s no magic bullet to restore confidence. Managers and coaches must learn how to offer criticism constructively and carefully. A delicate balance between honest criticism and positive support is essential. Sound familiar?

An obvious inner strength required in professional sports is self-discipline. As ever more athletes perform at ever-higher levels of excellence, the requisite work ethic increases to phenomenal levels. Or so it seems to a slacker like me. But if we want to enhance our performance and achieve all that we can, whatever our effort, cultivating and often enhancing our self-discipline is crucial.

But most athletes and their teams realize that being well-rounded human beings contributes to success on the field. Male players take off time to be with their wives when they give birth and otherwise lead a normal life, and being engaged in community-service activities is highly valued. Becoming narrowly, totally obsessed with success on the field can result in stunted emotional growth that results in a brittle rigidity that leads to a sudden decline in performance, as may have happened with Tiger Woods.

The intersection of the inner and the outer in sports is also reflected in how many athletes rely on their spiritual faith to sustain them. Orlando Cabrera, a young blooming super-star, for example, quietly carries with him two baseballs labeled with citations from the Psalms and keeps them in his locker.

A favorite story of mine is that Dusty Baker, a master of folk wisdom, introduced music into the clubhouse (especially reggae). And now all teams do it. Players even insist that music is played from the stadium’s sound system when they take batting practice. One former player, the announcer Duane Kuiper, said he would have found such music distracting. But I dig it. Music can nurture a productive state of mind.

So the truism is true. Baseball builds character. And character fosters success.

A Social Transformation Network (Draft Proposal)

Introduction

We the undersigned would likely be available to participate in a holistic social transformation project of the sort described in the following proposal if and when an inclusive organizing committee launches it. This proposal is divided into three sections:

• Basic principles
• Initial questions
• Possible methods

We assume that the participants in any such project would modify these recommendations. "A Social Transformation Network" is a suggested working title for the project.

We welcome comments. If you would like to help rewrite this proposal, please let us know. Once we've received more feedback, we may ask more folks to sign it. Please let us know if you want to be notified if and when we take that step.

Take care,
[insert names]

Basic Principles

Mission: to help transform our society into a compassionate community dedicated to serving the common good of the entire human family and protecting the environment.

The Network’s primary method for achieving this mission is the holistic Gandhi-King three-fold path, which creates models of the change we seek by integrating the personal, social, and political:

• Ongoing personal development: By growing ourselves and the groups we work in, we more effectively engage in political action.
• Meaningful community service: By building alternatives that meet unmet needs, we foster joyous communities that attract diverse involvement.
• Effective political action: By focusing on winnable objectives and being rooted in nonviolence and reconciliation, we build momentum and nurture evolutionary revolution by winning concrete victories.

These three areas reinforce one another and sustain us over time.

The initial organizing committee will:

• Be inclusive.
• Establish methods to insure that it remains inclusive.
• Maximize internal democracy and horizontal collaboration, while insuring that the leadership is inclusive.
• Operate transparently -- by, for example, conducting written deliberations in a way that is viewable by the general public on the Web.

Initial Questions

Once a sufficient number of participants are involved, the Network will address and answer the following questions:

• How can we nurture self-development?
• How can we meet important unmet human and social needs?
• How can we engage in effective political action?

Possible Methods

Form teams of individuals who endorse the Network's principles and meet at least once a month in one of their homes or a community center to:

• Share a meal.
• Enjoy fellowship.
• Support one another.
• Make decisions about their future activities.
• Select one or more representatives to meet with representatives from other teams to serve on the Network's governing board.

Personal Development.

When they gather, each team member could report on their efforts to nurture their ongoing personal development, provide meaningful community service, and engage in effective political action. Each member would define their own goals. No feedback or discussion concerning these reports would be necessary. Merely being asked to report in this manner would enable each member to share their efforts verbally (which is generally helpful) and would serve to hold members accountable to their commitment.

Community Service.
By engaging in its own collective efforts to help meet unmet personal, social, or environmental needs, the Network would make itself known to others, which would help attract new members as well as be beneficial in and of itself. Ideally, these projects would enable Network members to address their own needs as well as the needs of non-members. In this way, they could better avoid top-down paternalism. Given widespread social isolation, lack of deep meaning, and limited peer-learning opportunities, the Network might address such personal issues with rewarding social and educational activities.

Political Action.
In additional to participating as individuals or other team members in political campaigns undertaken by other organizations with limited, short-term goals, the Network might encourage and participate in campaigns based on the following guidelines:

• The campaign would:

• be dedicated to a long-term vision of social transformation, such as, for example, the one that is articulated in the Network's mission statement.

• affirm that steady incremental improvements can eventually lead to fundamental, comprehensive social transformation.

• focus on winnable objectives that can be achieved in the near term.

• be willing to negotiate and compromise.

• first invite key decision-makers to engage in public dialog about how to address a particular point of concern.

• adopt its own proposed solution only after fully researching and considering various points of view, ideally including input from such public dialogues.

• The campaign's leadership would be inclusive and would take steps to assure that it remains inclusive, while assuring as soon as feasible the bottom-up control of the project by the active members.
• The campaign would operate in an open, transparent manner, including promptly posting minutes on the Web, largely conducting discussions on a listserv viewable by the general public, and openly posting its plan of action.
• After adopting its proposed solution, the campaign would present its proposal to key decision-makers and seek a negotiated settlement. If and when these efforts are unsuccessful, the campaign would conduct rallies and picket lines and perhaps a boycott. If those efforts were still unsuccessful, and the campaign gains sufficient support from the general public, it could then escalate with tactics such as sit-ins.
• The campaign would take vigorous steps to assure that demonstrations remain peaceful. These steps could include seeking permits and honoring those permits, having many monitors, distributing a nonviolence pledge specific to each event, reciting this pledge in unison repeatedly, asking demonstrators to raise their hand to endorse the pledge, respectfully asking those who do not raise their hand why they don’t, asking those who have no good reason for not endorsing the pledge to leave the demonstration, and perhaps photographing any who refuse to leave.
• Throughout such demonstrations, the campaign would emphasize its willingness to negotiate.
• One possible common strategy would be to focus on the lobbying activities of large corporations. Asking any one corporation to engage in business activities that would put them at a disadvantage with their competitors would not be realistic. But we could ask them to support legislation and regulations that would enhance sustainability within their entire industry. And we could impact their lobbying by exploiting their sensitivity to their corporate image (as efforts to get corporations to withdraw from ALEC worked). This approach could help increase awareness of the influence of big money in politics.

----

The latest draft of this proposal will always be at:
http://www.obtcc.org/Solutions/Network

Patience

CONTENTS:
--Patience
--A Financial Crisis Coalition Proposal
--Links
--Message to Subscribers

Patience

As one who often tries to do too much too quickly, I’ve been thinking about patience lately. When composing “My Bottom Line” at the last minute I added “impatience” to the following list of bad habits:

After decades of activism, I’ve concluded that progressive activists, myself included, need to overcome counterproductive habits that turn off potential recruits and create disabling conflicts within organizations. These habits include arrogance, one-upmanship, withholding feelings, impatience, and not really listening to others. 

Then the other day I woke up with the issue on my mind and received the following tweet from the Dalai Lama: "Patience guards us against losing our presence of mind so we can remain undisturbed, even when the situation is really difficult."

Later that day I went jogging and my Ipod played the following song by Solomon Burke:

Sit This One Out 

…Love sometimes
Takes the form of frustration
A sad combination
Of emptiness and doubt
And our human connection
Is expressed with a shout
Well I think I'm gonna have to just sit this one out.
There was a time
When we could sit and talk about things together
No, we didn’t shout about things at all
We laughed and loved, we played
We said what we had to say
But there’s nothing to do now
And I don’t have a clue about how to rise above it all
…Don’t give up of everything that you’ve work for so long
Don’t destroy your self in a second of anger
Hold on. A change will come.

A classic affirmation on patience and acceptance is the Serenity Prayer widely attributed to Reinhold Niebur: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

But as the wikipedia discusses , Niehbur put into writing what had previously circulated in oral form, especially by women involved in voluntary social service.

And a 1695 Mother Goose rhyme expressed a similar sentiment:

For every ailment under the sun
There is a remedy, or there is none;
If there be one, try to find it;
If there be none, never mind it.

An 8th-century Indian Buddhist scholar stated:

If there’s a remedy when trouble strikes,
What reason is there for dejection?
And if there is no help for it,
What use is there in being glum?

After describing the painful limits of human existence, Christian existentialists declared, “Nevertheless, I accept life.” The most influential modern-day Protestant theologian, Paul Tillich, wrote, ““The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself as accepted in spite of being unacceptable”

More recently, in The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle recommended, “If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally.”

In “Floater (Too Much To Ask),” Bob Dylan (in the Love and Theft album that was released on September 11, 2001 and prompted critics to rewrite their reviews because of its apocalyptic prescience) wrote:

They say times are hard, if you don’t believe it
You can just follow your nose
It don’t bother me—times are hard everywhere
We’ll just have to see how it goes

To declare “it don’t bother me” is quite a challenge. But the others quoted above also affirm a certain kind of detachment that transcends being “disturbed.” One can still remain even-keeled and grounded. Myself, when I confront a disturbing reality, I remind myself that more than 20,000 people are dying prematurely every day. Why do we get so disturbed about some crisis that is often inflamed by the mass media and forget about those 20,000 deaths? Can we face that reality and not be “disturbed”? Can we accept death itself?

I find these questions to be tough. I have no clear, definite answers. But those words of wisdom, especially Dylan’s “We’ll just have to see how it goes,” help me as I try to stick with my routines, my discipline, and focus on just doing what I can to alleviate and prevent needless suffering, remembering that I am not the point and anything I might accomplish is like a small leaf on an enormous tree.

And I remind myself that life is good and Mother Universe will take care of herself.

A Financial Crisis Coalition Proposal

NOTE: On May 15, 2012, I sent the following proposal to Conny Ford, San Francisco Central Labor Council Vice-President for Political Affairs. She replied by saying that she'd like to meet to discuss it in 2-3 weeks. Apart from the specifics, it presents some general ideas concerning one way that a strategic or tactical nonviolence campaign might be conducted. –Wade

+++++

Dear Conny,
I suggest that you and the San Francisco Central Labor Council initiate a new coalition to help prevent another major financial crisis. It could be called the Financial Crisis Coalition. Following and attached are some ideas about how to proceed. If and when I can assist with a project of this sort, please let me know.
Yours,
Wade

A Financial Crisis Coalition Proposal

Mission:  to help prevent another major financial crisis.

Possible Name: Financial Crisis Coalition

Methods:
· Form a small, inclusive organizing committee that is initially self-perpetuating in order to assure diversity. At each stage of expansion, the current members decide whom to invite to join, or they delegate that responsibility.
· Pledge to establish mechanisms to assure as soon as feasible the bottom-up control of the project by the active members.
· Operate in an open, transparent manner, including promptly posting minutes on the Web, largely conducting discussions on a listserv viewable by the general public, and openly posting our plan of action, including all of the following.
· Invite the CEO of Wells Fargo (the only large bank headquartered in San Francisco) to participate, along with two other individuals selected by him and three coalition representatives, in a three-hour community dialog on the question, “How Can We Prevent Another Major Financial Crisis?”
· If he agrees, stream the event live on the Web and during the last 90 minutes, allow randomly selected members of the audience to ask questions or make comments, either in person, by email, or via Twitter.
· If he does not agree, hold a rally, march, and picket line at Wells Fargo headquarters calling on Wells Fargo to participate in the community dialog.
· Take vigorous steps to assure that Coalition demonstrations remain peaceful. These steps could include having many monitors, distributing a nonviolence pledge specific to each event, reciting this pledge in unison repeatedly, asking demonstrators to raise their hand to endorse the pledge, respectfully asking those who do not raise their hand why they don’t, asking those who have no good reason for not endorsing the pledge to leave the demonstration, and perhaps photographing any who refuse to leave.
· If this action and a series of similar actions do not persuade Wells Fargo to participate in the community dialog and the Coalition garners sufficient support from the general public, then escalate with tactics such as sit-ins, “bank-ins” that would involve supporters going to tellers to apparently conduct business like asking for change but being unable to do so, and calling on depositors to withdraw all their deposits.
· If these tactics still fail to persuade Wells Fargo to participate, convene the community dialogue without Wells Fargo representatives with three empty seats to symbolize their absence.
· Following the community dialog, convene a series of workshops to develop proposals-for-action for how Wells Fargo and the other major banks can help prevent another major financial crisis and then convene a Coalition convention to adopt such proposals-for-action to be presented to Wells Fargo and the other major banks. Ideally, this set of proposals would be brief, clear, and easily supported by the general public.
· Each workshop might consist of 10-15 individuals who could meet in members’ homes and select representatives to the convention.
· The convention could select its governing board in a manner that would assure diversity and maximize prospects for having a compatible group that can work together productively.
· Proposals-for-action would be posted and discussed on the Internet beforehand.
· The convention would last for at least several hours and in order to participate in the final decision-making, members would be required to participate throughout the entire convention.
· One possible strategy throughout this whole process would be to focus on the lobbying activities of Wells Fargo (and ultimately all of the major banks). Asking any one of them to engage in business activities that would put them at a disadvantage with their competitors would not be realistic. But we could ask them to support legislation and regulations that would provide for a more sustainable industry (or perhaps as a fall back, at least refrain from pushing for unsustainable legislation and regulations).
· Once the Coalition adopts its proposals-for-action, then the Coalition would re-engage Wells Fargo and invite them to negotiate a settlement, while also seeking support from our elected officials.
· Any such settlement would be submitted for ratification to a Coalition convention.
·

Links

The 99 Percent Wakes Up
by Joseph E. Stiglitz May 2, 2012 5:15 PM EDT
Inequality isn’t only plaguing America—the Arab Spring flowered because international capitalism is broken. In From Cairo to Wall Street: Voices from the Global Spring, edited by Anya Schiffrin and Eamon Kircher-Allen, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz says the world is finally rising up and demanding a democracy where people, not dollars, matter—the best government that money can buy just isn’t good enough….

***

Self-Interest Spurs Society’s ‘Elite’ to Lie, Cheat on Tasks, Study Finds
By Elizabeth Lopatto
Are society’s most noble actors found within society’s nobility? That question spurred Paul Piff, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, to explore whether higher social class is linked to higher ideals, he said in a telephone interview. The answer Piff found after conducting seven different experiments is: no….

***

Politics: How Wall Street Killed Financial Reform
By Matt Taibbi
Two years ago, when he signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, President Barack Obama bragged that he'd dealt a crushing blow to the extravagant financial corruption that had caused the global economic crash in 2008. "These reforms represent the strongest consumer financial protections in history," the president told an adoring crowd in downtown D.C. on July 21st, 2010. "In history." This was supposed to be the big one….

***

California’s New Triple Bottom Line
Best in the world? Try best FOR the world. The Golden State welcomes a new kind of corporation.
by Sven Eberlein, Debra Baida
With the passage of AB 361 on October 9th, 2011, California became the sixth state to adopt
legislation allowing the formation of “benefit corporations”—corporations whose purpose is not just to make money but to make the world a better place....

A Message to Subscribers

Thanks much for subscribing to Wade’s Weekly. It’s heartening to know that 72 individuals find it sufficiently worthwhile to subscribe to the email version and that some 20 or 30 others read entries on the Web.

I invite you to help improve the blog by recommending links, books, quotes, other information, and comments (even brief comments are greatly appreciated and help give the blog credibility). And please consider “liking” and sharing it on Facebook and emailing it to your friends, relatives, and associates.

Knowing that 100 or so people at least look at each entry is enough to motivate me to continue. If there were even more subscribers, I might be moved to put more energy into making it better. And that could benefit you!

So maybe together we can improve Wade’s Weekly so that it is of greater benefit to more people.

NOTE: To post a comment, click on the link at the bottom of the email (if you receive it by email) and/or click on the Comments link at the bottom of the blog post.

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
 Information about writing, publishing, agents, submitting your work, writing a proposal and promotion plan, and Michael's consulting services for nonfiction writers is at www.larsenpomada.com.
 415-673-0939 / 1029 Jones St., San Francisco, CA 94109
 Please write or call 11-4 PST, Monday-Friday, with questions.
 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. 

 The 4th San Francisco Writing for Change Conference
 Changing the World One Book at a Time
 Saturday, September 15, 2012
 Unitarian Universalist Church / Geary & Franklin 

 The 10th San Francisco Writers Conference / February 14-17, 2013
 A Celebration of Craft, Commerce & Community
 Keynoter: R. L. Stine
 www.sfwriters.org / sfwriterscon@aol.com / http://sfwriters.info/blog
 www.facebook.com/pages/san-francisco-writers/conference
 For a free newsletter and free MP3s: www.sfwriters.info 

 San Francisco Writers University
 Where Writers Meet and You Learn
 Laurie McLean, Dean / free classes / www.sfwritersu.com /
 sfwritersu@gmail.com / http://sfwriters.info/blog / @SFWritersU

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.

My Bottom Line

More than anything, I seek a joyous, compassionate community of progressive political activists who promote peaceful social transformation, focus on winnable objectives, and support one another in their personal growth, while accepting the time limitations that are common in the modern world. That is my bottom line.

After decades of activism, I’ve concluded that progressive activists, myself included, need to overcome counterproductive habits that turn off potential recruits and create disabling conflicts within organizations. These habits include arrogance, one-upmanship, withholding feelings, impatience, and not really listening to others.

I can no longer give my heart and soul to a project that does not encourage and support its members to nurture open-ended self-development, as defined by each individual (in contrast to specific skills training). Having been unable to find such a project, I’ll primarily continue to research, read, write, and dialog on these matters, try to advance the development of such efforts, and keep my eyes open for a holistic project that I can join.

To my mind, a holistic perspective that embraces the whole person is important. Traditional activism concentrates on the outer world (behavior) and neglects the inner world (experience). Holism integrates the outer and the inner. Traditional activism relies primarily on the head and overlooks the heart. Holism integrates the two. Traditional activism treats human beings as instruments, cogs in a machine. Holism affirms and enhances the full range of human experience. Traditional activism relies on suppressed emotions, hidden agendas, and manipulation. Holism is open, transparent, and collaborative, trusting that honesty, spontaneity, and freewheeling interplay are more productive in the long run.

Joy, having fun together, and being ever more happy avoids the lifelessness that is common in activist organizations. Contagious happiness can be a powerful recruiting tool.

Compassionate concern about the suffering of others, including our close associates, counters dehumanization.

The pursuit of peace involves cultivating inner peace as well as peace within society, which includes learning how to treat each other with respect. Violence is a turbulent, intense state of mind that leads to attempts to injure another, which also damages the soul of the perpetrator. Nurturing deep peace, both internal and external, is crucial.

Total, sudden conversion is not essential, though it sometimes happens. By acknowledging our mistakes and resolving to avoid repeating them, we can from time to time “turn over a new leaf” and suddenly “feel like a new person.” Being reborn is a lifelong process.

A progressive worldview affirms that:

1)      Our government has a major, positive role to play.

2)      Human beings are essentially good and naturally affectionate.

3)      Individual empowerment, autonomy, and self-determination within strong, caring communities are key.

4)      Communities need to pay attention to the consequences of individual and collective actions in our inter-connected and inter-dependent world.

5)      Society can make valuable progress through steady, incremental personal, social, and political improvements.

Social transformation would entail the comprehensive reform of our social system into a compassionate community dedicated to the well being of the entire human family, as I discussed in “Transform the System.”

Cataclysmic, violent revolution is not necessary. The system must not collapse before we change it. Incremental reforms can lead to comprehensive, fundamental, systemic transformation. We can focus on short-term reforms that improve governmental and corporate policies as steps toward longer-term structural changes that address underlying causes.

Winning victories with a focus on winnable objectives builds momentum. Untargeted anger and efforts to “shut it down” without a mechanism for negotiating solutions undermine our effectiveness and promote violence. Grounding idealism in pragmatism helps avoid these complications.

In order to achieve this new purpose, we need to create new institutions as well as transform our existing institutions, our cultures, and ourselves through a gradual process of evolutionary revolution that can eventually, unpredictably create a new society that is qualitatively different and greatly improved.

Given widespread time constraints, ten or so members of a community based on these principles might merely gather in one of their homes once a month to:

• Share a meal and socialize informally.
• Report on their efforts with regard to political action and personal growth (including social skills). These reports might consist merely of informing others, without any feedback or advice (unless requested).
• Air resentments and conflicts if and when they emerge and if need be set aside time for those involved to resolve them.
• Make decisions about their future (including activities like political demonstrations, hikes, volleyball games, or concerts in which only a few members might participate). If the participants so decide, these events could be conducted in the name of the community.

In this way, members could gradually get to know one another more fully and deepen their sense of community. But these methods are suggested only to make my thoughts more concrete. Other individuals could surely offer other ideas and like-minded partners could collectively determine the best course.

Ideally, this community would be affiliated with similar communities in a network. Each of these communities could serve as a model that would encourage others to form similar communities. Each community and the full network could convene occasional public events to share ideas and fellowship, inform non-members about their efforts, and invite them to form their own community affiliated with the network.

That’s my dream.