Evolving Activism

 

Social organising is not delivering... like politics. The race for progress has shaped into a $1.6 Trillion industry. More organizing efforts, more petitions, more books, raising awareness, are not making Activism more efficient. It's time to rethink our approach.

Early in 2017, the NYT began publishing a series of articles about the War in Vietnam. Written by people with all kinds of ties to the events, the series offers insights into the lives of people who struggled to make sense of nonsense, those who refused to be drafted, and of those who paid the ultimate price, in Vietnam, or at home, as “activists.” 

For our purpose, we look at the present, at how the war machinery has evolved into a sophisticated, unstoppable, brutally efficient monster, while Activism, with all of its forms of resistance… movements, communities, coalitions of interests, couldn’t be any more divided.

It hurts to have to say it, but there is no such thing as “peace,” nor progress in any "peaces," (12); Nuclear deterrence is a myth (123, 4); 50 years after MLK assassination, inequality reignsIn 2018, the U.S. Is Even More Gilded Than in 1918there are an estimated 40 million slaves worldwide. Meanwhile near 390M children around the globe live in extreme poverty.

We all wish to see some real breakthrough event, not just Facebook community with 10 million Likes, or a super popular hashtag on Instagram. Activism is stuck in conflicting groups, strategies and methods that fail to deliver sizeable results. Sadly, that includes the former “Peace Movement,” a vague coalition of antiwar activists, veterans of wars and nuclear disarmament advocates. The late Tom Hayden, before he passed, mentioned the urgency of a "new peace movement." In 2016, Jill Stein, echoing Bernie Sanders words, suggested that a political solution should come as a Rainbow coalition. We believe that "The Peace Movement" is not the one we're used to know... we've just been conditioned to see it as a container inside the wider "Activism," and that is flawed thinking. Flawed thinking leads to flawed organizing and inefficient forms of raising objection.

Despite their good intentions, people involved in antiwar efforts, have to accept the bitter truth, expressed eloquently in a fairly recent article by Nick Turse, in “Tom Dispatch”(09/2015).

We keep losing, but we can change that!

Despite the sour taste of reality, the debate should be about evolving activism, and not about calculating the shares of blame to be given to political party “A,” movement “B,” or NGOrganization “C.” The question is not whether activism is a worthy cause, but about what it takes to make it work.

No matter what has been said and done in social change, those resisting, “The Leaderless Revolution,”, hasn't been capable of cooperation, of making to our governments clear, how the the simple values, that we all hold so dear, are plain and simple not reflected in their policies. The list of concerns, relayed to our authorities, is always about complaints, and it gets so long, that the media uses it to frame activists with the usual, predictable slurs... "complainers, lefty socialists, hippie anarchists, etc.

Our entire Resistance, is incapable to let our leading authorities and our corporate masters know, that humans value freedom of dissent, responsibility / accountability, sustainability and compassion more than the perpetual growth of obscene profits of a handful of oligarchs.

Representatives know that very well. However, they don’t have to listen to our objections, and translate them into sensible policies, because they don’t have to care. The public pressure is very rarely strong , loud and consistent enough to get them to do the right thing. 

That's part of the reason why repeace has created the 3 commitments, and placed them predominantly on the front page, to help you make that clear to them, to unite Activism, to empower you, and maintain the pressure up as long as it takes to get it. Will they be able to escape the noise, when it will echo on a worldwide scale? It depends on you now.

Forget about building signs, protest, get injured, arrested, or even killed at direct confrontations with the State. We have made repeace so simple, so that you can reclaim your voices, so nonviolently, potentially so “virally”, that it will be hard not to click on the 3 votes. We know how disheartened you must feel, knowing that there is nobody out there, who really represents you.

You do have an alternative now. Take the 3 commitments. Speak for yourself. Every change starts with a commitment. Every big thing begins small.