What to Think About While Organizing Organizations

           Day 9 of my analysis of Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part Three: The Dynamics of Nonviolent Struggle, applied to the climate movement. Reading Sharp’s books are a prerequisite for anyone who is serious about stopping climate change. Please go to Dr. Sharp’s website, buy these books, and study them.

I have some experience with both well-run and poorly run climate organizations.

A little more than a year ago I was working for a climate organization where nothing worked.  Meetings and conferences never went off as planned, nothing got done on time, and no one was in the loop about what the executive director’s agenda was.  I certainly wasn’t, and there weren’t that many of us.

On the other hand, in April of 2011 I attended the PowerShift conference in D.C.  It was the largest organizer training in history, and it was very well-organized.  Over the course of a weekend, people were able to meet other activists from their own regions, learn effective organizing techniques, brainstorm on solutions, and also have fun!  (The only thing they don’t do right is they don’t hold their conventions in election years, which would provide a great springboard for a summer of organizing and activism.  Instead, over a year passes between the conference and the next campaign season, by which time the conference is a distant memory and attendees have scattered to the winds.)

As PowerShift demonstrated, a good organization provides a framework to make people work more effectively.  Bad organization provides no framework and people end up leaving. 

Last Sunday 60 Minutes did an excellent segment on  IDEO’s David Kelly, who’s design company builds on the ideas of many people.  It could be a great model for a really powerful climate movement.  The movement needs to be creative and democratic, it needs to be outspoken and not secretive about it’s strategies, it needs to encourage initiative, and must have unwavering commitment to nonviolent principles.

That’s what PowerShift’s convention did.  Their framework created a place for ideas to form and grow.  Otpor did it in Serbia, allowing complete freedom for activists so long as they kept the focus on ending Milosevic’s reign and as long as it was nonviolent.  Earth Guardians is attempting to provide the creative structure for youth environmental activists in the U.S. and abroad.

But time and thought need to go into the organizational framework so that the organization will easily grow in the right direction.

In Waging Nonviolent Struggle, Sharp shows four categories where organization is necessary:

-       “The public: publicizing the facts and grievances; promoting sympathy; disseminating solid information about the nature and requirements of nonviolent struggle."

This is huge for us, not just publicizing how serious of a crisis climate change is, but also how effective nonviolent struggle can be!

-       "The volunteers: recruiting; training and incorporating participants into the movement; promoting commitment."

The CANVAS website gives more details on how to recruit and train.  Otpor had an action, recruit, train triangle, where street actions doubled as recruitment opportunities.  The new recruits would then be trained, and would often themselves be doing the next street actions.

-       "The leadership: preparing replacements for arrested leaders of the movement; setting the procedures for further selection of leadership; supplying information to the leaders."

Again, I personally think this movement would be stronger with many leaders empowered to lead fun groups in their towns.  It would make it very hard for the fossil fuel industry to effectively combat us.

-      "The movement in general: supporting morale and discipline; preparing participants to act without leaders in times of severe repression; maintaining communications.”

A big thing we need is simple morale, a belief that we can indeed save the day before it's too late.

In The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Sharp concludes: “Strong commitment of the volunteers to participation and adherence to the campaign’s plans and standards remain crucial...In preparing the volunteers and the general population for the struggle, extreme attention must be given to three closely related qualities of this technique: fearlessness, nonviolence, and…openness or nonsecrecy.”

CH   

Please muster up the $34.85 (plus shipping) and purchase The Politics of Nonviolent Action.  You can order it HERE.

Permalink

Obama's Not Ready to Act on Climate Yet...How About You?

Yesterday in his press conference the President spoke at length about climate change.  He said he would be engaging in a wide-ranging "conversation" over the coming months and years to see what we can "realistically" do to deal with the problem.

I'm not surprised but I am disappointed.  Hey, there's been a lot of talk since the election that he would make a major push to address climate change, but he himself never said it, as he has about immigration reform and tax reform, so no one should be surprised he's not yet wagering any of his political capital on the issue.

The president went on to point out that climate change had become a "partisan" issue and that it lacks the bipartisan support necessary to pass major legislation.

Not his fault.  It's the climate movement's fault.  They made no noise during the political campaigns, when they could have created quite a stir after the drought and summer heat.

It's also the movement's responsibility moving forward.  In April of 2011, during the Energy Action Coalition's PowerShift conference in D.C., a handful of youth leaders were invited to the White House to talk about the climate.  They thought they would be speaking with some lower-level staffers, but were amazed when the conference room door opened and President Obama came in.  He told them that he cared just as much  about the climate as they did, but he wouldn't be able to get anything done about it unless they created a  groundswell of popular support that politicians could not ignore.  FDR did the same thing in the 1930's, when he told labor activists that he could only deliver on needed reforms if they created popular support.  (They did and he did.)

It's foolish to think that by electing this president our work is done and we can go back to being passive.  In Gene Sharp's The Politics of Nonviolent Action, he writes about a tendency in populations "to avoid responsibility, to seek to delegate it upward and to attribute greater authority to superiors in the hierarchy than is in fact merited".  (This comes from what he calls a "lack of self confidence".)

In other words quit waiting for the "leaders" to lead.  YOU are the leader, with every bit as much power to make change as any president or dirty energy CEO, so own up to it.   We need to lead the leaders.

Gandhi said "The function of a civil resister is to provoke response. And we will continue to provoke until they respond.  They are not in control.  We are."

So it's on us.  If our collective actions are in alignment with the severity of the crisis, then we will be able to create that groundswell.

CH

Update:  Arianna Huffington has a similar post today about how the president said "Only you have the power to move us forward" at his convention speech and made similar comments on election night.  She even included the exact quote FDR issued to the labor leaders: "I agree with you.  I want to do it.  Now make me do it."  Finally, she includes this link to a Guardian UK piece about how progressives need to follow Obama's example and start pushing for change.


Permalink