Its a little academicy, and feel like metaphysics is a big muddy word that can be confusing (besides being more philosophy than soci or anthrop -ology) i really like how you call out the hope of failure inherent in indirect action and appeals to the state. on the hippie front, do you know about the diggers? they were what the mainstream press was trying to talk about when they coined the word hippy, but besides the petchoulli and long hair, these cats were creating free stores, free clinics, free communities, radical street theater and other forums for non-alienating flows of power to erupt. they helped to inspire a movement of idealists through the reality of their radical cultural actions, even if the movement they inspired ended up drinking the kool aid and falling into a drug-induced state-sponsored stupor.

Marley, I’ve never heard of the diggers. Do you know more about how their movement stumpbled into hippiedom?

Mainstream media turned cultural revolutionaries into stereotyped flower children and spread their image around the world. thats about all i know off the top of my head. book called ‘sleeping where i fall’ by peter coyote documents them pretty good.
http://www.diggers.org/

id dig more thoughts on how to combine youth organizing in appalachia with sustainable economic development etc.

Just finished reading this. It’s pretty profound, and contains ideas I have to reread before I can fully grasp. You have reached some conclusions, pretty much on your own apparently, that I have run across before from other social critics. Your idea of “metaphysical assumptions” corresponds to what Harry Schwartzlander of the New Environment association in Syracuse has labelled the “psycho-physical complex.”

We’ll continue this dialog..

I think your critiques were dead on I especially like the one about making assumptions about tactics that end up being more of a leap of faith than good strategy. PowerVote is a big example that comes in my mind with this. All those pledge cards and green shirts. yes the branding helped make it interesting but the whole thing was superficial and I remember feeling really disempowered asking tons of people who didn’t understand what I was talking about to sign a pledge card. This is where I think education is important because we have people sign things and we never see them again and within the movement we need more NVDA education so people understand why we need it.

I also appreciate the acknowledgment of needing to combine indirect and direct action strategies. Even though we might not always agree on what is best I think this offers a chance for bigger coalitions and people to want to get involved in the movement. And initially indirect actions are what got be engaged in the movement and after being in the movement and creating relationships with people in I began to realize how crucial DA was. So maybe indirect action is a bridge to direct action?

And this might tangent but I also think language and how we categorize things like DA vs InDA is sometimes something that alienates people and or maybe puts people on the defensive of DA? maybe

and big yes to communities. Whatever happened to ” Think Globally Act Locally”?

On the role of education in change over generations.
it strikes me that if you want to effect cultural, generational changes, where’s the education-of-the-basics strategy? Maybe think some more about elementary and secondary school curriculum development…I’ve seen it work in developing nations, where “new” concepts like not tossing your trash out were taught to kids – who then helped teach (and shame) their parents and other elders into doing the right thing. For all of our U.S. economic might, there are plenty of folks who still don’t get the basics, which stymies all the highbrow gesticulating in places like D.C. and Copenhagen… The most immediate example that came to mind (but I don’t know what resources are available) are for Labib, the environmental Smokey-the-Bear equivalent used in Tunisia. Labib is a funky-looking desert fox character, I often think it inspired George Lucas’s creation of Jar-Jar Binks.

spot on. It would be good to know what sort of initiatives there already are and think more about how to effectively engage children in common sense sustainability. I know of this – http://www.creativechange.net/ They put out great curriculum relevant to current events. Your comment also reminded me of an idea I’ve often heard here in the Coal River Valley – old timers teaching young people the traditional skills that have sustained folks in this area for centuries. For instance, Nonni know so many useful things that I will either never know, learn from a book, or figure out through trial and error. There is a wealth of knowledge passing away with our elders, because it’s seen as not useful for 21st century high tech society, and it’s a shame!

letting that be for a bit, it occurs that the matter of what to do with the dominators is fairly urgent, as they endanger the possibility of the local projects in their consolidation. I think it’s naive to think that the structure is actually collapsing of it’s own accord rather than creating more chaos, and the illusion of total collapse, outside itself while it grows in strength at the top of the mayhem. a huge question remains of how to challenge this growing darkness, and how we can throughout this process create a network of local movements that does not in the end meaningfully support this reigning arrangement.
practice in creative subversion has always been provided by arts, and a hope is that continued inspiration, challenge, and healing from oneself and others will continue to grow. in that, too, a quality of consciousness in doing and being is also very powerful.
with those dangling, im feeling the need to be awake and ready for tomorrow, so i’ll rest for now. thank you so much for your thoughts, care and continued work. talk to you soon, stay well. -k

It is important to note that our movement is not necessarily the most powerful engine of change in the time ahead. Indeed, today we are a blip on the political radar. We make it look sort of democratic. Don’t get me wrong, I love us, but with love comes honesty. From the Tea Party Movement to the World Trade Organization, many are actively planning the world of the future.

The reality check about what power we actually have and where we stand in the larger context of forces shaping the world is an area rarely examined or taken into account. Its hard. But I think more effective strategies absolutely come out of that realization. I hope that Copenhagen’s dismal result wakes more people up to the reality of where we stand.