The Power Of Music

Beautiful and true.

Jack Leroy Tueller, at age 90, recounts a remarkable experience he had in WWII.

Link Loving 25.01.12

• 17 things I have learnt about charity email copy. Sam Bueno de Mesquita.
• The problem with welfare reform? It’s the market, not the benefits cap. Rowenna Davis.
• French Presidential candidate Francoise Hollande says ‘My adversary is finance’. David Matsh. h/t Joe Cox
• Founders of MoveOn, MyBarackObama and The Onion are joining forces to make progressive politics fun again. Yippee! Ed Pilkington.
• Understanding why we change. Cassandra Vieten.
• The internet is about to revolutionize physical space. Bill Davidow.
• Sustaining Resistance: a week long event in Devon in late April.

Remember The Three SD Circles?

It seems Unilever has missed the middle circle of the Sustainable Development model.

EDIT: Apparently the pension changes are getting in line with the industry standard.

Happy Birthday Peter Tatchell

Today is Peter Tatchell’s 60th birthday. He is a courageous activist full of integrity – fighting injustice with a seemingly endless bundle of energy and balls. This profile of him made me realise how much more I can be doing.

Pink News asked Stephen Fry to write a poem to mark Peter Tatchell’s 60th birthday – and this is what he came up with. Happy birthday Peter!

You are maddening.
You are threatening.
You are insanely brave.
You have moved us forward.
You sometimes embarrass us.
We would so often look the other way.
But we owe you, Peter.
We owe you so much.
Thank you
Thank you
Thank you
Peter Tatchell
Scourge of hatred
And upholder of honour

You would hate to be called it
But you are our knight
Our champion
Our friend.

Happy birthday

Link Loving 24.01.12

• Why politicians get away with lying. New York Times.
• Ai Weiwei: the evolution of a dissident. Alison Klayman.
• Is state capitalism a viable alternative to free markets? Beatrice Webb.
• Does national debt really matter? Robert Skidelsky.
• 1848 – Melvyn Bragg explores what worked and what didn’t in the European Revolutions.
• How to think about engagement currency. James Whatley.
• Learn about the fascinating life and thinking of Chinese-American activist and philosopher Grace Lee Boggs.

Three Steps For Every Change Process

Sometimes it really is this simple – a three-step process shared with me by Sara Parkin last week.

1. The understanding that things need to change
2. The tools/framework and skills to change
3. The recognition and reward systems for changing

Link Loving 23.01.12

• Cosmetic surgery advertising ban urged by leading surgeons. Sarah Boseley.
• Remember how activists in the USA blocked the tar sands pipeline? I love that they’re now doing this.
• Congresswomen Gabrille Giffords is standing down. Beautiful good-bye video.
• A story about leadership and revolution from Syntagma Square in Athens. Anthi Theiopoulou.

Link Loving 22.01.12

• The Occupy Movement has been a revolution in our sense of self. Kerry-anne Mendoza.
• How to be a personal-brand douche. Political Scrapbook.
• Are you worried your activist group is being infiltrated by police/corporate spies? How to respond. Plan To Win.
• We are the 1%. John Kenney.
• Capitalism has nothing to do with responsibility. Eric Hobsbawm.
• Their crisis, our solutions. Susan George.

Learning From Arnie Graf

Last week Arnie Graf, Co-Director of the IAF (Saul Alinsky’s famous school of organising), spoke at a TSSA meeting to share some of his organising experiences. He’s in the UK working for the Labour leadership to bring some much needed organising expertise. Here are some insights and links that he shared.

Power comes from four places:

1. Status – social position, organisational title, hereditary cultural titles, age
2. Wealth
3. Organised people – consistently and persistently
4. Collective resource – the financial clout of many small amounts brought together

You should only ever take an action in order to get a certain reaction. Otherwise all you’re doing is activity. In the most successful cases, the other side’s reaction does the organising for you by demonstrating precisely what you’re organising against. Your words and actions might not persuade people of your views – but the way that your opposition reacts to it can. For example, when Martin Luther King Jr choose to march in Salem, Alabama – it was a conscious choice to go there rather than Mississippi, Georgia or Virginia. The local Sheriff was known for his extreme racism and use of violence. King expected the Sheriff to over-react, as he went on to do. The images that emerged from the bloody police brutality forced passive supporters of Civil Rights across the country to become active supporters as they could no longer claim ‘I know racism is a problem, but it isn’t that bad’.

I learned about a new hero – James Farmer, one of the founders of CORE, a key organisation in the Civil Rights movement. Here’s an interview with him in 1965,

He also recommended some reading and viewing:

‘Going Public‘ – a book about community organising which he described as a ‘must read’ for any campaigner.

‘The Great Debaters‘ – a movie about a debate coach, played by Denzel Washington, at a historically black college to place his team on equal footing with whites in the American South during the 1930s.

Clay Shirky Against SOPA

Great TED talk.

h/t Rich Hawkins