ONLINE FORUMS
This is a place to conduct the dialogue about what needs to happen, so we can move forward in a unified way. You can start a conversation by submitting a post, or comment on what others have written. Please address differences in opinion respectfully, and stay on topic. Feel free to contact us to suggest additional topics.

1. The relationship between reform work and a movement for revolutionary change

2. Whether it is enough to work for campaign-finance reform and instant runoff voting, or other reforms aimed at ending the dominant parties’ duopoly.

“Initiatives to ban money from politics and give third parties a chance to offer more than a protest vote are valuable for raising consciousness. What these initiatives seek, however, is more than mere tinkering with the system. Their success would have revolutionary consequences. They therefore cannot be accomplished without the power it would take to accomplish an actual revolution. The forces that fight so ruthlessly for their unfettered freedom to make profits throughout the world will give up the capacity to do so only when confronted by our superior strength.” — from “All Is Not Lost: Twelve Theses on the Way Forward”

3. Program: what are the policies are we fighting for? In what level of detail should they be elaborated? On what can we agree to disagree?

Ralph Nader writes of an “emerging left-right alliance to dismantle the corporate state” . Similarly, I have suggested that one looking back on our time will conclude that some issues dear to the hearts of many of us are divisive distractions:

“The Democrats and Republicans had several ways of obscuring their collaboration in policies that pri marily favored corporate wealth and its attempts to maintain dominance internationally. One way of exaggerating their differences was to take different stands on so-called ‘social’ issues and stir people up over them. Abortions, for example, had been illegal until the 1970s for moral and religious reasons. Various developments changed this irreversibly, but conservative partisans held out hope of going back. At the same time, most abortion-rights activists inflamed the conservative base by refusing any dialogue with — and disdaining — the latter, relying on a judicial strategy, and pushing forward with public funding of abortions in public-health contexts. Nearly annual legislative skirmishes over the boundaries of what would and would not be permitted kept the pot stirred on both sides, with votes, contributions, and volunteers going to electoral candidates who made a point of identifying with one or another position.

“The same was true with intense passions generated over whether to limit the widespread possession of firearms. One camp focused on the violence related to weapons use, tended to trust the government to some extent, and was from a social class that was generally not into hunting. It was pitted against those who thought no one in their right mind would give government a monopoly on the means of force, unless they did not value freedom. Again, the clashes were over small, symbolic issues at the margins of public policy — sophisticated professionals on both sides knew that effective confiscation of over two hundred million firearms in private hands was impossible without a political consensus on the issue, but politicians and private advocacy groups kept large constituencies stirred up over trying to create or resist change in that direction. . . .

“Issues like these affected peoples’ lives, but, even more, they had symbolic and moral meanings that made people passionate on both sides and virtually unable to recognize any legitimate values underlying the other side’s concerns. And, again, they created major political sideshows to the point where, for example, Democrats could cast themselves as against the Iraq War of the early twenty-first century while they were not in the White House, while practically no one noticed that they had declined to exercise their Congressional power to cut off funds for it.”

How do we decide what we can agree to disagree on?

What about questions like U.S. policy towards Israel/Palestine? This is the one that scares me the most. If the organization we build will need to take a stand on it, how can we overcome — among ourselves — polar opposite understandings of the history and causes of the conflict, what each side has offered and is doing, and the U.S. role?

4. Strategy: what socioeconomic classes or other segments of the population are the potential base for our movement?

5. Inclusiveness: what can we do to insure that we are a place where people from every part of our potential base can feel welcome? How do we ensure that, from the beginning (i.e., now), we involve everyone who would want to be part of the foundation-building work we are doing now, rather than ending up having to seek diversity later?

6. Organization: is a national organization appropriate and necessary? If so, what should be its relationship to local work?

7. Organization: what forms will permit us to contribute to leading a national movement, with the optimal level of unity and coordination, while encouraging internal democracy, as well as autonomy and creativity in the local implementation of broader campaigns? What professional or other units will we need to produce online materials and literature, train members, handle finances, etc.?

8. Organization: in the current stage of laying a foundation, what can we add to what we have so far to facilitate our work? What are best practices for resolving conflict and building the strongest consensus among ourselves? To what extent do we need consensus; to what extent should the view of the majority control?

9. What can we do collectively to avoid burnout and to promote self-care, joy in our work, and community? How do we welcome the contributions of artists and performers of all kinds in bringing insight and heart to our work?

10. Nonviolence. Is it a tactical choice to be employed with some flexibility? A strategic or moral imperative for all situations?

11. The role (or non-role) of spiritual values and principles in a broad political organization.