The Drop Whatever Else You’re Doing Rule

Until those of us who are progressive funders and advocates learn to better coordinate our efforts, we will lose consistently to the well bankrolled forces who oppose us.

Here’s the good news: we don’t have to sit through tedious convenings or master the newest social media technologies to attain this coordination.  To borrow from the language of the Wall Street occupiers, there is a no-cost “horizontal, autonomous, leaderless, modified-consensus-based” way to work together more effectively for social justice.

The idea is simple: The next time an issue—let’s say it’s immigration reform—garners sustained national public attention, all of us who are progressive funders, advocates, and community organizers should drop whatever we’re doing and get behind the issue. Even if immigration reform is not our thing, we should devote a substantial part of our organizations’ resources to helping the progressive advocates for that issue win their legislative or policy victory.

Call this the “Drop Whatever Else You’re Doing Rule,” if you like.

Recall what happened two years ago during the national debates on health care reform.  Here was an issue that would affect the fates of people in low-income communities for years to come.  Yet while many health advocates struggled valiantly to win support for a national health care system, I saw many more activists ignore the issue because it simply wasn’t theirs.  They saw themselves as education advocates, or housing advocates, or criminal justice reform advocates, or something other than simply advocates for low-income people.

Imagine what would have happened if funders, advocates, and community organizers across the country had adopted the Drop Whatever Else You’re Doing Rule.  Imagine if the voices in the pews, in the schools, in the neighborhood centers had been able to shout down the policy-makers who had been bought by powerful interests.

Now in the advent of the Arab Spring, with the rise of multiple people-led movements in the United States, we’ll be challenged again to break out of our siloes and support Americans who are taking to the streets for economic justice.

Consider supporting the Drop Whatever Else You’re Doing Rule.  Bring it up and debate it with your friends and colleagues.  If you have other ideas for coordinating progressive action, please share them.  How do we keep progressive advocacy from becoming a random walk? 

 

Comments

[Patrick de Freitas]

When social talk turns to politics, I notice that lefties bitch really well but don't act. But by the time that conversation has even begun, the righties have already acted, calling their congressman, writing checks, generally arranging things to their liking.

It's because of our different world views, I fear. Lefties want to discuss, to chew on things, to see nuance, to savor their outrage. And they're not willing to step away from their own precious silos.

Righties by contrast seem to have fewer qualms, fewer doubts, fewer reasons to prevaricate. So they don't.

Why can't we lefties at least pretend to act more like righties? Something good might happen, as you say.

[Albert]

I once attended a Hudson Institute-sponsored event that featured 15 or so of the stars in the conservative firmament--Charles Murray, Francis Fukuyama, people like that. While they represented different takes on conservative thought, I was struck by how unified they were in their hatred of Hillary Clinton, a presidential candidate at the the time. It was the possibility that she might be elected and Scandinavize the U.S. that most troubled their imaginations. It was for me the usual "government IS the problem" cant with a measure of sexism mixed in.

So conservatives want small government, and there's considerable message discipline in the ranks, even when what's really meant is "enough government to keep me fabulously wealthy," if you're one of the plutocrats, and "no government at all," if you're one of the crowd whipped into an anti-Washington frenzy.

I've heard various takes on the purported single-mindedness of conservatives. Certainly at the level of leadership, it's much easier to coordinate the actions of an oligarchical plutocracy than a true representative democracy. I've also read studies that claim to distinguish the conservative from the liberal brain on measures of tolerance for ambiguity, etc. Don't know enough about those studies to comment.

[rc helicopter]

Impressive blog! -Arron