Image by Glenn Halog via Flickr
with Chris Hedges
RT America on Jan 7, 2017
On this week’s episode of On Contact, Chris Hedges discusses strategies of resistance with Michael Gecan, author of “Going Public: An Organizer’s Guide to Citizen Action”. RT Correspondent reports on the godfather of community organizing, Saul Alinsky.
from the archives:
What Would Happen If We All Refused To Go Quietly To The Slaughterhouse?
Chris Hedges: The Wreckage of Neoliberalism
The Man From the North: Disrupt! Interrupt! The Ground of Resistance is Ours. by Rivera Sun
Chris Hedges: The Revenge of the Lower Classes and the Emergence of Fascism
Dandelion Salad 
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Who are “we?” What comes first? Who’s doing the organizing?
Organizing is complex stuff because it presupposes a degree of given awareness that may or may not exist. Communities emerge from circumstantial and situational realities that need to be articulated and made self-conscious. The United States is very largely an opportunist society of religiously motivated conquest, literal appropriation, & proactive refuge.
I prefer to take a non-partisan, pragmatic position, that allows for maximum difference and recognition of rooted, indigenous intelligence. Also one that accounts for embedded cultural environments, & identifies with subtly reciprocal climates & innate habitats, that allows for linguistic adaptation ~ also respects, preserves and cultivates local heredity & seed knowledge.
Consider the instinctive & instructive example of war-torn refugee communities; camps that literally bootstrap themselves from nothing with only absolutely basic amenities, like canvas, fuel and water, often in deserts….wherein all means are provided by international agencies.
This is a valuable discourse and thought provoking conversation. Some really profound insights about relating, learning, acting…also a superb deconstruction of the Democratic Party @ 23:30 ff…!!
My thoughts: the root of relationship is empowerment; we may often assume that we know about human beings, that we have an adequate grasp of what ‘individuating potential’ means, that it is merely enough to acknowledge, inform, to educate, engage and encourage.
That is a false assumption, unless we consider humanity’s deepest spiritual aspirations, how the flame of self-awareness, true identity, shared community and social development is preserved, revived or re-kindled…moreover even with the best of social intentions, it may be those spontaneous, serendipitous effects & encounters that trigger the most enduring experiences of meaning and capacity.
Localized institutional contexts like churches, unions and lodges may be profoundly un-healthy, despite their formal appearance, of ‘respectability’ or contrived moral posture, if they are bound up and framed by restrictive (hereditary) prejudices conditioned by theocratic dogma.
Uniqueness and gender have to be acknowledged as crucial with respect to how we receive and process ‘enlightening’ strategies born of liberating philosophies & agendas ~ especially those tropes that progressively represent ethnicity; that recognize unique gifts and fully articulate the experiences and genuine needs of women…particularly inherited traditional skills & abilities.
Key point about local public libraries….!
Thanks, David.
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Saul Alinsky was brought in by the Catholic Church to counteract effective organizing work being done at the time by the communists. Naturally, his anti-political and blinkered style was widely adopted in capitalist America.
It is painful to see Dandelion Salad being taken in by someone whose work did so
much to keep working class people ‘in their place’.
Jenny, I didn’t produce this video. Chris Hedges did. What did you think of the person being interviewed by Hedges?
We can learn from others without taking any or all of their political viewpoints. For example, those on the right can also use these organizing skills for their particular goal, whatever it may be. And the same on the left, we can use organizing skills for our particular goals.
It took me awhile to see it but I firmly believe that I’d rather be stabbed in the chest by some GOP ideologue looking into my eyes, than have some Democratic hypocrite shake my hand and then plunge a knife into my back.
What Democratic politicians lack is a set of balls to confront intentional bad acts by their own members and the egregiously bad acts of Republicans.
Thanks for commenting, Matt.
IMHO this is magnificient from start to finish. There are far too many “leftist” mic hogs who know precious little about building relationships. They push agendas based on sectarianian analysis — not inner needs of their own.
I believe this is our country”s MOST important conversation.
NEVER GIVE UP!
I hope people share this widely!
So glad you enjoyed it, Virginia.
“Don’t mourn, organize!” — Joe Hill