Strategize!

The section provides articles on strategy to assist you in making your campaigns more effective. They include case studies of social movements and information about the current resistance environment. Visit the Resources Page for links to organizations that provide both online and in-person training on strategy and tools for designing and evaluating your campaigns and actions.

Is Public, Quality Healthcare Possible In The United States?

December 18, 2024 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. Strategize! Brian Thompson, health insurance industry, Medicare for all, single-payer healthcare, United States, UnitedHealthcare, universal healthcare

People in the US pay billions towards the health insurance industry, yet many in the healthcare field believe that this industry does little to ensure quality care to patients. While US healthcare spending is by far the highest of any country in the world, the country has the lowest life expectancy among other nations with a similar GDP. In recent weeks, the rage against the for-profit healthcare industry in the United States has intensified. The reality faced by many in the US, of avoiding seeking medical care in an emergency for fear of costs, or having health insurance claims repeatedly denied despite paying thousands to private insurers, has become too much to bear.

The Lessons L.A.’s Anti-Olympics Organizers Are Taking From Paris

December 17, 2024 Phineas Rueckert, Next City. Strategize! Califonia, Displacement, Homelessness, Los Angeles, Olympics, Paris

On Nov. 3, a group of young people armed with banners began to prepare a protest. It was just two days before the U.S. election, but these activists weren’t at the White House or Trump Tower. Instead, they made their way to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. As evening fell, the activists beamed a powerful laser onto the iron grills of the tower. “Olympics Legacy: 20,000 Evictions,” the message read. This action was the grand finale of The Other Side of the Medal, a coalition of Parisian activists shedding light – in this case, literally – on how the Olympic Games can harm host cities through temporary displacement of rough sleepers, heavy policing of low-income communities, greenwashing and other side effects.

Multisolving: Creating Systems Change In A Fractured World

December 16, 2024 Elizabeth Sawin, Resilience. Strategize! Cooperation, Multisolving, Permaculture, Transformation

"Some years ago, my colleagues and I began studying interventions that solve multiple problems at the same time. We found them everywhere, at both neighborhood and national scales and in every country we looked. We found them across sectors: in urban planning, health, agriculture, forestry, energy, transportation, and disaster management. On the surface, these projects were all quite different, and the people undertaking them certainly didn’t think of themselves as using any special methodology. Still, we found that the projects had much in common with each other." It would be helpful, we thought, to find a word that would categorize these diverse projects. It seemed to us that they had much to learn from each other and much to teach the world. We couldn’t find any word in use that quite captured these approaches and their potential impacts. So, we began to use the word multisolving.

University Of Toronto Students Score A Win For The Climate

December 14, 2024 Nick Engelfried, Waging Nonviolence. Strategize! climate crisis, Divestment, Fossil Fuels, Higher Education, Student Activism, Toronto, Victory

When the University of Toronto’s School of the Environment announced in October that it will no longer accept donations from the fossil fuel industry, the news sent waves through the growing movement to get coal, oil and gas companies off campuses. Among other things, that means banning fossil fuel corporations from financing academic research. “This victory shows students have the ability to enact institutional change,” said Erin Mackey, a leader of the group Climate Justice UofT, which pushed for the fossil fuel money ban. “That’s especially important when, at many universities, students who want to make change are having the door slammed in their faces.”

Behind UnitedHealthcare’s CEO Is A Larger System Of Corporate Rule

December 13, 2024 Derek Seidman, Truthout. Educate!, Strategize! Corporatism, health, Health Insurance, Profiteers, United Healthcare

The killing of UnitedHealthcare’s Brian Thompson — a brazen assassination of a wealthy CEO in the streets of midtown Manhattan — shocked the United States. But the tsunami of mass anger unleashed against a hated for-profit health care system has so far defined the story in the news. The killing sparked a deluge of personal testimonies of horrifying experiences with health insurance corporations. Dark humor around the shooting continues to flood social media. Millions of people in the U.S. viscerally hate health insurance corporations, and see these companies and their CEOs as symbols of the worst kind of corporate greed.

The Conflicted Transformation Of CAW-Unifor, A Canadian Union

December 13, 2024 Herman Rosenfeld, The Bullet. Strategize! Canada, Democracy, UAW, Unions

Recent commentaries on the political trajectory of the major private sector union in Canada, CAW-Unifor, have often had a rather simplistic and problematic perspective. That the CAW-Unifor (the latter being the new name and re-foundation of the union in 2013) drifted from a left, struggle-oriented approach, summarized in the slogan “Fighting back makes a difference,” toward a more collaborative centrist and Gomperist political approach, as the union distanced itself and ultimately moved away from the New Democratic Party (NDP).

The Black South’s Revolutionary Anti-Fascist Tradition

December 13, 2024 Julian Rose, Scalawag Magazine. Strategize! #StopCopCity, Atlanta, Black Liberation, Fascism, The South

The Black South has a rich history of antifascist organizing and militant strategy through direct struggle and conflict with fascistic forces. If we are going to study and promote an organizing lineage, it is this one that we should look to. What would it look like for our movement's rallying cry to evolve from "My ancestors died for the right to vote" to "My ancestors died fighting fascism"? This move does not intend to erase nor obscure historic political struggles of The South that center voting; such a reduction is counter-insurgency.

Interview With Historic Palestinian Activist Leila Khaled: ‘Surrender Or Fight’

December 12, 2024 Lorenzo Santiago, Orinoco Tribune. Strategize! Gaza, History, Israel, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Venezuela

Leila Khaled is a historic activist for the liberation of the Palestinian people. At 80 years old, she continues to be active in promoting international collaboration with political organizations, popular movements and governments to denounce Israeli violence and broaden the struggle for the formation of the Palestinian state. Venezuela is one of the countries that echoes this struggle the most. The defense of the Palestinian people has been, since Hugo Chávez, one of the pillars of Venezuelan foreign policy. In the last week of November, Khaled was in Caracas to participate in the International Conference of Solidarity with Palestine.

No Tears For Slain CEO: Compassion ‘Out Of Network’

December 11, 2024 Workers' World. Strategize! Assassination, Brian Thompson, Health Care, UnitedHealthcare

Normally when someone is shot dead, human beings feel sad for the victim. But in the case of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, killed before dawn on the streets of Manhattan on Dec. 4, a large majority of public comments are that empathy is “out of network.” For example, Anthony Zenkus, a lecturer at the Columbia School of Social Work, posted on X: “Today, we mourn the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, gunned down … wait, I’m sorry — today we mourn the deaths of the 68,000 Americans who needlessly die each year so that insurance company execs like Brian Thompson can become multimillionaires.”

Ni Una Menos Is ‘Building A New Generation Of Militancy’

December 10, 2024 Marta Facchini Irupé Tentorio, il manifesto global. Strategize! Argentina, Economic insecurity, Feminism, Inequality, Javier Milei, Ni Una Menos, Violence

The rise of Ni Una Menos marks a before and after in the history of Argentine. The movement against sexist violence, established in 2015, changed the history of Argentine feminism and showed the rise of the transfeminist masses as a political subject. In nearly 10 years of struggle, the movement shone a spotlight on all forms of violence against women and dissident subjectivities through protesters’ bodies occupying the streets, marching and organizing assemblies in working-class neighborhoods and universities. It has named femicides in plain language and made them impossible to sweep under the rug.

Sabotage As A Tool Of Solidarity

December 6, 2024 Shaun Richman, In These Times. Strategize! History, Sabotage, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

Striking waiters spent a week in January 1913 throwing fistfuls of asafetida in the fancy dining rooms of New York City hotels. The spice, commonly used a pinchful at a time in Indian cuisine to replace entire onions, has a powerfully fetid odor and cleared most dining rooms (save for a few customers, the New-York Tribune joked, who were “suffering from severe colds”). The workers were on strike since New Year’s Eve – their second city-wide walkout in six months – and the playful act of sabotage raised workers’ spirits and became a frequent laugh line at union rallies.

Anti-Imperialism And The Tricontinental Vocation

December 4, 2024 Hanna Eid, Black Agenda Report. Strategize! Alliance of Sahel States (AES), Anti-Imperialism, Axis of Resistance, History, Operation Al Aqsa Flood, Palestine, Tricontinentalism

Radical economist Samir Amin understood well that revolutionary offensives against the imperialism of the triad (USA, EU, and Japan) will come from the tricontinental sphere of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The peripheries of the world-system are where the contradictions of capitalist-imperialism are the most heightened, and where the fissures can be exploited. According to Amin, we must analyze social struggles at three levels: the popular classes, nations, and states. This essay seeks to validate Amin’s argument by highlighting the anti-imperialist victories in the tricontinental sphere, while also providing a dose of hope and vitality against the defeatist attitude present in much of the US left since the victory of Trump, the Zionist massacres across West Asia, and the renewed attempts by imperialism to dismantle anti-systemic movements and States.

How Can US And Mexican Workers Build Cross-Border Solidarity?

December 3, 2024 Henry Salazar and David Bacon, Labor Notes. Strategize! Canada, International Solidarity, Mexico, Unions, United States, Worker Rights and Jobs

Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was passed in 1993, the economies of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico have become increasingly integrated. Workers in all three countries have suffered as corporations have used trade rules to maximize profits, push down wages and benefits, and manage the flow of people displaced by these rules. Unions in all three countries have faced a basic question: Can they win the battles they face today without joining forces? That question has only become more urgent under the agreement that replaced NAFTA, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA, or T-MEC in Spanish). In February 2024 the UCLA Labor Center, the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center, and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation brought together union and workplace activists from the three countries to talk about labor solidarity in their industries.

The Hidden Story Of Britain’s Anti-Apartheid Militants

December 2, 2024 Marcus Barnett, Jacobin. Strategize! Apartheid, Militancy, Solidarity, South Africa, United Kingdom (UK)

At an East London cinema last summer, several dozen people in their late sixties and early seventies took to the stage. After being beckoned forwards by the compere, the veteran South African revolutionary Ronnie Kasrils, the shying group of mostly retirees received repeated standing ovations from loved ones, politicians, and diplomats filling out the private screening. Afterward, they chatted at the cinema bar and signed pamphlets and books, while their proud children and grandchildren took selfies with the actors who had portrayed their family members in the film they had just enjoyed.

Our World Is Not For Sale: 25 Years Of Fighting The WTO

December 1, 2024 David Solnit and Deborah James, Common Dreams. Strategize! Battle for Seattle, Labor Movement, Neoliberalism, Seattle, Trade, WTO

25 years ago, for the six months leading up to the World Trade Organization (WTO) summit in Seattle in 1999, I met Deborah in organizing meetings to prepare. Today, while many of us continue our efforts for a better world in many different places and movements, for 25 years Deborah has remained in constant combat with the WTO, together with global movements as part of the Our World is Not for Sale network. I asked if they could share insights on the impacts of the Seattle WTO confrontation and the current threat of the WTO–including obstruction of the needed transition off fossil fuels and the growing domination of Big Tech.

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