Grassroots

Radical Municipalism Is Paving The Way For Direct Democracy In LA

August 24, 2024 Justin A. Davis, Waging Nonviolence. Organize! California, Class Struggle, Democracy, Grassroots, Homelessness, Housing, Los Angeles, Municipalism

Home to almost 10 million residents in 2022, Los Angeles County can sometimes seem like a vast political paradox. Known as a quintessential example of urban sprawl, it is also the most overcrowded county in America. Over the past 20 years, robust grassroots organizing built multiracial movements for organized labor, immigrant rights and housing justice while electing multiple self-identified leftists to L.A. City Council. At the same time, brutal overpolicing, ethics scandals and rising gentrification have been constant challenges for organizers and activists there. This summer, L.A.’s controversial efforts to reduce homelessness have reentered the national spotlight.

Will The Revolution Be Funded?

June 15, 2024 Zac Chapman and Nairuti Shastry, Portside. Strategize! Grassroots, New Economy, Nonprofits, Philanthropy

In April 2022, grassroots organization Mijente unveiled a political framework in which it advocated for a threefold strategy of working within, without, and against the state to achieve its political goals. This framing was inspired by a movement group in Chile, the Movimiento de Pobladores en Lucha. We propose a similar path: building strategic alignment across groups working within, without, and against philanthropy. We aim to share the historical and present-day value of diverse approaches to fundraising that include but are in no way limited to philanthropic investment. Moreover, we seek to show how aligning work within, without, and against philanthropy can catalyze power building on the Left.

Taking Bottom-Up Action Changes The Balance Of Power

May 11, 2024 Ellen David Friedman, Labor Notes. Strategize! Grassroots, Negotiations, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Consider two different ways a union can take action to solve problems. A top-down approach may solve the immediate workplace problem, but it may not change the balance of power. Engaging as many members as possible in a bottom-up approach may accomplish both goals. For example, consider the case at right where a boss unilaterally announces an unpopular new schedule, and how things might play out depending which approach you take, top-down vs. bottom-up. In the first week, the approach on the left might appear more forceful—immediate action is taken! But a request to bargain is an action that the boss knows how to ignore. The longer it drags on, the more disaffected the members become.

Grassroots Organizing In Red States Is At The Heart Of Abolitionist Struggle

September 11, 2023 Meghan Krausch, Truthout. Organize! Abolition, Conservatives, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Grassroots

In Republican-controlled regions across the country, people are engaged in abolitionist organizing: Even though conditions vary, people are organizing for freedom virtually everywhere. This is nothing new. The South, for example, has been a site for abolitionist organizing for centuries, and it continues to be one, despite the attacks on long-settled civil rights being organized by Republican supermajorities in statehouses. Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson is the first Black woman to codirect the Highlander Research and Education Center, a century-old nexus for abolitionist and labor organizing in Tennessee and beyond. She is also a cofounder of the Movement for Black Lives.

‘It’s All Top-Down’: Activists Hammer BRICS On Human Rights, Environment

August 26, 2023 Naledi Sikhakhane, Daily Maverick. Resist! BRICS, Environment, Grassroots, Human Rights

Speakers at civil society’s BRICS-from-below dialogues, which preceded a protest march against wars, human rights violations, inequality and climate change, highlighted problematic methods of governance that suppress working-class people. From India violating human rights in Kashmir and Russia invading Ukraine, to China funding fossil fuel projects across Africa, the BRICS bloc leaves activists with much to be desired. They suggest that the bloc upholds the current world order instead of creating a new citizen-friendly world order. Makhadzi Tshivuwa is an heir to the land where the Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone (MMSEZ) is being developed.

Why Grassroots Activists Are Turning To The Wonky World Of Monetary Policy To Fight For Economic Justice

November 2, 2022 Pamela Haines, Waging Nonviolence. Create! Finance and the Economy, Grassroots, Ohio, Public Banking

Ohio - How many people would like to cut the cost of local mass transit improvements in half, divert local tax dollars from big bank use to supporting low-income housing at home, see one-time federal relief packages for struggling families continue? All that and much more becomes possible without costing taxpayers a dime, if we choose a more efficient and democratic system for handling money than our current one, which systematically benefits the rich at the expense of the poor. To learn how, we’ll need to explore a different “plumbing system” for handling our money supply. In a groundbreaking move in this direction, a League of Women Voters group has been doing exactly that, calling us to consider how something we take for granted — the money supply — can be reinvented in a way that promotes democracy, justice and the planet.

The Amazon Labor Union Victory – Lessons For All Of Labor

April 19, 2022 Ed Grystar, Popular Resistance. Strategize! Amazon, Grassroots, Labor Unions

In one of the most remarkable labor organizing victories in decades, the Amazon workers in Staten Island voted to unionize with the independent Amazon Labor Union (ALU). This is the first organizing victory for any union at any of Amazon’s 110 warehouses across the USA, the nation’s second largest employer with over a million employees. This was a real bottom-up organizing effort potentially highlighting an effective way forward for the rest of labor – a victory that gives momentum to workers not only in the other Amazon warehouses but in all industries. It demonstrates how and why rank and file workers are the essential elements of not only a successful organizing drive but critical to a revitalized labor movement based on struggle.

In Memoriam Of Hyun Lee

March 9, 2022 Women Cross DMZ. Educate! Activist, Grassroots, Korea, Obituary

Hyun was a tireless advocate for peace on the Korean Peninsula. Every generation has its leaders who build powerful movements; she was among the giants of our time. Beginning in 2018, Hyun served as the U.S. National Organizer and then the Campaign Strategist for Women Cross DMZ and our Korea Peace Now! campaign. Her ability to move an organizing and advocacy agenda was instrumental to building the Korea Peace Now! Grassroots Network, which consists of more than a dozen chapters across the country. This multi-generational, grassroots, people-powered movement that Hyun helped create is what led to the first Congressional resolution calling for an end to the Korean War with a peace agreement.

Bezos’ Earth Fund Is An Unnatural Disaster

December 17, 2020 Climate Justice Alliance. Educate! climate crisis, Climate Justice, Grassroots, Philanthropy

Now is the time for undeniably powerful grassroots leadership. If we’ve learned anything this year from the brilliant, brave, bold, and beautiful Black, Brown, Indigenous and other frontline communities and workers fighting inequitable impacts of pandemics, pollution, poverty, climate disaster and emboldened racism, it’s that real change happens at the grassroots. Yet, in a year when frontline leadership is clearly critical, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (through his newly launched Earth Fund) has doubled down on philanthropy’s inequitable modus operandi by funneling hundreds of millions into outdated, ineffective, top-down strategies that attempt to erase the frontlines.

Leadership Begins At The Bottom

September 26, 2020 Ron Kipling Williams. Educate! Activism, Baltimore, Grassroots, Leadership

Let’s be clear. A title does not make you a leader. Look at Capitol Hill. Leadership begins in your home. You are the executive, manager, administrator, foot soldier, all wrapped up in one. No President of the United States is responsible for a booming economy. The people are. People make businesses, employ people, produce products and services, and in turn support communities. This ripple effectuates the nation. The President is the ambassador of the nation, and is the moral and ethical leader therein. The true change makers are the boots on the ground that makes the nation work.

Symbiosis: A New North American Grassroots Political Network

March 2, 2019 By Symbiosis, ROAR Magazine Organize! Community organizing, Grassroots, Symbiosis

On January 7, Symbiosis released a launch statement announcing the Congress in Detroit from September 18-22 of this year., initially signed by 14 organizations. “Over the course of the past year,” it stated, “our organizations have been strengthening our relationships with one another, learning from each other, generating shared resources, and honing a common vision of how to create together the genuinely democratic world that we need.” Beyond the shared vision of radical democracy and egalitarianism, what unites these groups is a common political strategy, of building institutions of popular power from below to challenge and replace the governing institutions of capitalist society. This approach is known as “dual power.”

New North American Political Network Emerges From The Grassroots

January 9, 2019 By Symbiosis, Popular Resistance Organize! Confederation, Grassroots

Symbiosis, an expanding network of revolutionary organizers and local initiatives, is assembling a confederation of democratic community institutions across North America. This project has been gathering support over the past year and will be launched at a continental congress in Detroit from September 18-22 of this year. The emerging network consists of diverse groups and member organizations, from Cooperation Jackson in Mississippi to Olympia Assembly in Washington, who are participating out of a recognition of the need to carry the movement for radical democracy beyond the local level.

The Palestinian People Are As Unified As Hamas And Fatah Are Obsolete

November 20, 2018 Miko Peled, Mintpressnews.com Resist! Class Struggle, Grassroots, Israel, Nationalism, Palestine

JERUSALEM, PALESTINE – Among the myths that cover the reality in Palestine is the one that says Palestinians have no leadership, no unified message, and that the Hamas-Fatah divide represents the entire political reality in Palestine. There is also a myth that claims that the Palestinians of 1948, who carry Israeli citizenship, are somehow not connected to the larger Palestinian issue. Over a ten-day journey in Palestine, it becomes crystal clear that these claims are unfounded. There is, in fact, a solid, grassroots leadership in Palestine. From Al-Jalil in the north to the Naqab in the south, and from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, Palestinians on the ground are well aware that the Hamas-Fatah politics have little to do with them.

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