Tag: social movement analysis
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New York’s Tenant Unions are Playing the Long Game
Tenant unions fight evictions, rent overcharges, disrepair, and landlord harassment. They also may fight for legislation, and for pro-tenant electeds. While labor unions wield the power of the shop floor, the site of production, tenant unions wield the power of the home—the site of social reproduction. In each case, their greatest leverage comes from the…
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The Death of Slavery, The First Dawn of Freedom
An organized clandestine underground network to resist the slave state was not inevitable. The path of fatalism and despair, a pale specter that still haunts many would-be rebels today, was just as likely. In those days, given the seemingly low odds of success, an overwhelming feeling of helplessness doubtless consumed many hearts. Courageous people, most…
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How Conspiracy Theories Corrode Social Movements — and What to Do About it
Experiencing a crisis does not immediately grant someone special insight into the causes of their conditions, and there is a long history of communities turning their anger on marginalized people rather than the powerful. This is endemic to fascism’s rise.
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The Nature of Militancy
In this article we will attempt to clear up some of this confusion by providing a working definition of the term militancy, and an answer to the related question of what it means to be a militant.
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Lessons from Gramsci for social movements today
He has been called one of the most original political thinkers of the 20th century. Historians point out that “If academic citations and internet references are any guide, he is more influential than Machiavelli.” And his impact on the way we think about the processes of social change has been described as “little short of electrifying.”
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When activist burnout was a problem 50 years ago, this group found a solution
Our first decision was to adopt the proposal of long-time activists George and Lillian Willoughby to put training together with cooperative living, in a center. Learning together, in a supportive community, would handle anxiety by emphasizing over and over, “It’s not all about you, it’s about us. Together we’ll learn to make a difference.”
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#FeesMustFall -South Africa’s Student Movement for Free Education
Beginning in October of 2015, South Africa’s #FeesMustFall movement has gone on to send shockwaves through a country struggling with the ever persistent issues of shrinking public budgets, mass unemployment and poverty. As a result, almost every year since, tens of thousands of students take to the streets to demand the right to free education.
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Run This Town: Building Class Power in the City
Posted originally on linchpin.ca (now defunct) By Three Hamilton Members, One Toronto Member of Common Cause The Marxist urbanist Henri Lefebvre wrote that the working class is made out of urban material. His point was that to understand the working class and to organize it, one had to look at everyday working class life from…
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