On Organizing

Dear Neighbor, 

Though I post this today, I am struck that I wrote this over six years ago, midway through the first Drumpf administration, February 19, 2019, to be exact. "Why it's important to note the original writing—is because this could have been written yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. The Biden administration after winning election in 2020, and after party stalwarts had shut down Bernie Sanders yet again, was shielded by the COVID pandemic from the continued demands for justice from unlikely allies that had been emerging. With U.S. citizens, children, being deported, among many other devastating developments every day, it is, to me, the same as it ever was. But, this hope, also, is the same as it ever was, even as I find myself unable to find the strength, the energy, the anger to show up on the most recent picket lines. That's my body's story, and here I am going to stick to my heart and mind.  

February 19, 2019

Cesar Chavez via his grandson, Alex Chavez. "The quote below is from him, just updated words to make it more inclusive: 

“The picket line is the best place to train organizers. One day on the picket line is where a person makes their commitment. The longer on the picket line, the stronger the commitment. A lot of workers think they make their commitment by walking off the job when nobody sees them. But you get a worker to walk off the field when his boss is watching and, in front of the other workers, throw down their tools and march right to the picket line, that is the worker who makes our strike. The picket line is a beautiful thing because it makes a worker more human.”

How do we translate this to marches on the streets? How do we make the beautiful thing which makes us all human have that kind of power? Community organizing vs worker organizing. Is the principle the same? And if so, what's the similar process?

For me, the picket line, started in 2001. I saw anti-war picket lines fully formed in 2003, and I refused to join a line until 2006. But my line was smaller because I wasn't anti-war, I was pro-peace. The difference was being anti-company versus pro good job. Maybe.

Theoretically, I dropped my patriotism, unconscious war machine and walked off the flag, where everyone could see. There was no grand peace strike. A few folks saw me. I didn't even register a blip on the scale of things. But I did find some people doing the same, some bigger and better, others small and consciously and with every fiber of their being.

I have been organizing ever since.

Anyway, I did it for Peace. I walk the picket line most days. I am more human because of it.
I am deeply committed because I believe that is the core thing. I want to walk in peace, live in peace. Just peace. I want all of that for all of us. I want the good job.

I pay my dues, literally and figuratively. I negotiate where I can, where they let me in the room, and often, when they don't. I do my small part, knowing I have peace brothers and sisters doing their part, as well.

I go to marches to organize.

In essence, those marches are the picket line. But they are so brief. And convenient. On a Saturday. After breakfast. With friends. Bottles of water. Lunch or dinner afterwards. For the most part, going home to a comfortable bed and a refrigerator and cupboards with food. Safe zones of outrage. With no clear demands. No unified course of action to fix the root causes of whatever the thing is.

There was a reason they dismantled those Occupy camps. It was picket line. It was getting longer. The commitment was getting deeper.

And here we are again.

It should not take desperation, hunger, extreme discomfort, fear and nor a tyrant, for folks to see the injustice of the bad job we have, as a whole, and realize the power of numbers. But it does. That has to stop.

While the second World War was still being waged, Franklin D. Roosevelt said, 

"It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure." 

I would extend that mission to the world. Because we are too intertwined to think and act otherwise.

Yes, folks are marching now. The daily assaults on decency is getting people to march. But it's reacting to a one-off thing day-to-day, moment-to-moment. Reacting keeps us off balance, constantly putting out fires, moving from one thing to another, but unable to stop any of the harms. This is purposeful.

We are scrambling and occupied by issue after issue. Spread thin as seemingly disparate and unconnected constituencies. So many do not notice the way the issues are tied together inextricably because it's the first time they've seen the thing - the injustice, the inhumanity, the outrageous assaults on certain groups of people. They've been insulated. Now they're insulted. Some feel guilty they never saw it before. Some are self-righteous and confident that now that they're here, the thing will be solved. (I speak from humbling experience.)

What we need is unity. And long picket lines. Unending. Through hot summer days, snowy winter nights, and everything in between. We need stewards who come from and return to the line after they have negotiated with the bosses. Or gotten the bosses fired and replace with those who will negotiate in good faith and real results.

Cesar Chavez knew the workers needed a union. We need that now.

The bosses don't want us to know our power. They don't want us to know our demands can be met. They don't want us to know our demands are just. They don't want us to believe that lasting peace is inevitable. 

It is. But it's the inevitability of a harvest being reaped from what we sow, what we march for, what we unite about, and what we demand with our bodies, our minds, and, most of all, our hearts. 

I will see you on the metaphoric and literal, picket line.