From: Dwayne Monroe
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Even so, if as Monbiot says, we present our own program(s) for addressing problems such as fair employment, access to medical care, global warming and so on greater possibilities for political power will become obvious.
This comes from effective movement activity but also from how we interact with people one to one.
I’ve changed the narrative I use when speaking with folks who don’t share my political outlook but are willing to debate – whereas before, as a youngster, I would launch into a listing of American crimes, now I simply state the bare facts: the US is exceptional only in that it’s exceptionally powerful (to borrow Gary Younge’s words). Its actions are garden-variety great power politics on an unexampled scale. Whatever domestic liberties we enjoy are the fruit of often-bloody effort and not gifts from a deity or benevolent elites. The fact the company you work so hard to build may toss you out on your ass at the merest sign of trouble with profitability (or, just to satisfy the whims of Wall Street) should tell you all you need to know about Capitalism and who your true enemies are.
And so on.
I find this to be a much more effective debating (and, in an unexpected way, recruiting) tool than lazy reliance on lefty clichés.
There’s another way to describe this – by relating my political ideology directly to the concerns of the people I’m talking to and avoiding the abstract unless absolutely required more gets done.
The implications for mass political action built upon this simple idea are obvious.
^^^^^^
Compliments on your approach wherein you point out to fellow workers that they have no employment human rights as they should. However, to give credit where credit is due, such an approach _is_ a cliched, classsical , left approach in my experience. We were always discouraged from discussing abstractions, but rather the issues related to the concrete , self-interest of workers.
In one "legendary" factory organizing struggle, the key was so concrete as to be a demand for daily warm water for tea.
Charles