Author, podcaster and Mondo 2000 founder Ken Goffman – better known as R.U. Sirius – has a proposal for all of us:
A dark cloud is passing over America. We’ve witnessed, in recent years, the death of many of our constitutional rights and liberties. We’ve also seen increasingly authoritarian trends in daily life and culture.Those of us who would prefer to keep our freedoms have been relatively powerless as the events of 9/11 have created an atmosphere of fear and acquiescence. Everybody knows the litany: the virtual death of habeas corpus, the legalization of surveillance against all Americans, the lawlessness and usurpation of powers by the executive branch, ad infinitum.
It is time for all those who oppose this gathering trend towards the worst type of authoritarian governance and culture to put aside their differences and join together in a coalition that can act as a counterforce to this gathering threat to our liberties. It is time for QuestionAuthority (QA).
1: QuestionAuthority: A Coalition
QuestionAuthority is an educational and advocacy project dedicated to defending and extending personal and civil liberties and encouraging free expression. Our goal is to create a broad-based coalition of non-authoritarian groups and individuals who may currently be working in relative isolation on single issues, for political organizations and candidates, or in relatively isolated ideological cohort groups. As a cohesive force, we can do more than just stem the tide one issue “or one court case” at a time. We can exercise political and cultural influence by uniting the vast numbers of Americans who believe that the country has taken a radical turn in an authoritarian direction.
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IMO the biggest problem the progressive movement faces is the inability to get everyone on the same page.
Polls indicate that we agree on most issues and we represent a significant MAJORITY of the population. And yet, because we are divided up with mostly meaningless labels, our message and our power as a group gets diluted and manipulated.
Take a look at just the coalition partners of Win Without War:
20/20 Vision
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities
Center for International Policy (CIP)
Conference of Major Superiors of Men
Council for a Liveable World
Families USA
Feminist Majority
Fourth Freedom Forum
Global Exchange
Greenpeace
Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR)
MoveOn
NAACP
National Council of Churches
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
National Organization for Women (NOW)
NETWORK
Pax Christi USA
Peace Action Physicians for Social Responsibility
Psychologists for Social Responsibility
Rainbow/Push Coalition
Shalom Center
Sierra Club
Sojourners
Soulforce
The Tikkun Community
TrueMajority
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UUA)
Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
United Church of Christ
United Methodist Church: General Board of Church and Society
Us Foundation
USAction
Veterans for Peace
Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND)
Working Assets
Artists United to Win Without War
Musicians United to Win Without War
And there are many more groups out there that share the same basic values and goals. To succeed at changing things for the better, we need to stop fighting with each other and start supporting each other.
There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.
M Scott Peck, MD
Sheehan has an article on the disunity as it applies to the peace movement here.
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