2014 Is the Year for a People Powered Movement

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http://www.alternet.org/activism/tasks-movement-2014



In our last article, “ Major Social Transformation Is a Lot Closer than You May Realize,” we defined where today’s social-political movement is within the eight stages of successful movements. We have passed the “Take-Off Stage” (Stage 4), gotten through the Perception of Failure (Stage 5) and are in the phase of “Building Majority Support” (Stage 6) which is the last stage before Victory. In this article we delve deeper into the tasks of the movement in this stage and apply those tasks to current issues faced today.

In this stage, which can take many years , the primary task of the people-powered social movement is to build national consensus through broad and deep grassroots organizing. The power holders are currently in a crisis management mode. They continue to defend their policies while shifting positions and taking countermeasures to undermine people power. During this stage public opinion is shifting, majorities oppose the current situation and are beginning to see that new alternative solutions must be put in place. People-powered activists are in a battle with the power holders for the hearts and minds of super-majorities of the people.

We ended our last article with a key point that we need to highlight here: our goal is to build a mass movement, which has the support of super-majorities of Americans and has mobilized up to 3.5 percent of the population. Therefore , the target of our protests is not the government or a corporation, the target is the people: to educate and mobilize them. We want to show that there is an effective movement speaking to the people’s concerns and putting forth views that they support. We protest the power holders to expose their actions but do not expect them to be capable of addressing our concerns adequately in this stage.

Build unity around the values of the movement

The foundation of the current phase is massive public education and building support in all segments of the population for the values of the movement. This is done through grassroots organizing involving constant outreach to friends, neighbors and family – the local community. In these conversations, people gain a greater understanding of how the problems of the present system affect them; how the present system violates their values and principles; and how it is in their own self-interest to do something about it.