6 People You Need to Start a Revolution
ttp://www.alternet.org/visions/154968/6_people_you_need_to_start_a_revolution/
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At some point, we have to decide we're going to trust each other, or this new revolution simply isn't going to work. Based on the patterns of history, there are six categories of people without whom no modern revolution has ever succeeded. And that success only happened when members of all six groups were able to put their personal misgivings aside, honor and value the irreplaceable knowledge each one brought to the table and consciously build up enough mutual trust to bring about the future vision all the parties shared.
Activists
There's no doubt about it: you need rabble-rousers, organizers, rally makers, protest leaders — the people who know how to turn masses of people out into the streets, keep them there for as long as it takes and get the rest of the country (media, politicians, the man and woman in the street) to pay attention to what they're saying. In every generation, this requires different skills, different technologies and different tactics. But without these people, you don't have a movement.
That's the piece of the equation that progressives haven't been great at for a long time and that Occupy revived for us with tremendous originality and flair. They kicked open the door, went in and dragged America to the table for a new conversation. When the activists move, history gets made.
Intellectuals
But even the best activists can't move the masses if they don't have a coherent story to tell, clear arguments to make, and game-changing policy changes to demand. Every successful movement has a compelling, factual story about why change must happen and well-reasoned theory for how that change must occur. This R&D function is what intellectuals bring to the revolution
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