Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
id758081347
Talking at a post-training dinner about noble but fizzling protests that left their target decision-makers unscathed, Jane once remarked, “‘Speaking truth to power’ — how’s that working out for you?”
✏️ It’s not enough if you’re not moving the ball down the line. You need to close the gap between the power they have and the power we have. 👓 quote empowerment 🔗 View Highlight
id758081687
Jane believed getting disciplined about setting up conversations about strategy — especially by bringing large numbers of workers into the strategy room as full participants — would massively improve the power analysis (as the collective knowledge of hundreds of workers living full lives in community know more than the smartest PhD about relationships of power across a community).
✏️ Group efforts 🔗 View Highlight
id758081459
By getting thousands of ordinary people to start thinking strategically about the power structure they live in, and to take responsibility for their part in the collective project of changing it, this was an endlessly renewed question of democratizing organizing and democratizing strategy to do both better.
✏️ An argument to involve everyone in more than just actions, but also the strategy itself. Democratize it. 🔗 View Highlight
id758081832
Could organized workers elect members to the reserved Republican seats on the Environmental Review Commission, where they could threaten to block a development permit that was important to local power brokers who would otherwise be agnostic about a strike at a community health center?
✏️ Approaching problems from different angles. If a strike won’t be effective, maybe you need to get in on the permits and ordinances and so on instead. There is no one single path. 🔗 View Highlight
id758082170
marching orders in the form of a lightning-fast synthesis: “It is very weird for the governor to appoint so many people to the city’s sewage board.” “Pay attention to who’s underwriting those highway development bonds.” “Seems like the real power lies with the Local Agency Formation Commission.” “Who was that executive vice president’s mother-in-law again?”