Going Public — This Week's Insight “On issue after issue, in agency after agency, affecting scores of communities, our organized teams of leaders learned what it was like when a focused government actually wanted to respond to focused citizens.” - Mike Gecan, Going Public: An Organizer's Guide to to Citizen Action
Going Public — This Week's Insight “We don’t see the value in practicing politics deductively….we know that we need to work inductively, through the process of individual meetings and house meetings, through the acquired habits of action and evaluation, and through the testing and retesting of ideas and strategies in cities and states, before we...Continue reading
Going Public — This Week's Insight “We were taught that merit mattered. If we just presented the facts in a full and fair manner, if we got the words right, the slogan right, the tone right, the photo-op right, then others would realize the errors of their ways and move in our direction. We learned...Continue reading
Going Public — This Week's Insight “Intelligent action, even public confrontation, is at bottom an attempt to engage and relate. Most activists fail to appreciate this. Bureaucrats seek to stifle it. Reenactors have lost sight of it. Celebrity self-promoters try to monopolize it. And terrorists long to destroy it. Our leaders study and practice it....Continue reading
Going Public — This Week's Insight “How do you think new and better schools will be built? Because they are desperately needed? Because it’s a good idea? Because the honchos at the Board of Education wake up in the morning and decide to do the right thing? Because the city is appalled by the chronic...Continue reading
Going Public — This Week's Insight "We forget or deny that the appetite to relate is fundamental, and that the willingness to relate is nearly universal. People who have ideas and drive are on every street, in every project, every workplace and school, waiting in the wings, ready to be discovered. Someone has to reach...Continue reading
If you are not yet subscribed to the Jersey City Times, I encourage you to make the investment. Because, as I detail below, we need the press on a very basic level when it comes to civics. Action 1: Jersey City Together’s public action at Christ the King R.C. Church in Greenville On April 27th,...Continue reading
Going Public — This Week's Insight "I am an organizer. Not a consultant to so-called faith-based programs. Not a facilitator. Not an advisor. Not a service provider or do-gooder. Not an ideologue. Not a political operative. Not a pundit. Not a progressive. Not an activist...I won't begin to make sense unless I follow the advice...Continue reading