[pf] Campaign planning

by Nan Hildreth

28 December 2000 20:39 UTC

I'm struggling with my issue focuses for the next year.  I'm writing a to
do list for my activism.  I lack focus.  I'm all over the place.   

I need clarity on "How do we promote an issue without polarizing it?"
Sometimes protesting an injustice divides a community.  Dee Hock mentioned
that in Birth of the Chaordic Age.  He said somebody had gotten in and
messed up a business proposal and polarized everyone.  

My example, protests about population growth.   I am Houston Sierra
Population/Sustainability Chair.  Alas, after 30 years of activism, some of
my peers frame the issue as "too many people" or "overpopulation".   Ugh!
Disputant demogogues take advantage of our faults.  

Hmmm.  We all know that a campaign message has to be FOR something.  We
protest an injustice and also offer a concrete step toward the solution.
A no brainer. 

I think we on Positive Futures agree that citizens are more clear about the
horrible possibilities in our future than a vision of the solutions.
We're not SURE what positive future we could create.  We'll NEVER be sure,
instead we'll muddle through. 

One objective of a campaign is to develop our people.  To recruit new
people, to teach them skills like how to do a press release and what
leadership is about, to weave alliances with other groups (that's just
making friends and gaining trust).   

So a great campaign should have a specific and winnable objective.  It
should not drag out for decades,  but result in a win in a year or two.
It's immediate goal should not be World Peace or ending corporate
globalism.  Instead, it should be broken up into intermediate steps. 

Hmmm and many distractions later.  Here's my answer.  Chose an issue not
because it is righteous, that is, Almighty Science is on my side (or
Almighty God), but by its ability to build common ground and alliances.  If
we can agree on anything, we can agree on everything.   Jim Wallis calls
this "Get out of the house." 

Comments? 


Nan Hildreth, Houston  713-864-7108  nan.hildreth@pdq.net

"we almost all practice idolatry in the modern world because the God we're
worshiping in church on Sunday morning is not the one we believe in our
hearts."  preacher and writer Matthew Fox quoted in Cultural Creatives: How
50 Million People Are Changing the World www.culturalcreatives.org

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