Building a Better Strategy for the Peace Movement

1. Building a Better Strategy for the Peace Movement by Peter Bergel Oregon PeaceWorks

2. What’s the Current Strategy? We depend largely on 3 tactics: • Education • Demonstrations • Lobbying/Electoral Work Let’s take an honest look at these tactics. 2

3. The Education Tactic This is where our movement shines. • We are good at assembling the facts, getting them out, and overcoming establishment biases. • We are often able to change conventional wisdom about foreign policy within a couple of years, as the current public attitude toward Afghanistan shows. • Yet we rarely manage to transform public support into access to the levers of power. 3

4. The Demonstration Tactic Once an enormously effective tactic, demonstrations and protests now: • Draw relatively few people, • Are largely ignored by the media so few people know they are taking place, • Are frequently herded into so-called “free speech zones” where they are not seen, • Therefore do not put our issues on the map. 4

5. The Lobbying Tactic This tactic, as we currently use it, pits our weakness against our adversaries’ strength. • We can never hope to match their money. • We can never hope to match their army of paid lobbyists. • Without the help of the media, we have little clout with most elected officials. 5

6. Other Strategic Problems • We are not, and really have never been, a peace movement. We are almost exclusively an anti-war movement. • Almost everything we devote major resources to is negative – stop a war, a weapons system, racism, nuclear weapons, etc., but what are we for? We promote no comprehensive vision. • We place little emphasis on pointing out the flaws in the whole war system. • We have not been effective in stopping wars once they get rolling and we don’t plan far enough in advance to get ahead of the curve. 6

7. More Strategic Problems • We criticize the military for pouring resources into failed strategies, yet we are doing the same thing. • Most of our tactics are the same ones we’ve used for 50 years. Our opponents have learned to neutralize them. • As a movement, we are not taking advantage of new technologies like Facebook and Twitter well or at all. 7

8. How Can We Develop a Better Strategy? • Strategy is a plan for getting from where we are to where we want to go. • This implies that we know where we want to go. • However, the peace movement – indeed, the entire progressive movement – has no agreed-upon vision of what peace would look like if it were to “break out.” • Thus, a comprehensive peace vision is where we need to start. 8

9. How Can We Develop a Comprehensive Peace Vision? • Start thinking “outside the box.” Don’t be limited by the way we did it before. • Resist impatience and the mentality of crisis. Doing the visioning, developing a new strategy and implementing it will take time. 10

10. The Goal: Sustainable World Community • We want to work together, even as we work ondifferent issues.Our strength is in our diversity! • Thus we need to see how all our issues promote a common vision that is defined and agreed upon. • We need unity of vision, not unity of action. • A common vision can provide the basis for worldwide cooperation with each group still doing its own strategizing. 11

11. Let’s do some visioneering here and now. If peace broke out, what would it look like? 12

12. Q: If peace broke out, what would it look like? • Homes & dwellings • Energy sources and distribution • Farms and food distribution • Transportation and shipping • Environmental protection • Conflict resolution – local, regional, global • Security without war • Learning and teaching • Playing and enjoying life • Business and economics • Medical care/wellness/healthy lifestyles • Government • Justice/crime/human rights/civil liberties • Media • Family, Spiritual 13

13. Imagine . . . If a majority of groups working to create a better world did two things: • Agreed to a comprehensive common vision of the world we want to create and live in and used that vision to develop its own strategy. • Agreed to lift up the common vision every time they did anything public. 14

14. Transformation! • The vision would be bubbling up from every corner of the country. • The general public would soon be seeing a unity they had no idea existed. • Many more would want to get involved. • A sense that YES, WE CAN change the world might take hold. • Dare we risk it? • What have we got to lose? 15

15. I have GREAT news!

16. This visioning work has already been done! It’s called The Earth Charter

17. And I think you’re going to LIKE IT!

18. The Earth Charter: • Comprehensive • Well thought out • Inclusive • Global in scope • Already underway • Connected to the United Nations Look at your copy now

19. Earth Charter Content Preamble • Earth, Our Home • The Global Situation • The Challenges Ahead • Universal Responsibility

20. Earth Charter Content Principles • Respect and care for the community of life • Ecological integrity • Social and economic justice • Democracy, nonviolence, and peace

21. How You Can Participate ... in the Earth Charter Initiative 1. Disseminate the Earth Charter and raise awareness about it among your friends and in your local community.

22. How You Can Participate 2. Endorse the Earth Charter and encourage the organizations to which you belong and your local and national governments to use and endorse the Earth Charter. ... in the Earth Charter Initiative

23. How You Can Participate 3. Start an Earth Charter study group and explore how to use the Earth Charter and apply its principles in your home, work place, and local community. ... in the Earth Charter Initiative

24. How You Can Participate 4. Collaborate with Earth Charter Partners and Affiliates and with other organizations that have endorsed the Earth Charter in your region. ... in the Earth Charter Initiative

25. How You Can Participate 5. Make financial contributions or provide other resources and needed services in support of Earth Charter International and other Earth Charter projects. ... in the Earth Charter Initiative

26. How You Can Participate 6. Consult and follow the Action Guidelines for Decentralized Expansion of the Earth Charter Initiative, which may be found on the Earth Charter website. ... in the Earth Charter Initiative www.earthcharterinaction.org

27. Contact Oregon PeaceWorks Oregon PeaceWorks 104 Commercial St. NE Salem, OR 97301 info@oregonpeaceworks.org 503-585-2767; Fax: 503-588-0088 www.oregonpeaceworks.org To join the Virtual Think Tank, visit www.groups.google.com/group/peace-visioning-think-tank 33