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New Year Resolution (photo: alafista/flickr)
Exercise.
Lose weight.
Be nicer.
Work with not just this year but many future years and generations and centuries in mind.
Work with an international perspective as much as possible. Collaborate internationally as much as possible.
Work to turn last year’s Arab Spring into this year’s Worldwide Spring-Summer-Fall-Winter.
Help to create a worldwide movement against plutocracy and violence.
Stop thinking of defeating horrendous proposals as the only kind of “victory” possible.
Within the United States, help to advance the organization of a student loan debtors union large enough and strategic enough to both refuse payment and to build a campaign that will make education free going forward — in the United States and around the world.
Help to advance a nonviolent resistance campaign to halt foreclosures on homes, one by one, and through legislatures and courts.
Work to build a movement against the military industrial complex and for economic conversion, inclusive of libertarians and internationalists, civil libertarians, environmentalists, economists, labor, educators, humanitarians, local governments, state governments, and international allies.
Make U.S. residents aware of local struggles against U.S. bases around the world, and see fewer U.S. troops at fewer bases outside the United States and within the United States by the end of the year.
See reduced military spending in the 2013 U.S. budget.
See fewer drone strikes, fewer bombs, fewer assassinations, fewer prisoners, fewer torture victims, and less talk of a “war on terror” this year than last.
Use Iran war promotion as another opportunity to build resistance to predictable propaganda.
Develop a culture that includes our wars’ victims, not just their perpetrators, in the death and injury counts.
Help design an up-to-date anti-war movement that can effectively challenge drone wars, robotic wars, space wars, privatized mercenary wars, secret wars, and death squads. Revive the War Outlawry movement and spread the understanding that war can be abolished.
This May in Chicago build a movement to end NATO.
Repeal the 2001 and 2003 authorizations for the use of military force.
See the United States join the International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and without the current qualifications the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Develop a global campaign to pressure the ICC to apply the same standards for prosecution to criminals in the governments of wealthy nations and permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.
Help continue to build awareness and understanding of single-payer health coverage and to create it at the state level within the United States.
Help continue to build awareness and understanding of sustainable energy, and of why nuclear energy is not part of it. Work to advance this agenda at the local and state if not national or international levels.
Make central to each of these campaigns and a major campaign of its own the demand for accountability, for an end to corruption, for the equal application of the rule of law to the powerful and the weak, for transparency, for checks on political power, and for protection of the rights to speak and to protest.
Revive the practice of breaking up oversized corporations rather than bailing them out.
Work to protect and advance a free and open internet, and to otherwise build independent means of communication and journalism.
Promote the movement to amend the U.S. Constitution, both to re-articulate the old and the obvious (money is not speech, corporations are not people) and to create and enforce the rights we need but have never had.
Put in extra hours inspiring people to work on things other than elections, redirecting funding away from lesser-evil candidates and into truly good grassroots movements, developing energy behind clear-throated demands that will move the whole society rather than mealy mouthed lies that will move a few compliantly forgetful pundits.
Encourage people who refuse to work fulltime on something more important than elections to work for decent candidates at the local, district, or state level, and to back decent national candidates like Rocky Anderson or Jill Stein, with the understanding being advanced that there is nothing rational about picking the less evil candidate each time while allowing our political culture to steadily degrade in such a manner that both candidates next time can be counted on to be even worse than the more evil candidate this year.
Support the backing of candidates who meet the policy demands of organizations, rather than organizations that adjust their policy demands to meet candidates. Back candidates to the extent that they meet our demands, and never censor those demands in order to accommodate. Develop the concept of the public servant as a means of undoing the common understanding of the activist organization as the servant of the public official.
Be happy at the end of the year if I have increased the possibility of these projects succeeding someday, regardless of whether that day looks likely to occur in my lifetime.
Make the most of these upcoming events:
Until We Win, OccupyWashingtonDC.org and OccupyTogether.org
Dec. 26, 2011 – Jan 3, 2012, Occupy Iowa Caucuses
Jan. 7, 2012, 5:00-7:00 p.m. ET David Swanson chat at FireDogLake book salon.
Jan. 11, 2012, Washington, D.C., Witness Against Torture
Jan. 14, 2012, Richmond, Va., Virginia People’s Assembly
Jan. 16, 2012, MLK Day, Publication of The Military Industrial Complex at 50
Jan. 16, 2012, Occupy the Dream
Jan. 17, 2012, Washington, D.C., Occupy Congress
Jan. 20, 2012, Occupy the Courts
Jan. 23, 2012, Day of Rest and Reflection
Jan. 25, 2012, Washington, D.C., Stand With the Egyptian People.
Feb. 25-26, David Swanson speaking in Hilton Head, SC.
March 23-25, 2012, Stamford, Ct., United National Antiwar Coalition Conference
March 22-25, 2012, Washington, D.C., Split This Rock Poetry Festival
March 30, 2012 National Occupation of Washington DC (NOW DC) and on FaceBook
April 3, 2012, David Swanson at McNally Jackson Books in New York, NY.
May 18 – 20, 2012, Chicago, Challenge the NATO War Makers
July 4, 2012, Philadelphia, 99% Convention
July 14, 2012, David Swanson at Peacestock 2012 in Wisconsin.
21 Comments
That’s a most admirable list, David. Your tireless efforts are to be commended.
Unfortunately, though, it seems to me you’ve left out one of the most critical issues… perhaps the most critical issue.
I see nothing in your magnificent list about economic justice. I see nothing about building worker cooperatives to empower workers in their places of employment. I see nothing about reversing the perverse trend that has resulted in no increase in average real wages since 1973. As our economy becomes more globalized and wealth becomes more concentrated, the US will continue its decline and those charting its course will gain increased power over the affairs of state.
Implicit, in fact, in all the items on your list is the premise that, even with continued rich-get-richer governance, we, the people could organize and change government policy. We can do these things, it seems to me, only if we are able to strip the wealthy of their excessive wealth. Money buys media. It buys candidates and parties. It buys policy. It buys weapons that are all too easily turned against dissidents.
We need not, necessarily, adhere rigidly to Marxist doctrine but we do need, in the name of economic justice, to fight against capital’s domination over workers. To omit economic justice and democratic workplaces from your list imperils the list in its entirety.
To quote Abe Lincoln:
Gotta agree and disagree. I quote:
“Help to create a worldwide movement against plutocracy and violence. …
“Within the United States, help to advance the organization of a student loan debtors union large enough and strategic enough to both refuse payment and to build a campaign that will make education free going forward — in the United States and around the world.
“Help to advance a nonviolent resistance campaign to halt foreclosures on homes, one by one, and through legislatures and courts. … ”
Etc.
In other words, I don’t think I totally neglected it, but don’t think you need prove I did in order to offer a valuable addition – thanks.
Greatly appreciate your feedback, David.
I think it’s important to confront our challenges in two distinct ways. One is from a bottom-up, detailed and tangible perspective and the other is from a top-down, gestalt perspective.
My inclination, admittedly to a fault, can at times become so mired in abstraction that it drowns in analysis and perspective and never moves to action. Nevertheless, I often see well-meaning essays that attack symptoms and fail, at times, to recognize the underlying disease.
At best, perhaps, we should not approach this as an either-or fork in the road. Both paths need to be pursued simultaneously such that we do, indeed, move ourselves to action but do so by framing those actions in the proper context.
Such was the intent of my post.
Apparently, the PTB are ginning up another Pearl harbor in the Hormuz Straits by sanctioning the Iranians:
This is how wars start. Actually, they have been pushing for this for the last twenty years:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/29/us-iran-usa-gulf-idUSTRE7BS0G420111229
I think you did a great job on this post. thank you. I hope the list of events coming up are posted on your site. It is really difficult for some of us to find events and only hear about them after the fact.
That’s it?
But seriously…… great list and I’m in on the student loan debtors union. where do i sign up?
So you are going to vote for Ron Paul? Sweet!
Many of your ideas are stone cold dumb, but at least you got the one thing that matters most correct!
I’m with ya!
Happy New Year, looking forward to your Book Salon here.
The mind set of the warmongering austerity driven leadership and their fealty who pledge allegiance to their unkind insane agenda will be hard to convince.
I support your list as a great way to view the tasks ahead in the future and the present.
Happy New Year
I wish I could be optimistic, but about all I can say, in full snark mode, is “Good luck with that”. (Well, maybe the part about exercise and losing weight may succeed.)
I’m exhausted just reading all those things you got planned. Whew, now I need a drink! In all seriousness, you’re doing great work. I got a chance to say “hello” to you quickly in the first week of festivities at Freedom Plaza. You were running after a child, your child I believe. I said “David Swanson!” and you said “hi” and that was it. So, we bonded! Sort of.
Great list. But seriously…time to get real. I could say my resolution is to “see” a pot of gold sitting on every hearth in America. What concrete steps are you going to take to make some of these things happen? Little things that YOU (or anyone) can do is what it will reach some of these goals.
Disregard this post if you think I’m raining on the parade…Happy New Year to all.
Can we get Anderson/Stein on a Peace ticket with Justice platform in a FIRST Party (like We’re In LABOR)? WE ARE!
I sat down with some old car buff conservative at the Sat afternoon gathering. They sit around and drink coffee. My hair is shoulder length with a full beard. So I did not fit the persona. They wanted debt reduction more war and no safety net. 60,000,000 homeless would be A OK. I made a few points and went home and saved my breath.
Later I went back by the bay and watched the last sunset of 2011 the wind had calmed and it was a beauty. Maybe i shall catch the sunrise tomorrow.
With the 5th Fleet Harboring inside the Straits of Hormuz starting up with Iran is a strange strategy but then so was Iraq and Afghanistan.
I’m thinking I should resolve to eat 2.6 lbs of bacon with every meal.
Wait. What?
Never mind.
Interesting comment from a poster at Naked Cap.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/12/extreme-predictions-2012.html
Good luck on student loans – we screw the kids these days. Indeed the quid pro quo for A Basic Care National Medicare For All Plan with a board setting the rates for basic care as in Maryland since the 70′s so as to have a national budget has always been free medical education and forgiveness of current medical school debt. Telling kids it is wise to take on a loan that would buy a luxury home but which unlike a home loan can never be discharged in bankruptcy works only if we project incomes based on major increases in Doctor fees every year.
Meanwhile I’d add to your list a minor item – address “soil degradation” and sustainability – noting that one-third of the fish species that we commonly use as food are commercially extinct RIGHT NOW, one of six people on Earth RIGHT NOW has zero access to potable water with others spending up to 8 hours a day just locating and buying the water they need, or hauling it long distances by hand, with per the UN over one Billion people chronically malnourished, as folks in industrial or developing nations consume more resources per capita every year. We can not continue to have the population TRIPLE again in our lifetime as it did in our fathers lifetime. The GOP say they are NRA hunter friendly so they should understand this is bad wildlife management – and I prefer slower rate of births to culling the herd with wars.
Of course I have no solutions – just a “I want list”. Good luck.
I will re-iterate: in order for any re-solution to ultimately produce any re-sult, one must be re-solute and act with consistent re-solve. Our re-peated communal ability to accomplish this without re-comprimized re-interpretation has left me re-peatedly re-morseful and yearning for de-directness, re-doubling of effort and re-affirmation that all is not for naught. Perhaps more than some re-solutions we need some new-solutions (re-volutions?). Most of the old ones seem re-doubtable and re-grettable. Perhaps new thinking instead of re-thinking.
Or, in the immoral words of Sarah Palin, “How’d that hopey, changey resoutiony thingy work out for ya last year?”
Happy New Year.