Finding Hope in Hard Times

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I don’t believe for a minute that Americans care less about injustice or environmental devastation today. But people’s lives have grown so busy that it’s a struggle now to stay well-informed on foreign affairs and economic policy, not to mention finding the time to write Congress, join a demonstration, or organize an action group. One response has been “activism-in-a-hurry” efforts like e-mail petitions and political groups you participate in simply by writing a check. But these are no substitute for the long years of organizing that ignited the labor, civil rights, peace, environmental, gay rights, and women’s movements.

Protests, while still important, don’t pack as much punch as in the 1960s. Camera crews and reporters are sparse at rallies these days, which means activists must scramble to find new ways to reach the broader public. My family joined 10 thousand other Minnesotans last fall to march on the state capitol in opposition to war in Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of people did the same in Washington, San Francisco, and other cities around the world. But the media paid scant attention to it all. If a couple demonstrators, however, had broken away from the crowd and smashed store windows or overturned police cars or stripped naked and howled four-letter words, you can bet that would have been big news. But teenagers, old people, families, war veterans, union members, and church delegations gathering peaceably to make their voices heard was not deemed particularly newsworthy.

So what do we do now? You can blame the media, blame the immense power that corporations wield over American society, or blame activists themselves for insufficient creativity. Whatever your conclusions (and I think a case can be made for all three of the above), it’s clear that something’s got to change in how we think about politics before we’ll see much progress toward peace, ecological sustainability, or economic justice.

The time is ripe for reinventing progressive politics to meet the new conditions of a new century. That’s why we’ve filled our cover story with bright ideas about how to create social change in your community and across the nation. From longtime activist Van Jones’ insight that the left must learn to take the long view, to our own co-publisher Julie Ristau’s advice on how to talk to people who don’t agree with you, we hope this issue will fire you up to keep working toward the kind of future you want to see—and fortify you with practical advice on how to achieve it.

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