“For the last time, I am ordering you to depart the grounds of Griffiss Air Force Base or you will be subject to arrest.” On a crisp spring morning in 1984, I came to realize – in a hands-on, hand-cuffed kind of way – that I was not just a participant in conflict; I was also its student. The tension in the air that day was as taut and clear as the bright blue line demarcating the base.
We are sometimes told that the only way to change society is to change its members individually. But this is not only unduly pessimistic; it involves a disregard of man’s nature as a social being and what is implied by our membership one of another.
Most people know several different ways for drawing a large group of people to a decision. I’ve experienced many: Robert’s Rules, the Lakota talking circle, the old-fashioned town-hall meeting, the top-down company-wide memo, a method I’ll call “spokes and wheels,” as well as Quaker meeting for business. These give us “outward forms” for grappling with messy social processes.
Dear Friends: Two articles in the Nov/Dec 2020 issue express concerns about policing and both would benefit from tempering in their respective meeting communities.
Full text of a Letter to the Editor, published in part in the January/February 2021 issue of Western Friend magazine.
Originally published on Reserchgate.net, this article examines in depth the "Conclusion" chapter of the 2001 book Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements by the late
Notes of a conversation among Friends in the West, May 31, 2018, concerning ways their meetings are engaging in social service and social change actions, and how those actions are, in turn, affecti
Recording of a conversation among Friends in the West, May 31, 2018, concerning ways their meetings are engaging in social service and social change actions, and how those actions are, in turn, aff
An online collection of tools and strategies for building nonviolent campaigns and powerful movements for change and transformation.
A collection of talks that provide context and strategic analyses for Friends who still seek The Beloved Community in U.S.A. 2017.
