Even progressive social movements had become vision-averse. It’s not that activists were no longer innovative or weren’t developing exciting alternatives on a grassroots level. It’s just that, when it came to the big picture, the power of imagination went missing.
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| U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez kicks off the Women’s March in New York City on January 19, 2019. |
.By 2016 I’d begun to wonder whether my country was magnetically attracted to doomsday. Popular culture favored dystopias. A leading TV series about politics was beyond cynical. The presidential race had come down to the candidate of change, distasteful and negative, and the candidate of timid incrementalism, who wanted us to join her in believing that the U.S. was doing fine as is. Where was the bold vision of a better world?
Then in August 2016, the Movement for Black Lives broke through with its agenda and specific policy demands for Black power, freedom, and justice. Dozens of organizations began to sign on, even though the platform’s breadth and boldness meant that the signers wouldn’t necessarily agree with every sentence.
A vision, after all, is not a blueprint. The blueprints come later, after wide discussion.
Read the opinion piece from Yes! Magazine by George Lakey - “The Green New Deal: Movements (Finally) Get Visionary Again.”
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