Presidential Weapons of Mass Empowerment

UNARMED FOR JUSTICE

Progressives should worry a good deal about President Obama’s representation to the Nobel Peace Prize committee. His acquiescence that the world needs to be aware that the Nazi atrocities or other could never be confronted solely by the methodology of nonviolence suggests two disheartening and disturbing realities: 

•       One, he doesn’t understand the power and potential of the scope of resources that social, political, earth and planetary justice seekers have who hold up his platform (Google Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken, if you don’t know it); and,
•       Two, those of us who should have, who could have done (and still can do) something to disprove his misconception have been lax at convincing him that there is much evidence to the contrary.

The fact of the matter is that there are massive degrees and depths of social, political and even planetary impact possible that can be used to develop an arsenal of tactical approaches to bring about local, national and even global change—even when the circumstances are dangerous.

The worlds of compassion and advocacy are filled with examples by movements and NGOs of ways that victoriously bringing people together to fight off even the ugliest of oppressive forces. The problem is that most often even we on the progressive side of the equation tend to attribute that strength of resistance as being something grounded in the uniqueness of the circumstances. Instead, what we need is a sprouting of confidence in our own potential and pragmatic usefulness.  

In my opinion, we have a president whose heart is ahead of his mind. But only some of that fault is his. WMEs (weapons of mass empowerment) are great and real tools whose constructive abilities are larger than given credit for!

ENTERTAINMENT JUSTICE -- SCRIPTING A DIFFERENT FUTURE

While I don’t have room here to go into great details, I believe that if President Obama doesn’t know of the reach of his arsenal, we ought to be writing strategic background and implementation plans that are as supposedly useful and informative to him as those provided by uniformed general and profiteering corporate titans.

For years we’ve been struggling to have this happen from the inside by earning a representative presence with the government, but perhaps it’s best if we simply take it upon ourselves to define a different world of response and responsibility so that the president can reassess his options?

If ANY country ANYWHERE is in such bad shape that we feel the need to blow it and its people to bits, why aren’t we just as prepared to bombard it with a wide-range of organizing, support and empowerment game plans that turn the advantage back to the people who are going to suffer either way?

I don't want to use tactics that can undercul cultural and social norms, but I really don't want to kill people and pretend its a better methodology.

My personal belief is that none of this will work as successfully as it can until we all understand and begin using Entertainment Justice principles--which, by the way, haven't yet been penned.

I’ll discuss more about this in the future, but in short it has to do with the fact that virtually all of the means that we as a culture use to enlighten and excite ourselves are centered on militaristic, police and criminal justice modalities based upon warfare and security tactics. Just take a look at the literary, movie, TV and now gaming super power CGI role-models.

Imagine what the world would be like if your heroes and heroines drew their strength and passion from the same forces that continuously save people who are hungry, cold, being beaten by loved ones or otherwise the drive behind collective goodness?

We all might be surprised about the deadly positive alternatives.

For this I'd be willing to sit down with a ridiculously expensive bag of theatre popcorn!

Allan