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21: overcoming disempowerment

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"Rather than feeling depressed and powerless, activists now need to recognize the power and success of themselves and their movement." - Bill Moyer


Today we're going through steps 5 - 6 of Bill Moyer's 1987 Movement Action Plan (A Framework for Effective Social Movements).


  1. Normal Times - "Business as usual" - Politically quiet times that the public is unaware (or feels defeated in face) of the violations of the general public's rights/values/interests.
  2. Prove the failure of Institutions - A prolonged period of increasing stress on the system. The intensity of public feeling, opinion, and upset required for social movements can happen only when the public realizes that the governmental policies violate widely held beliefs + values. 
  3. Ripening Conditions - The calm before the storm. Nobody feels like anything is happening.
  4. The Take Off - Seemingly overnight, a social problem becomes something EVERYONE is talking about, based on a trigger event AND a non-violent action campaign, that can be repeated on a local level throughout the country.
  5. Identity Crisis of Powerless: (The movement is meant to move on to stage 6, but many activists move into this stage, instead.) Many activists lose sight of the long game + quit.
  6. Majority Popular Support: Long game of garnering the public's support for your cause. It feels like nothing is happening, but depends on grassroots engagement to challenge the status quo.
  7. Success: when the long process of building opposition reaches a new plateau + the new social consensus turns the tide of power against the powerholders, an endgame process leads to the movement's success. This process can take three forms: dramatic showdown, quiet showdown, or attrition.
  8. Continuing the Struggle: Celebrate success, Follow up (local, national, etc.), Work on other demands, New social consciousness issues, Beyond reform to social change. Alternative systems not just opposing the ones that exist.


There is no end. There is only the continuing struggle, acted out in cycles of social movements. The process of winning one set of demands creates new levels of citizen consciousness and empowerment, and generates new movements on new demands and issues.


THE SOURCE: Bill Moyer's (MAP): https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/moyermap.html


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  • 1871 || emotions are manufactured

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