Politics and Social Movements

Apparently the PRD (left) in Mexico has a canidate with an excellent shot at winning the 2006 presidential election. So the other two political parties, and the US, are working to disbar him from running. People are mobilizing in his support.

Mexico: US inspired Coup d'Etat

I'm not a hard core animal rights activist (probably less than 5% of my time is spent on that issue), but I am interested in how the oppression of animals is so easily seperated from other forms of oppression.

Most progressive activists believe in a common anti-oppression doctrine that says that oppression by either race, gender, class or sexual orientation is very bad. Until recently class was viewed to be the most significant factor and most activists ignored race, gender and sexual orientation up until the Sixties/Seventies.

From my participation in activism, I think there is generally little to be gained by arguments about whether oppression by race, gender, class or sexual orientation is generally worse. You can say things like the racial divide in the student movement is worse than the other factors. Or you could argue that students at Notre Dame face the greatest discrimination based on sexual orientation (as they aren't meant to even form clubs). However, for the most part, it is safer to argue that these forms of oppression are just very different in how they operate, and yet also very similar.

I recently wrote up a short version of what I learned while writing my master's thesis. It is useful for student activists who have a campaign - because you should consider doing a sit-in.

Sit-In! A Tactical Analysis

Several important criticisms of the Midwest Academy's model which is commonly used in the student movement (ex. Grassroots Organizing Weekend - GROW trainings)

The Midwest Academy Organizing Model - Several Criticisms

An excellent review of what Moveon.org has been up to recently.
Part I
Part II

I recently wrote up some research that I did in 2000 looking at how national student groups (USAS, YDS, SPAN, MDE) have more chapters in elite universities. I used the US and News World Report rankings for universities. For instance, USAS had 11 times more groups in the top quartile of schools than in the bottom quartile. It's just a short note - about a page long.

The most active groups (as evidenced in USAS by the inequality in the schools that had sit-ins which was greater than that of its membership), and probably the organizational leadership as well are even more stratified in terms of class.

This is a feasible idea that would be a lot of fun, but I don't have enough time or motivation to implement. I'd help if someone wanted to work on it.

Civilization III (Conquests version) provides a gaming platform which can be extensively modified to create realistic scenarios. You can recreate the fantasy world of Middle Earth, Star Trek, or the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Or you could create a game where different national student activist groups struggle for organizational supremacy!

I say this having been a member of one organization which challenged another organization to a mud-wrestling competition that was to be held at a big national conference.

Ten years ago when I was studying computer science in college, our program was perhaps 80% men. Since then, I believe significantly more women have entered computer science and the computer field in general.

As an activist, I've learned that men hold disproportionate power in pretty much every progressive organization and probably hold a majority of the power in perhaps 80-90% of organizations that aren't explicity focussed on feminist issues. At least in the student movement, perhaps more so at the national and regional level (ex. at conferences) this gets a significant amount of attention. Not enough that things become magically ok, but at least it gets talked about.

Firstly, I would argue that the election was corrupt from the start - as you cannot hold fair elections in a society with such high levels of inequality (class, race, gender, sexual orientation, etc).

But since most people buy into the US electoral system - it is fascinating to observe all of its shortcomings.

CNN exit polls had Kerry winning by about 2.5% (if I recall correctly), whereas he officially lost by 3%. Here is a Research Paper on how likely that difference was to occur.

There is also another paper, more statistics-heavy in nature, that estimates that

The left has fallen for the trap. Everybody in the media is saying that the US is at an unpredecented level (in recent history) of political polarization, and we're buying in.

This polarization is especially comical because it is between two of the most similar candidates in recent history. While their temperaments differ, in terms of actual policy there is very little difference between Kerry and Bush.

The Democrats and Republicans rely upon false polarization to mobilize people to vote. They cannot afford to differ on serious issues, less they offend their corporate backers. That's how issues like Stem Cell research become more important than racism (or sexism, or heterosexism, or the environment, or...). The media buys into this polarization because it is also corporate and because it needs to create the illusion of a critical election.