Antiquity

this blog is about politics and activism. the kind of politics that asks participants to recognize power, to challenge those who have power, to be creative and strategic in deploying power, and to make progressive change.

some would call that old-fashioned, too much like the failed doctrinaire politics of the 1960s that eventually split the left, split feminists, split the anti-war movement, the environmentalists, the black power folks, the brown, red and yellow folks, that morphed into identity politics … and then politically correct politics and then right-wing attacks on basic social niceties, such as white s0lipsism, cultural competence and genderqueer awareness.

that’s why this blog is called antique revolution.

i like history. i like case studies of protest and social change movements. i like wily activists and crafty strategists and imaginative tacticians. and i think anyone who wants better-run, little-d democratic government, and company practices sensitive to local communities, can learn from the often buried stories of earlier social justice campaigns.  we have technology now, and we’re not setting our own type like Ida B Wells did in Memphis before the white mobs burned down her press for speaking out against lynching. but we still rely on words and images and statistics to make our case, and we still need people on the line to demonstrate power.

my goal is to post some stories about power, and the ways that activists are using it, losing it, and abusing it. next up, a story from san francisco, where randy shaw has found yet another way to make the mayor do some work for the folks in the tenderloin.