recent protest movements . . . “in the streets”

I wish our movement would expend more energy in the direction of constructively and proactively building the new within the shell of the old, but our society is so riddled with inequalities, injustices, and existential crises that, inevitably, critique and protest tend to predominate.

1999: anti-globalization demonstrations against the domination of the multinational corporations

2011: Occupy (critique of inequality flowing from the financialization of the economy, citing how Wall Street was bailed-out while the vast majority, “the 99%,” suffered from the consequences of the 2008 global financial crisis)

2014: Black Lives Matter (protest against racial inequality, structural racism, and police brutality)

2015: #MeToo (toward ending sexual abuse / sexual harassment)

2016: the Bernie campaign’s critique of capitalism and advocacy of democratic socialist reforms like Medicare for All, progressive taxation, a higher minimum wage, expansion of labor rights, and free tuition at public universities

2018: climate and ecology activism movements such as Peoples Climate Marches, Extinction Rebellion, Greta Thunberg’s School Strike for Climate

Now: Palestine Liberation movement; the Gaza war calling attention to Israel’s decades-long oppression, occupation, and apartheid … and U.S. complicity (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/us/politics/palestine-israel-democrats.html)

Next: Green politics as the better alternative; a new political orientation vis-a-vis the failed and retrograde old ideologies of industrial-capitalist modernity