Welcome
Introduction | Worldview | Criteria | Declaration | Vision | Interviews

Join Rev. Glenda Hope (S.F. Network Ministries), David Hartsough (Nonviolent Peaceforce), Don Goldmacher, (Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club}, Rev. Bob Forsberg (AFSC, No. Calif. Interreligious Conference), Kathy Emery, (Education & Democracy), Rhoda Norman, (Gray Panthers), and others in this workshop:

• Exploring how the progressive movement can be more effective by integrating the personal and the political.
• Evaluating contemplative tools and new written statements.

Proposed Agenda:
12 Noon – Lunch
1:00 PM – Introductions
1:05 PM – Adoption of Agenda
1:10 PM – Meditation CD: Guided Meditations: For Calmness, Awareness, and Love
1:35 PM – 4/7/8 Breathing Meditation ?
1:40 PM – Consideration of other tools for contemplation ?
2:00 PM – Evaluation of draft statements:

1. Do we need a statement of our worldview, values, and principles that would:
   1. Be the potential basis of unity for a new national activist organization or coalition that could help mobilize support from a majority of Americans.
   2. Affirm long-term goals that could hold people together over time.
   3. Comprehensively address all of our major institutions (thereby enabling us to take timely action on any one of many pressing issues as needed).
   4. Propose nonviolent fundamental, systemic, holistic, structural reform.
   5. Be sufficiently substantial and clear to minimize divisive debates once adopted.
   6. Integrate the personal and the political by affirming individual, social, cultural, and economic transformation as well as political reform.
   7. Use universal language that would welcome both secular and spiritual people? What about "God"?
   8. Affirm a mixed economy rather than socialism or anarchism.
   9. Affirm a positive, proactive agenda of incremental reforms rather than hope/expect/wait for conditions to worsen.
2. If yes, does one already exist or do we need to compose a new one?
3. If we need to compose a new one, in terms of content, apart from its length, does the illustrate the kind of statement that we need?
   1. If yes, is it too long? If so, by how much?
   2. What about the tone?
   3. Do you disagree with some of the content? If so, what points?
   4. Might a statement of this sort be “points of unity” that members of a new project would endorse?
4. If yes, in terms of content, apart from its length, does the Vision for a More Peaceful World illustrate the kind of statement that we need? More so than the Declaration for a New America?
   1. If yes, is it too long? If so, by how much?
   2. What about the tone?
   3. Do you disagree with some of the content? If so, what points?
5. The Proposal for a Million Member Monthly Mobilization ?.
   1. Is it viable? If not now, in the future?
   2. What would it take to make it happen? Should the and/or the Vision for a More Peaceful World, or some such similar statements, be the “points of unity” that all members would endorse?

3:20 PM – Next steps.

1. More “Strategy Workshops”? In Mexico?
2. A pseudonymous writing team?
3. Circulate a proposal for national conference to Alternet and maybe others?
4. A Bay Area public forum to discuss and evaluate a draft statement?

3:50 PM – Evaluation of this session
3:57 PM - Silence
4:00 PM – Adjournment

NOTES:

1) In advance, participants should read the , the Vision for a More Peaceful World, and the Proposal for a Million Member Monthly Mobilization ?, make notes if need be, and perhaps print copies for personal use. A few extra copies will be available at the workshop for reference.

2) A light lunch will be provided for those who register in advance.

3) If possible, please submit proposals for changes in the agenda in advance via email to Wade Hudson.

4) The workshop will be tape recorded for future reference.

5) The Meditation CD: Guided Meditations: For Calmness, Awareness, and Love is the top result returned by a Google search for “meditation CD,” is reportedly the top-selling meditation CD on Amazon.com, and is very highly rated by Amazon.com reviewers.

6) I encourage others to share tools for contemplation ? that they have found useful before, during, or after the October 6 workshop.

7) I suspect that the Declaration for a New America is too long to serve as the points of unity to be endorsed by members of a new project. On the one hand, folks are increasing into sound bites. But on the other hand, to hold a broad coalition together over time, we would need a statement that is substantial and addresses many pressing issues. Tikkun’s Core Vision, which is a fine statement, is 12,000 words. The Declaration is about 10,000. I’ve already shortened it considerably. To shorten it further, some assistance would be helpful.

8) The Proposal for a Million Member Monthly Mobilization ? currently envisions members endorsing both the Declaration for a New America and the Vision for a More Peaceful World. I suspect this requirement would be too demanding, but am unsure which statement represents the preferred direction.

9) Concerning future workshops, I would much prefer to design and facilitate them jointly with others and very much hope that some folks will join me in Guanajuato, Mexico prior to April 1, 2006 (or perhaps after August 1, 2006) for future Strategy Workshops ?.

10) People who register in advance for the October 6 workshop will be listed at http://progressiveresourcecatalog.org/index.php/Welcome/Community2.

11) Results from this workshop will be incorporated into the Progressive Resource Catalog, especially its Proposals for Action ?.

12) Participants might want to review the initial invitation to participate in this workshop. That invitation included the following points that I would like to be considered closely:

First, we need a long-term vision that could unify and hold together a real movement, without frequently reconsidering basic points of unity. Second, that vision needs to articulate structural changes that will prevent problems rather than merely place Band-Aids on them. Third, those structural changes need to constitute systemic change in that we must change the underlying social system that is the root cause of so many of our problems. Fourth, the new social system that we create needs to affirm a mixed economy, rather than a totally free market, socialism, or anarchism. Fifth, while pushing for fundamental political and economic reform, we must also engage in personal, social, and cultural transformation and create communities that reflect the kind of society we want to create. Sixth, we need to articulate an inspiring, positive program that will directly improve people’s lives, a “revolution of rising expectations,” rather than merely reacting with negativity to injustice and waiting/hoping that conditions will worsen.