It is time for our movements for human rights and the environment to unite in one great, national and international movement for economic equality and justice. We can do it. We must do it.
Since the #womensmarch on Washington, the global uprising against the #Muslimban, and in the frenzy of appointments and executive orders issuing federal gag orders, border walls, defunding public programs, deregulating environmental protections, and worse - numerous groups have announced protests and marches for every cause imaginable: climate march, immigrant march, pipeline and abortion rights rallies. There is now talk of a general strike in the works.
But there is a big elephant in the room. Everyone is talking about what we're protesting against, and not FOR. It's time to elevate our message to one that isn't against Trump, but one that is for the world we are making - one that is inclusive of everyone, a glorious vision the whole world can get behind.
Yes, we need to fight on every front, and our protests and resistance need to disrupt business as usual to be effective. It is great that people across the world, not only in the United States, are already having an impact with actions at airports and boycotts of businesses like Uber with the #deleteUber campaign.
But, this is a war, and our strategy now needs to be coordinated with singular purpose. If we continue with a million separate, siloed, identity politics marches and movements for every issue, our opposition will exhaust us, deplete our resources and money, and we will make at best disparate gains. We cannot afford to be splintered into factious responses.
Intersectionality is not good enough. Resistance against our opposition's narrative isn't sustainable. Like the Indian Independence and Civil Rights Movements, our non-violence will only become powerful when it is in service of a universal truth.
We need one movement for equality that binds us all together, and employs all of our individual movements as battalions in a multi-front global struggle for justice at last.
The question is not "where do we go" or "what next," as countless articles have wrongly posited. We already know where we have to go. The question is whether we will finally do it, and begin mapping a plan to get there.
We as a human race have hoped for one global movement for social and economic equality for thousands of years. We didn't just know this long before Seattle, the global antiwar movement, the Arab Spring, Occupy, Black Lives Matter and the Women's March.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed when he began organizing to unite civil rights movements across the world in one movement for economic equality. The understanding that there will only be peace when we live equally with each other and our planet predates Christ. It is common sense, and this time we can't afford to fail.
It is time for us to get real about economic and social equality and lift it like a shining light before the world as our goal, and march to victory. Today, everyone from grassroots movements to global institutions including the UN and major foundations from Ford to Rockefeller have recognized that social and economic equality are imperative for the future of democracy, environmental sustainability, and peace.
To get there, we need to create a platform with distinct demands to create a more equal world. Our next major action, whether a march or strike, needs to singularly announce as its purpose the emergence of our unified movement, and nothing less. It must be conceived as such from the beginning so that it is unmistakable, and can grow and spread across the world to countless countries.
Such an action can be planned for any date in the nearest achievable future, a date by which a platform for universal rights can be published, and subsequent steps laid out in advance. Some potential dates currently in discussion are April 4th, the anniversary of MLK's assassination, May Day, and World Refugee Day on June 20th. It's time to assemble, and make it happen.
Our numerous individual movements have already paved the way. Between the Black Lives, Women's, Immigrant, Poor people's rights, Climate movements and more, we have the seasoned organizations we need for each of the major fronts of our greater movement for equality. We already ARE national and global in our reach. It is time to declare ourselves and issue our demands and take to the streets in their name.
Our list of demands can be built from a consensus of our movements: universal rights including education, health care, pay minimums and caps, gender, religious and racial equality, clean environment, food, water, and more.
We have the tools to organize this movement: the social networking platforms, crowd sourcing, text messaging, live video applications and more; the horizontal, people-powered speed and self-organizing power and tactics of today's leaderless movements; and the community organizing methods of the civil rights and other successful movements.
We cannot win a battle against our opposition's narrative. We must steel our focus on our own narrative and force the opposition to defend itself against us on the field of human dignity. This is the time for each of us to rise to the occasion. It's time for one movement for equality and human rights. Let's get to work.