Revolution and Spirit......Introduction

I believe we need a revolution in this country -- a revolution of values, not the Che kind we fantasized in the '60s. An uprising for democracy. Toward that end, we on the left should do what the right did in the mid-60s -- assert that all the various strands of single-issue submovements could be tied together into one big social movement. Let's just declare there is one progressive movement -- even though the whole is less than the sum of the parts today! That movement is firmly planted in America's greatest democratic narrative. There are more of us than there are on the right -- both in terms of support for broad principles, and in terms of good people engaged in volunteering, advocating, organizing for fairness and freedom. We, not the right, stand for the great promise of America. Now, we just need to figure out how to take power.

I grok why US religious fundamentalism is on the rise. I believe until we move toward our new American revolution with a new spiritual focus, we wont' win. I don't mean traditional religion either. More blogging about that soon.

A bit of background: This year I celebrate 40 years since I went to my first protest march (well, it was more of a mingle -- a small group of 30 college and high schoolers protesting the Vietnam war in a park in Philadelphia). I will also turn 55 this year which is occasion to get serious about life. I was imprinted by a childhood right after WOrld War II, first in Denmark, then in Franco's Spain. The first book I read was a proud and vivid story of all Denmark rising up against the Nazis. Soon thereafter I saw Franco's "guns" on every stret corner and witnessed food riots in Madrid. The contrast made me who I am. I spent my childhood waiting for the '60s...I am too young to have gone south for Freedom Summer, 1964, but the Civil Rights movement grabbed my heart. I identified with "The Movement" from age 14 on. I still do. Nothing has happened to destroy my basic belief that working with others to transform society is the most satisfying, amazing, awe-inspiring human experience possible. For more than 40 years I have been engged in social justice work, in many different ways. More about that over time. Social change work is my calling. I have been a leader, although more often a follower, a foot soldier. I will blog about the art of leadership -- and of followership. I am a passionate student of social movements -- of the carpentry of building them.

I can feel a new one being born. Deep powerful tectonic plates are shifting beneath us. We cannot hear them yet. But we will.

That's what I will blog about. My perspective will be informed by 40 years of work, and the ground I stand on today: I run LA's only social change foundation, Liberty Hill. We have been investing in a new network of groups organizing in low income communities of color against Sisyphean odds. I will share inspiring stories from the frontlines of a new urban justice movement coming alive.

I will also blog about the current attacks on the nonprofit sector. The right knows the potential of the fast growing "third" sector in American civil society -- that is important groundwork for democracy-building, and potentially our equivalent of their 26,000 Right wing evangelical churches: the grassroots infrastructure for our social movement.

I will also blog about lessons from various social change movements I've been part of since the '60s. More soon.

--Torie Osborn May 12 2005