As movements around the planet mobilize to counter the effects of climate destabilization on their communities, cultures, and ecosystems, a framing battle of global significance is underway.

In the climate fight, as with so many other struggles, the heart of the framing battle is naming the problem, since how we define the problem determines what solutions are possible. To varying degrees, governments and multinational corporations around the world have acknowledged the crisis and they claim they are working to address it. However, they present the climate crisis through a reductionist lens as merely a problem of too much carbon in the atmosphere while ignoring the underlying issues of justice, equity, and humanity’s relationship with the Earth. This framing allows exploitation of the crisis to justify escalating the very policies and practices that have pushed the planet to the brink. Essentially the world’s richest countries and companies are co-opting environmental rhetoric to put a PR friendly “green” face on the same old politics of unlimited economic growth, resource thefts and corporate exploitation.

Meanwhile the ‘official’ climate movement has been dominated by a loyal opposition of largely northern, policy, and access-oriented NGOs who, although (mostly) well intentioned, have failed to reframe the debate or address the root causes of the crisis. But increasingly as more global movements begin to unite under the banner of climate justice, there is a different story to tell. The terms of the debate are being reframed from seeing the climate crisis as an isolated issue, to understanding the disruption of the climate as merely the most visible symptom of a much larger problem: our global system of growth-addicted, fossil fuel-driven, corporate capitalism that is undermining all the life support systems of the planet.

When this deeper framing of the problem is accepted it becomes clear that we will never re-stabilize the climate without addressing the roots of the problem. This means acknowledging the Global North’s historic responsibility for the problem (“climate debt”) as the first step towards fundamental shifts to our economy, political systems, and cultural assumptions. This is why one of the over-arching and unifying messages coming out of global movements fighting for a just response to the climate crisis is “system change NOT climate change”.

However, as people’s movements around the world ramp up their organizing in the lead up to the next round of United Nations negotiations in Cancun there are a number of dangerous frames––control myths––that must be challenged.

Control Myth #1 Only The Market Can Save Us!

In this case a global carbon market that effectively privatizes the atmosphere, justifies massive land grabs and further commodification of forests, soils, and grasslands. Two hundred years of ideology have bestowed the “invisible hand” of the market with debate-shaping qualities of alleged efficiency, fairness and power. This is a familiar narrative to many of our movements fighting privatization and displacement but we still need better, shared strategies to reframe the myth of the market.

Control Myth #2 Technology Will Save Us!

Hand in hand with the story of the all-powerful market is the obsession with techno-fixes. Techno-fixes masquerade as solutions but just distract us from making the fundamental changes that are needed. The assumption that some benign “experts” will provide new, innovative technology to solve the problem justifies continuing unsustainable policies while removing people’s agency from the frame. More and more climate techno-fixes are being proposed: from overt lies like “clean coal” and “climate ready” genetically engineered crops to terrifyingly disruptive, untested new technologies like synthetic biology and geoengineering.[i] Beware!

Control Myth #3 Climate Is Too Big An Issue: Only Governments Can Save Us!

The debate has been overly focused on global and national policy while social movements and community-based responses are left out of the frame. Many mainstream environmentalists have even argued that any global emission reduction agreement (regardless of how weak or unfair) is better than no deal. Variations of this narrative have been used (particularly by the U.S.) to evade historic responsibility and blame China, India and other developing economies for blocking an international deal. Certainly a global agreement is important, but the reality of the scale of the climate crisis is that we need transformative action in all sectors of society.

Given the wide-ranging implications of the debate, climate is an essential arena for our movements to develop more holistic narratives and shared frames that mutually reinforce efforts across different sectors and struggles. At the heart of this framing battle is the emerging climate justice movement led by frontline impacted communities, indigenous movements and environmental justice organizers.

Climate justice framing is challenging the control myths above (and many more) by refocusing the issue on the core problems of fossil fuel addiction, the ongoing legacy of historic inequities and the need for systemic change. At the center of the evolving narrative is the role of community-based solutions in stewarding a just transition towards a society that is both sustainable and just. As different movements like migrants rights, reproductive justice and organized labor articulate the connections between their struggles and the climate crisis there are many opportunities to experiment with applying and broadening climate justice framing.

With the historic adoption of the Cochabamba People’s Agreement on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in April there is now a powerful new narrative emerging that unites ecology, justice and social movement action. This platform offers a potent counterpoint to the corporate driven, false solutions of the United Nations process. Most importantly it offers an invitation to organizers everywhere to connect their issues with this multi-faceted struggle to transform our world. In the words of one of the key slogans uniting movements in the lead up to the COP-16 meeting and beyond: “grassroots organizing cools the planet!”

[i] For a good summary of “false solutions” to the climate crisis check out Rising Tide North America’s Hoodwinked in the Hothouse: False Solutions to Climate Change. Other resources for tracking the rebranding of failed GMO seeds as “climate ready” can be found by following the ongoing work of Food First!/Institute for Food and Development Policy and the Organic Consumers Association. To learn more about the latest developments in the emerging fields of synthetic biology and geoengineering check out two recent reports by global technology watchdog ETC Group Geopiracy: The Case Against Geoengineering (Oct 2010) and The New Biomassters: Synthetic Biology and the Next Assault on Biodiversity and Livelihoods (Nov 2010) both of which are available at www.etcgroup.org. For updates on the ongoing resistance to geoengineering check out the international H.O.M.E. campaign.

Two new Podcasts For your Listening Enjoyment…

Click to LISTEN: Part One :

Moderator: Laine Romero-Alston, Solidago Foundation; with Makani Themba-Nixon, Praxis Project; Doyle Canning, smartMeme; and Kathleen Pequeño, McKenzie River Gathering Foundation.

Click to LISTEN: Part Two :

Moderator: Helen Brunner, Quixote Foundation and Media Democracy Fund
 
Panel; with Karlos Guana Schmeider, Center for Media Justice; Patrick Reinsborough, smartMeme; Damekia Morgan, Community Media Organizing Project and Friends and Families of Louisana’s Incarcerated Children.

(Special thanks to Karlos @ the Center for Media Justice for posting this audio!)

This tele-strategy session series was organized by the Progressive Communicators Network, and brings together grassroots communications practitioners with a commitment to justice issues and funders who support justice and social movement efforts for a rare opportunity to think together about opportunities and imperatives to strengthen communications as a tool for change that will substantively impact U.S. culture, consciousness, and political policies.

This is a time of unprecedented change for grassroots communications practitioners. Factors such as the current economic crisis, rampant media consolidation, emerging new media technology and shift in administration bring unique and urgent challenges and opportunities. Faced with this changing communications landscape, grassroots justice organizations must make smart decisions about how to effectively communicate to advance their program and political work, often with fewer resources and confronted with changes in how media is made and news is communicated.
 
These times demand whole new approaches to change making and communication. It’s no longer enough to win individual victories, we must fundamentally shift our social, cultural and political ecology.

The Center for Media Justice, for example, has put out a call for a comprehensive and transformative approach to justice communications: Truly effective and sustainable movements for racial and economic justice must have the capacity, strategy, and leadership to advance a shared worldview and agenda, watchdog power, elevate strategic stories to a wider audience, increase engaged popular governance, and influence policy to change social conditions.They outline a powerful strategy that tackles race head on, brings the voices of the disenfranchised to the center, transforms public narratives, increases media access, and ultimately changes public consciousness and policy.

Join us to hear about these cutting edge strategies and more communications realities from across the country. We invite you to be part of creating the strategy and infrastructure that will boldly work to transform communications, change work, and the political realities of the 21st century.

Re:Imagining Change

Book Release Celebration

Join us to Celebrate the Release of smartMeme’s New Book!

Re:Imagining Change — How to Use Story-based Strategy to Win Campaigns, Build Movements and Change the World (2010 PM Press)

With co-author Doyle Canning, Board member Amaad Rivera, and Special Guests!

Tuesday May 4th at Bella Luna/Milky Way (at the Brewery) in Jamaica Plain, MA.

6 pm Happy Hour

7 pm Reading and Author Q & A, Book signing, and conversation

Party with us till 9 pm!
Re:Imagining Change (published by PM Press) is an inspiring and accessible resource guide to smartMeme’s innovative story-based strategy tools and methodology. The book grows out of smartMeme’s work since 2002, training over 3,000 activists and collaborating with over 100 social change organizations on a wide range of critical environmental and social justice issues. Re:Imagining Change outlines how to apply narrative power analysis to effectively frame issues, provides intriguing case studies, and issues a passionate call for more creative movement building to face the intersecting crises of the 21st century.

SmartMeme co-founder Doyle Canning will briefly share some of the insights from the book, followed by Q&A and discussion.

Don’t miss this evening of celebration, strategy, and storytelling!

PS. If you can’t make it but want to check out the book you can order it online at http://www.smartMeme.org/book

NOTE: Major discount for bulk purchases are available (10 or more copies) for grassroots organizations.

Bella Luna/Milky Way is always a good time! See you there!

A quick reflection on our 2009 convening on climate change, creative actions, social justice and the “Copenhagen Moment”…

I am so thrilled about the “Pause,” a restorative and rigorous retreat we convened last week. I am deeply grateful for all who attended, supported, and donated to make this event possible. It was truly a special occasion, gathering some amazing climate activists who are approaching the crisis from a justice perspective, and working to build movements at the intersections of ecology and social justice. We were also joined by our amazing video team (justinfrancese.com) and kitchen magicians (delicata catering). The beautiful Bluewater Farm in Andover, NH (traditional Pennacook Territory) was generously donated for this event. Check out pics…

The sessions involved narrative power analysis and discussions of the dominant frames on the climate crisis; climate justice principles; the UNFCCC negotiations in Copenhagen later this year; and creative ideas for how to spread memes for climate justice.

We also had a celebration on Tuesday evening, and were blessed with local special guests from the Winter Center for Indigenous Traditions (dedicated to environmental justice, Abinaki indigenous rights and cultural practices), and local CSA organic farmer Katherine Darling, of Two Mountain Farm.

Fireside chats and formal sessions included discussions of the upcoming G20 meeting in Pittsburg, stories from past UNFCCC talks in Bali and Poznan, reflections on race and racism in the environmental field, and visioning for how to build an inclusive movement that addresses the root causes of the climate crisis.

As I write this blog, I am recalling this experience and simultanously struck by the stakes. Listening to this mornings news from the G8 Summit in Italy, I hear the voice of Phil Radford, executive director of Greenpeace USA:

“It’s almost diagnosing your child with cancer but not taking the kid to the doctor. It just doesn’t seem like good leadership, and I think people expect better of President Obama and other world leaders.”

Then, the sobering words of Ken Lieberthal of the Brookings Institution (?):

“I think it’s going to be very, very hard to avoid a catastrophe, so I think anyone who looks very seriously at this issue has to say that the future looks very, very sobering.”

Indeed.

The Road to Copenhagen is hot, long, and treacherous. But we make the road by walking…

Below is an excerpt of a report-back on the retreat by some of the participants…

Here is a report-back from a strategy retreat convened by smartMeme that I attended last week (called “The Pause”) to discuss climate justice issues & messaging. There were about 15 or so folks in attendance, all invited by smartMeme or other attendees. The folks who came were connected with various orgs with a major focus on either climate justice or environmental justice: Environmental Justice Climate Change Initiative (EJCC), Indigenous Environmental Network, Action Mill, Avaaz.org Climate Action, Katrina to Copenhagen, Global Justice Ecology Project, Rainforest Action Network, The Ruckus Society, Movement Generation, DS4SI and Northeast Action.

The retreat intended to focus on how to do more effective framing and messaging around climate justice, following the smartMeme model of challenging underlying cultural assumptions (you can download their new manual for free at smartmeme.org). On the first day we heard some presentations about smartMeme’s messaging strategy and ‘narrative power analysis’ (see the manual for a more in-depth explanation of this), as well as some strategies that have been used by Action Mill and Design Studio for Social Intervention, a community organizing group in Boston. There were some brainstorming sessions to “get the creative juices flowing,” and some short presentations about Environmental Justice/Climate Justice principles, the COP-15 process, the Mobilization for Climate Justice and other organizing underway.

The second day the group wanted to get deeper into concerns of numerous people present on the watering down of the term “climate justice” and its conflation with climate action, which is not necessarily based in justice (carbon offsetting, for example)…

All in all, while the retreat was not exactly what I expected, it was the unexpected conversations that I found most valuable and thought-provoking. And the facilitators did an excellent job of being flexible and serving the many changing needs of the group. Oh, and I forgot to mention the food was AMAZING. Mainly, it was great just to connect with so many awesome folks, and be able to have some of the hard (but
so necessary) conversations around how to build a movement across boundaries of race, class, and culture. Only by hearing each other and working through this stuff will we ever stand a chance of building the sort of broad-based movement that actually has the power to bring about systemic changes…

I was so pleased to attend the 2009 national gathering of the Progressive Communicators Network (PCN), held in Chicago at the end of May. The conversations were rich, the connections were deep, and the insights were exquisite. What an amazing network!

Along with the great discussions (and party!), one of the highlights for me was the workshop on the story-based strategy model. We hadn’t done anything quite like this before. Patrick and I, with support from Anasa Troutman of the Movement Strategy Center, designed this session for this special group of skilled practitioners. It was such a wonderful challenge, and I felt myself growing into the moment. I was so humbled and honored to be in the space and share some of our “edge thinking.” And now you we can share it with you too!

Thanks to Nell Greenberg from Rainforest Action Network (who I recruited on-the-fly to shoot this low-fi video on our Flip Cam), the world can watch the workshop on smartmeme.blip.tv! Its about 45 minutes, and we go into some detail about the strategy model presented in RE:Imagining Change with examples to show each stage in the process….enjoy!

*You can download the slideshow from this presentation (its higher res than this video) at slideshare.net/smartmeme

* You can download the Story-based Strategy Campagin Model “Chart” handout HERE.

Pics from the workshop….

What PCN is all about:

PCN exists to strengthen and amplify the power, voices, and vision of grassroots movements that are working for racial, social, economic, and environmental justice. Network members use communication strategy, framing and messaging, and media tools to: 1) enhance the influence of social change movements on public policy and opinion; and 2) realize a world without poverty, racism, and other forms of oppression. The Network is a project of Spirit in Action, a movement-building support organization located in western Massachusetts.

A thousand THANK YOUs to the Progressive Communicators Network for bringing this amazing group together!

MAKE A DONATION TO PCN TODAY!

We know that RE:Imagining Change is over 60 pages long, and we know we kinda “buried the lead,” so we’ve posted the Afterward HERE because we really want to make sure you check it out!

A Call to Innovation is the 5 page Afterward to our new strategy manual RE:Imagining Change, where we discuss the ecological crisis, psychic breaks, and innovating strategies to build powerful movements.

Here is an excerpt:

SmartMeme’s roots are in the earth-centered politics of ecological resistance movements. We founded the organization and wrote Re:Imagining Change because we believe that our lifetimes come at a decisive moment in the history of our planet—a moment that requires creative, bold, and strategic action.

Our times call out for more powerful and effective social movements. We need not only bigger movements but also better strategies to confront the crises head on. We need to unearth the deep roots of our social and ecological problems in the worldview of the dominant culture. Social change, at the sweeping scale we need, will require systematic intervention into the pathological assumptions and control mythologies that maintain the status quo and limit the collective imagination of alternatives. Our movements need to go beyond talking points and isolated policy proposals to actually shift the narratives that shape popular understanding of our economy, our political system, and our entire relationship with the natural world…

Read the full Afterward HERE.

Sound off on our Blog…

Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy Stephen Duncombe, New Press, 2006

Reviewed by Jen Angel

Stephen Duncombe’s compelling book, Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy, analyzes the ways in which political groups engage the public and communicate their messages.

Duncombe is both an activist and a scholar, currently teaching the history and politics of media and culture at New York University. He has authored several books, including Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture (1997), and edited the Cultural Resistance Reader (2002). A veteran global justice organizer, Duncombe co-founded the Lower East Side Collective and was one of the main organizers for the New York City chapter of the international direct action group Reclaim the Streets. Throughout Dream, Duncombe uses “we” to talk in an inclusive way about activism on the Left, coming across with sincerity as someone who is directly engaged in this work.

Duncombe’s central thesis is that we live in an age of “manufactured consent” (a term first coined by Walter Lippmann), where spectacles that appeal to our needs and desires win our hearts and minds. As progressives, we’ve failed to learn how to “manufacture dissent” because we think that it can only be done in a way that is manipulative and exploitative, in the style of Madison Avenue advertising firms. Duncombe, arguing that an ethical spectacle is not only possible but necessary, sets out parameters for spectacles that are neither manipulative nor exploitative

Duncombe writes, “What is spectacle? By default most people think of throwing Christians to the lions, parading missiles through Red Square, or maybe the Ice Capades. But spectacle is something more. It is a way of making an argument. Not through appeals to reason, rationality, and self-evident truth, but instead through story and myth, fears and desire, imagination and fantasy. It realizes what reality cannot represent. It is the animation of an abstraction, a transformation from ideal to expression. “Spectacle is a dream on display” (30). As an example, Duncombe cites George W. Bush’s arrival on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in a fighter jet to deliver his “Mission Accomplished” speech (28).

Duncombe sets the stage with astute observations about the failure of the Left to dominate political discourse in the US. He argues that American politics on the Left is based in empiricism – truth. As progressives, we feel that if we just tell the truth or expose the facts, people will be convinced and join our cause. This, however, is not enough, and anyone who sticks with this will, Duncombe warns, “be doomed to insignificance” (6). Instead of just teaching people how to critique messages, we need to create our own powerful messages.

What’s missing, he asserts, is a politics that embraces dreams and desires, the vernacular of our time (9). If we want our ideas to lead, we need to speak a language that recognizes these dreams and desires, and that means using spectacle, or simply making our arguments through stories, associations, and images. We need to admit that people are emotional and passionate, not simply rational.

Duncombe goes on to examine things that are wildly popular in American culture, like Las Vegas, celebrity culture, and video games. From these examples, he deduces several basic needs or desires that are not being met elsewhere in our lives. Take the video game Grand Theft Auto, for example. On the surface, the game is violent and has no redeeming social value. It’s a game where the player is encouraged to steal and kill, where the main character is a poor, black gangbanger. In all of its iterations, Grand Theft Auto has sold more than 21 million copies since 2001, earning $924 million in revenue (53). Duncombe spends a chapter dissecting the game, first by making analogies to outlaws who are popular and revered in Western culture such as Robin Hood, Butch Cassidy, and even Tony Soprano (50), and then by analyzing the base desires the game addresses, asserting that these are what really make the game wildly popular: the desire to rebel (though that rebellion is through crime); the desire to identify with what we are not – embracing difference – where identification with “the other” in a game like Grand Theft Auto is a pleasure, not a chore; the desire for autonomy and freedom of choice – Grand Theft Auto is played out in a “noninstantial, open-ended, well-realized world”; the play matters – how you play the game matters as much as getting to the finish line.

GTA is popular because the needs and desires it meets are not being fulfilled elsewhere in people’s lives. This leads us to the basic question that Duncome poses: what dreams or desires do things in popular culture fulfill, and how can those needs be otherwise met? (105).

If you look at how we ask individuals to participate in politics on a mass scale, it usually involves signing a petition, giving money, or sitting through a boring meeting. No wonder masses of people aren’t flocking to our causes. We have failed to set up structures that facilitate true engagement and participation. Though there are great examples of true engagement, such as Reclaim the Streets, Critical Mass, and large-scale direct actions, by and large the public as a whole is not engaged or asked to participate by activists. Groups that embrace participatory democracy while increasing in size and number are still the minority outside of dedicated activist spheres. Politics, in a mainstream sense, has been moved into the realm of professional politics, with individuals asked to participate just by voting. Of course people feel alienated and disengaged. What more do we offer them? Rallies? Duncombe insists that we need to model the world we want in our activities, and long boring rallies are not part of the world we want (67). He puts that claim into perspective by citing contemporary groups that truly engage the public, such as the Reclaim the Streets movement or Act UP, and by contrasting them with groups that do not engage the public, like the Sierra Club or the Democratic Party.

What is important is how we “do” politics. Duncombe cautions that there is danger in focusing on the means as much as the ends, considering that this could lead to valuing means more than ends: “In her study of the antinuke movement of the 1980s, social movement scholar Barbara Epstein tells the story of one small protest group that blockaded an isolated, unused access road to a nuclear power plant even though the action had no impact on the facility’s operation nor any chance of media coverage. What mattered to the activists was not efficacy but the principle of putting their bodies on the line – even if that line led nowhere” (70). Not all goals can be prefigured, Duncombe reminds us, and not all necessary political work is a street party.

Duncombe concludes the book by deconstructing what an ethical spectacle would look like, and how it could be created in a way that is not manipulative. He starts this discussion by saying that ethical spectacle needs to be grounded in progressive beliefs: “A progressive ethical spectacle will be one that is directly democratic, breaks down hierarchies, fosters community, allows for diversity, and engages with reality while asking what new realities might be possible” (126). He goes on to establish criteria based on these beliefs, concluding that ethical spectacles should be:

1. Participatory beyond just observing – in terms of leadership, organizing, and other dimensions. As well, ethical spectacles should inspire action that is “transformative” to the individual and to society. Traditionally, spectacle is anti-democratic and created by the few for the many.

2. Open and responsive to input. Though there are leaders/organizers (because someone needs to set the stage for participation), ethical spectacles should have many interpretations or possibilities, just as modern art is open to interpretation. Good examples of this are Critical Mass and social forums. This responds to desires for autonomy, exploration, and modification.

3. Transparent. It should be obvious that it’s a spectacle and not trying to pass off illusion as real. Bertoldt Brecht chose to alienate the audience instead of drawing them in so they wouldn’t forget they were watching a play. This doesn’t mean the spectacle can’t be enjoyed. Billionaires for Bush is an excellent example.

4. Based in reality. Cindy Sheehan is a spectacle. She is immensely popular and well known because her story is true and compelling. It is what it claims to be. The goal of ethical spectacle is not to replace the real with spectacle, but to reveal and amplify the real through spectacle. Dramatize the unseen and expose the elusive.

5. Dream. Imagine a future world that we want to get to. Is there a problem with the Zapatistas’ imagined future because it is impossible? No, Subcomandante Marcos provides us with visions and realms that we know are impossible – there is no illusion. They are part of the spectacle.

After reading the book and several interviews with Duncombe, I had a few lingering questions, which I posed to him over email. First, I asked for his thoughts about the assessment that certain elements of commodity culture are only wildly popular because the public is given limited options for entertainment by mainstream media.

Duncombe responded, “I would probably agree, in part… If commercial culture is the only game in town then of course people will flock to it and that’s why we have to play the game. But I also have a problem with this argument because I think one, it overlooks the fact that most commercial culture fails and thus two, that people are not idiots: they “buy into” certain commercial culture because it touches them at some deep and profound (or perhaps necessary light and frivolous) level. Again, this is why my argument is not about embracing commercial culture, but about understanding why it is so popular and then providing a progressive equivalent.”

I was also interested in his use of the word “leader,” and the way in which he relates leadership to activists and organizing. While many radicals talk about the concept of leadership and vision, the term “leader” is often eschewed by leftists who think this connotes hierarchy. I wanted to know if Duncombe felt that hierarchy is implicit in leadership. Duncombe echoed what many activists with whom I have spoken say – that denying that leadership happens leaves you vulnerable to informal leadership. The way to counteract this, he suggests, is by “consciously undermining hierarchies through constantly revolving leaders, training new people to lead, being open to contingency and context, ‘leading’ the situation but letting go of what happens within that situation, and so on. In brief: if you don’t recognize leadership then you can’t combat hierarchy; once you do you are free to deconstruct and rebuild the whole concept.

Similarly, power is often a scary term for leftists. Duncombe notes, “Progressives worry about abuse of power before we have it – this is a sign of our reluctance to pursue it” (125). When asked to expand on this point, he replied, “Power is scary. With it comes responsibility. As with leadership, if you don’t acknowledge that power is necessary then you won’t do anything about re-imagining it. I think leftists have gotten very comfortable being critics of power. Criticism on the road to power may be useful, but criticism by itself, in our day and age, is actually an attendant to dominant power. ‘Look,’ the powers that be argue, ‘we have critics, that means you have freedom and democracy, right?’ Criticism, by itself, is just self-serving politics: it makes the critic feel better about their non-compliance but changes nothing. Therefore I’m interested in moving past criticism and really thinking about what is necessary to win power. For without power you can’t change things. And I’m in this game to change the world, not just comment about how bad it all is.”

I left the book thankful for Duncombe’s thoughtful and sincere work, and happy to add another title to the list of books that challenge activists to imagine a future world and to reexamine our current strategies and tactics. Duncombe says it best: “Again, this is what I’ve learned from successful commercial culture (and from being a community activist): you got to give people a vision of what they can become, and then open the door and let them in.”