You speak of programs very often as being only reactionary, but it seems that some can lead to new directions; especially if they are tribal. For example, Food Not Bombs is a program that is leading to a world free of totalitarian agriculture.

I saw you write that free food is not the place to start. However, with programs such as this I think it can be a place to start. Do you encourage tribal programs in this nature?

You have to distinguish between movements and programs. Movements are unstructured, undirected, unspecified endeavors on a broad front toward a general goal.

Programs are structured, directed, and carefully specified actions by selected people working toward narrowly defined outcomes. Feminism is a movement; food stamps are a program.

The Peace movement of the Sixties was a movement; the War on Drugs is a program. Food Not Bombs is self-described as a movement, not a program. In effect, what I myself am advocating is a movement—a movement away from blind acceptance of Taker mythology and a movement toward understanding that our fate is intimately bound up with the fate of the general community of life on this planet.

In this sense, the Renaissance was a movement, though nothing at all like a program—and I’m calling for a New Renaissance, but again nothing like a program.

ID: 564
posted:
updated: 28 Apr 2002