Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee: a political ecology of change

What that is called for is for a renewed radical opposition built around the explicit objective of ending corporate rule. That's how you leap off moving ice. History does not support the idea that radicalism in the US is marginal or irrelevant. At least twice each century it has swept across the country in great waves, imposing new conditions and leaving an indelible imprint in our peoples' consciousness.

6) We must step into a political vacuum which only the right is attempting to fill. The polarization which now exists is between right and left versions of how corporate rule should be normalized. The right calls for the abolition of all regulation while white, left populists want to "take America back," presumably to a time when their constituents had a better deal. (They may not have noticed that those times were not so good in other neighborhoods!) They dream that those days can return. We live in the time of an empire's decline, however, when the only thing certain is that the future will not look like anything like the past. A time when people are angry but are aware that they don't know what to do next. In such a time the operative strategy is to "name your dream and fight for it," not to beg to get the old rules back again. They are gone forever.

7) The most powerful arena of struggle is in our people's heads. The right has long known that every campaign is a story and every story leads back to your core message. Even if you lose a battle, you can still come out ahead if you have further reinforced your story.

Whenever we are faced with a challenge that seems insurmountable, the answer can be found by stepping back and asking a larger question. If we wished to reshape the national narrative on immigration, for example, we would not just ask how we respond to right wing attacks but rather how do we tell a different story. Suppose we deployed a floating barricade to prevent passage of barges carrying GMO corn to Mexico to displace Mexican agricultural production.

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