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

This would place small farmers, food advocates, immigrant workers and labor unions on the same side of a struggle that has been redefined through action--to be about neo-liberal trade policies and corporate control. This can be applied to every struggle.

The fabric of a new world can be found around us in the form of political movements, social support programs, alternative institutions and reform efforts to improve conditions or protect against abuse, open borders, connect divided constituencies, sustain the marginalized, constrain the military, expand Native sovereignty, protect the natural environment and increase the social wage. A core social vision is the needle to stitch them together.

How do we apply it? Remember what we said earlier about promoting public health? "Provide what bodies need and remove what causes them harm." Think about applying this to the community, national or global levels. Whatever naturally aligns with this basic principle we support, amplify and defend. It is the legitimate right of society to disrupt, prevent and reverse those practices which violate it.

This provides a context for blocking toxic waste shipments through poor neighborhoods, defending against anti-immigrant raids, distributing foreclosed housing and appropriating unused plots for urban farming. It doesn't mean we randomly challenge all bad things, but it gives us a common language with which to unite and to strengthen the struggles that do emerge. It's how we serve notice that there is now a political center of gravity that is serious about a world in which people matter. We are prepared to protect it as it emerges from the disintegration of the old world.

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