RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 354 - WCF 3: From Sanctuary through Cops to Shared Program
Episode 354 of RevolutionZ continues the sequence presenting the Oral History titled The Wind Cries Freedom. In this third installment, as an opening act, interviewee Leslie Zinn reflects on the finished oral history of a revolution that emerged from conditions similar to our own. She argues that revolution isn't utopian but tangible—a possibility within reach if we're willing to learn from each other's experiences and unite around shared values and aims.
Then, conveyed from the book itself, Bill Hampton, takes us to a church in San Antonio where a congregation's nonviolent stand against violent deportations became, in their time and their world, a turning point in the immigrant rights movement. Hampton's account reveals how compassion and incredible determination transformed violent repression into tentative solidarity, even converting a Trump-supporting sheriff into a future ally. Could that happen in our world? Listen, see it in your mind, and decide for yourself.
The heart of the episode explores how scattered resistance movements began weaving themselves together into something more powerful. Instead of working in separate silos—climate activists here, labor organizers there, anti-racism advocates somewhere else—people started supporting each other's struggles. They protested what they opposed but also demanded, fought for, and built alternatives they wanted to see: sanctuaries instead of deportations, new housing instead of military spending, sincere dialogue instead of reflexive division.
Guevara's questions and the interviewees' answers don't offer a blueprint but a provocation. They show one successful path. Can our movements connect more deeply, as their's did? Can we recognize that our diverse struggles are fundamentally linked as they did? Can we commit to supporting each other across differences? Will our path to such gains be similar to theirs? If not, how will it differ?
The Wind Cries Freedom challenges us to imagine resistance evolving into revolution—not through violence or top-down control, but through solidarity and shared vision and strategy. It asks us to consider whether such transformation might be possible in our own world, emerging from our own movements and struggles. It asks what does our activism need to embody to build the world we need? It hopes that by documenting the approaches of its related future revolution, in the words of its participants, it may offer useful insights while making real the prospects of winning.
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is the 354th consecutive episode. You may be aware that I am interspersing in the flow of episodes, a sequence based on a book, the Wind Cries Freedom. I have done two episodes so far, presenting the introduction and chapters 1, two and three. The book is an oral history of a next American revolution. The interviewer is Miguel Guevara. There are 18 interviewees, three of whom you have met so far, and this time a fourth will convey some further activist experiences.
Speaker 1:But what the hell am I up to? Well, I am channeling alternative history from another time and another version of our world to you. Which history, however, emerged from conditions very like our own. And why am I doing this? Well, I think the oral history says things, that is, I hear it saying things that I think warrant attention. But perhaps my saying that is redundant. Of course I think it warrants attention, else I wouldn't be doing this. How about if someone else says something like that her own way? Perhaps that will resonate or motivate the effort more effectively. So, before I convey Chapter 4 of the Wind Cries Freedom, I want to start this episode by channeling a reaction to the book from yet another of its participants, leslie Zinn, who happens to herself be a very experienced media person. Here is her organizer's take on the oral history she wrote.
Speaker 1:Before offering my take on the Wind Cries Freedom WCF, I should acknowledge up front that I was one of its interviewees. I was also, from the very beginning, a committed member of the Revolutionary Participatory Society Movement, or RPS. Reviewing a project I'm woven into may seem awkward, even self-serving, but if it reads as narcissistic, so be it. I prefer to think of it as honesty, because of course I want people to hear about our revolution. Miguel Guevara, as both the interviewer and the editor, sought out my views alongside many others for his oral history. I agreed, though without much expectation, that my contribution would matter. When the book finally arrived a year later, with Miguel's heartfelt note of thanks, I set it aside.
Speaker 1:I had lived through the events he chronicled, I knew many of the voices, and in those transitional years after the upheavals, life was full to the brim with other urgent tasks. It wasn't until I fell ill for a few days, too restless for daytime television, that I cracked it open. Almost immediately I saw its potential, not just as an archive of what we did, but as a resource for activists everywhere, for anyone who doubts the possibility of winning a new world or wonders what winning could mean in practice. Guevara's project is a provocation. It challenges us to see our own choices and how they might contribute to something larger. Reading on, I realized it was valuable, even for someone like me, a lifer in RPS, not as nostalgia, not as a self-flattering snapshot, but as a reminder of something basic Many eyes, many voices are always better than one, even within an intensely commingled venture like RPS. Those voices weren't redundant, they were additive. They revealed paths I hadn't walked, angles I hadn't seen.
Speaker 1:The stories ranged widely. Some interviewees traced their radicalization back to the 60s, others to the 2020s, still others through RPS itself. Together, we explained how we learned to communicate without alienating, how we pursued reforms without losing sight of revolution, and how we avoided the traps of sectarianism, electoral fetishism or catastrophic violence, electoral fetishism or catastrophic violence. We shared a vision of where we wanted to arrive equity, justice, solidarity, self-management but we got there by different routes. Miguel pulled those threads together the 2016 election and its fallout, rps's startup, its rallies, its conventions, its experiments in chapter building, demands, vision and program. We recounted victories and compromises, consciousness raising, struggles over race, gender, class, environment. We told of shadow institutions built to prefigure the future.
Speaker 1:But here's the thing Next, american Revolution isn't a novel. There's no plot arc, no romance, no gossip, no births, no funerals. What it has are first-hand accounts of becoming revolutionary and of collective action forcing systemic change. Personality is secondary, the politics is the point. Throughout, we admitted misgivings, we spoke of persistence despite doubts. We offered criticism alongside celebration, warnings alongside hopes. The texture of it is testimony, personal, yes, but also evidentiary. And Miguel never presents it as a manual. This is not quote live like these folks do what they did. End quote Context matters.
Speaker 1:Whether we were marching, striking, occupying, running in elections, building sanctuaries, we were describing one path among many possible ones, not the only way, only way. Miguel's craft was to weave those specific stories into chapters that highlight lessons that others might adapt, refine or discard. Still, I believe, unapologetically, that RPS's values are foundational for liberation in any context Equity, justice, self-management, solidarity, diversity, sustainability, peace. You can't sidestep these and expect to win a world worth living in. What struck me most, reading while flu-ridden, was how non-linear our path really was. There wasn't one road to one destination. We were improvising, we were multiplying, different turns were possible. We were multiplying. Different turns were possible and many were taken.
Speaker 1:Another revolution in another time or place wouldn't replicate ours, but it can reflect on it, as Miguel intended, and extract what's useful. Imagine replaying history's tape from 2025 a hundred times. Each run would diverge, some faster to success, some collapsing under war, climate catastrophe, plague but most, I believe, would still reach liberation through different choices, different encounters, different obstacles. That's why an oral history matters, not as a blueprint, but as an offering of possibilities, which brings me to my hope for the book. Like Miguel, I want the Wind Cries Freedom to make the very idea of revolution tangible, not utopian. I want it to spark activism wherever people are struggling To test that.
Speaker 1:I read it not as the hardened veteran that I am, but as the anxious young woman I was over a quarter of a century ago. From that vantage, it felt like a provocation, not a how-to, but a how to think about it, a how to work on it with others. In that sense, guevara's oral history is less a retrospective than a forward-looking tool. It doesn't close the book on our evolution. It extends a hand across time and space. My recommendation Take the hand, read the history, then decide for yourself. Okay. So with that as motivation, here's Chapter 4 of the Wind Cries Freedom. It's titled From Sanctuary to Shared Program. In it we meet Bill Hampton, mayor of New York, and he and the interviewer, miguel Guevara, discuss immigration struggles, dealing with repression, seeking a program and finally getting RPS going To start. Miguel asks Bill Hampton.
Speaker 1:You threw yourself into immigration struggles and the fight against racism and from there into the heart of RPS. You took on the brutal contradictions of urban life, transit planning, gentrification. You stood with those claiming the right to the city, you ran for office and now you are mayor of New York City, sitting in an office once built to serve wealth and suppress dissent. So let me ask you plainly do you remember when you first became radical Under Obama? Much as I was inspired when he first won, I had grown horrified at the racist resurgence that his winning provoked, which in turn produced Black Lives Matter and sensitized many to Islamophobia and immigration politics.
Speaker 1:Later, joining campaigns for Sanctuary in my own town and its local church greatly affected me. Feeling the need for those efforts to connect with other emerging efforts primed me for RPS, and the rest seemed to flow inexorably. Getting a big boost from working for Mamdani, I never sat down and said to myself I want to be radical, I want to be revolutionary. Instead, something inside took over, and that was that. Miguel asks what caused you to think it was worth your time, that we could win? I have no idea. Given my background of earlier experiences, it would have been way more likely. I think that I would have thought trying to win a new world was idiocy. Miguel responds can you in that case tell us what early RPS events or campaigns most personally moved and inspired you?
Speaker 1:The first was a sanctuary for immigrants who were slated to be deported. The site was a church in San Antonio, texas. The church had an incredibly courageous pastor, choir and congregation. I was there visiting a friend and trying to learn. Looking back, this was our Selma, our Birmingham, Alongside Trump's ICE agents. San Antonio's sheriff so disrespected anyone who could side with immigrants that he felt a few swings of police batons would clear a path to the intended deportees. We knew we had to show him that we would not be moved not easily, not at all.
Speaker 1:Police came and their vans congregated. The sheriff announced they were going to take the immigrant families who were receiving sanctuary away for deportation. They had their vans and were set to follow Trump's orders. The police stood ten abreast and about five deep. They faced the church entrance, all holding extra-long clubs. The pastor was at the top of the church steps Maybe 50 congregants and the full choir was there with him, and myself as well.
Speaker 1:The pastor told the officials that to take the immigrant families, the police would have to go through the church's extended local family. He then said and I will never forget it Come ahead. If you must Brutalize our limbs, shove our beaten bodies aside. You will not break our spirit. You will have to assault us and again and again you may even have to kill us. We will not be moved in our minds, we will only be moved in our bodies, and even then only if you brutalize our limbs and torsos into physical silence and shove our trembling husks aside. If you feel all that is warranted, come ahead. The sheriff, disbelieving and unmoved, replied you have two minutes to vacate. After that we will forcefully vacate you and take the illegals.
Speaker 1:At that moment everyone locked arms, before the police could even process that much. The doors of the church opened and there were rows and rows of congregants also with locked arms. You could barely see the immigrant families in the distance at the pulpit If we stuck to our stated intent. To reach the pulpit would require carnage. The church choir began to sing. Require carnage? The church choir began to sing. We Shall Not Be Moved. We Shall Not Be Moved.
Speaker 1:The sheriff was a Trump supporter with a big red MAGA hat. He had buttons and all. He may as well have been Bill Connor reincarnated. Likely most or all of the police that had accompanied him had hoped, on the way to the church that they would see some action. They were mostly Trump supporters too, but not all the deputies. Two of them sat down with us. We welcomed them, tears of togetherness in our eyes. They must have thought they would be unemployed by day's end, if not worse. But they sat.
Speaker 1:The sheriff knew that to try to breach the human barrier would only succeed if we crumbled and ran. The pastor said no, we won't run, not even close. But the sheriff thought that of course we would run A few big swings of their overlong batons and we would scurry off like whipped rats. So the sheriff and deputies marched into the human barrier, striking viciously. Blood flowed, carnage spread but no one ran and the singing grew louder, deep in our hearts. We know People in the front were quickly bloodied, physically bowed, but nothing more. As the officials literally tromped on us, there were grunts and moans, but few screams.
Speaker 1:And then, incredibly, with the choir singing and with more folks from within the church coming out to lock arms and with onlookers clearly horrified, the defenders, including myself, actually reached up to embrace our tormentors. Our bear hugs diminished their capacity for brutal swings. There was even a strange intimacy about it. We weren't begging, we weren't fighting. We were offering a degree of understanding. We didn't fight hate with hate, but with compassion and steadfast intent. We didn't fight racism with racism, but with solidarity.
Speaker 1:After a bit, some deputies simply relented, and then the sheriff did too. He had to. Yes, they could have physically demolished us, leaving a battlefield of blasted souls in their wake, but nothing less would succeed in taking the families, and that was simply too much. Less would succeed in taking the families, and that was simply too much. A retreat began and then, incredibly, the pastor, bent, bloodied but not beaten, calmly invited the sheriff and his key deputies. If they wished to come into the church, they just had to leave their batons and their guns with their fellows outside. If they did that, they were welcome to talk to the immigrant families and the pastor. Tears were flowing. Medics were aiding people and, in what I suspect was a shock for the pastor, like for the rest of us, after what seemed like an eternity of just standing there staring at the bloodied pastor, the sheriff took off his gun and walked with the pastor into the church. I don't know what their talk inside was about, but the next day the sheriff stood before dozens of press. He said quote I heard the illegal stories, I heard their supporters, I heard their pastor. I will no longer recognize federal orders, or any orders at all, to arrest immigrants. He dropped his mic and walked off.
Speaker 1:It was the beginning of the end, not just in Texas and in the US but around the world, of the vicious anti-immigrant mindset. It was the shortest, longest press conference ever. Fierce conflicts with many horrible losses had marred prior years. Other sheriffs didn't budge. Many kids were separated from parents and violated. Many activists were clubbed and jailed. But San Antonio Sunday broke that pattern and brought an end to the blame the immigrant, shun the immigrant, beat the immigrant, cage the immigrant, expel the immigrant, kill the immigrant era. It set the stage for humane policy regarding the coming year's migrations to escape climate catastrophes. San Antonio's sheriff may or may not have found his humanity, but either way, activism won and that has got to be the lesson, the message that lasts when police or thugs or whoever, club jail or worse not how much it hurt, but how we beat it rose above it, came out of it larger and stronger. Best case when those who are paid to impose rule refuse their employers and break bread with presumed violators. The end of unjust rule is coming.
Speaker 1:For me, this was such an incredible sight, such an incredible event, so meaningful in so many ways, that I have to recount it in answer to your question. The bottom line was people can work together. People can win gains. The question how big could those gains become? Miguel replied Bill. Years later I sat with the sheriff for a retrospective interview. He cried as he remembered the scene at the church After that confrontation he didn't just reflect on it, he transformed and became an RPS member.
Speaker 1:But that conversion aside earlier, what was your view of the police Before San Antonio, miguel? I hated cops. To me, my family and my friends, cops spelled danger. They brought death. When they came, we went Our way. To deal with cops before San Antonio was to imagine fighting fire with fire, eye to eye, toe to toe, call them pigs, throw a rock, daydream of beating them up, but then turn and run like hell.
Speaker 1:The sanctuary didn't make me a pacifist, but I saw how militant nonviolence plus cautious compassion could disarm and defeat what would have totally demolished any attempt to fight back, divide the police, defuse the, finally make the police into allies. I learned that when we do that, their powerful paymasters become pitiful. To do it larger, what could facilitate that? And to stay involved? And to develop lasting ties, what could nurture that? Not to spend our time describing their strengths, their violence? The lesson to take when they attack is not how they look, how tough they are, how much it hurts. That helps them. The lesson to take is how to grow resistance, how to make repression cost them more than it costs us.
Speaker 1:Miguel asks what about cursing cops? I won't sugarcoat it. Sometimes it does feel good. Letting out that rough frustration, especially when you're face to face with someone who has power over your life, can be cathartic. There's something about shouting you pig, get out of my face. That breaks the conditioning many of us grew up with our ingrained reflex to obey, to submit, to nod politely even when everything in you is screaming no. But when cursing is our go-to, it's emotion, not strategy, that runs the show. That kind of outburst tends to close off the possibility of change, to shut the door on anything resembling mutual recognition. When you address officers as fellow citizens, fellow human beings, even when they're being used to enforce unjust laws, something different can happen. You're not submitting, but you're also not denying their capacity to listen, to reconsider, to change.
Speaker 1:If we'd all met the sheriff in San Antonio with curses and contempt, if we'd confirmed every expectation he had of who we were, I doubt the man you later came to know would have ever emerged. Miguel replies I can only begin to grasp what you lived through in San Antonio, bill. Just hearing it now, my hands tremble. I don't know if I feel rage, joy or both. Still we are in the present.
Speaker 1:Tell me the RPS program. How did that first begin to take shape? Well, when you've lived through something like San Antonio, when you see people come together in the face of violence and intimidation, not with hatred but with determination and hope, you start thinking about the future. You start thinking about how to build something that lasts. So, yes, the conversation began to shift toward program and also lasting connections. It wasn't abstract, it wasn't academics or even seasoned activists off in some small room. It was grounded in what people were living and fighting through every day. And it was those people you had the Sanders campaign planting some of the early seeds. Then came the energy of Occupy, black Lives Matter and those incredible surges in Greece, spain and the global women's marches. These weren't disconnected moments. They were part of one deep but vague current. I was deeply involved in Occupy myself.
Speaker 1:But let's be honest, trump's second victory hit like a punch in the gut. He doubled down on division, appointing climate deniers, white supremacists, misogynists, folks who seemed determined to drag the country to a far darker time. Eliminate vaccines. It was easy to despair. A lot of people did. But in time what became clear was this that people hadn't signed up for fascism. They'd been confused, lied to, but deep down they still wanted something better. And that's when the resistance found its footing again. But the real challenge was bigger than just resisting. It was articulating a vision, something to move toward. We couldn't just play defense. We had to begin to build the future.
Speaker 1:In the midst of the fight, prior to RPS, a lot of program was being offered Sanders, black Lives Matter, the Women's Marches. They all had program. Even so, most of the political class and even much of the left was still stuck reacting to Trump's every outrage. We weren't lifting up alternatives. If you go back and look at the media at the time, you'll find a hundred pieces on Trump's antics for every one on what movements were actually proposing. That had to change. We needed to shift from resistance to reconstruction, from outrage to offering. That meant building organization. That could feature multiple issues, multiple tactics, but for a clear, encompassing direction.
Speaker 1:So when Trump severely escalated deportations, some of the most visionary activists didn't just protest. They organized sanctuaries, whole cities, churches, campuses, even private homes stood up and said you'll have to go through us. You may remember the earliest airport demonstrations, that immediate, spontaneous stand when the first travel bans had much earlier hit. And in Texas, when a mosque burned, you may remember a Jewish temple handed over their keys. That kind of solidarity isn't policy, it's moral architecture. But translating it into enduring grassroots structures that took more time. Eventually, churches, colleges and homes became places of refuge, and the people who defended them didn't just guard. They shared culture, they built trust. Who defended them didn't just guard. They shared culture, they built trust. They learned what began as resistance became, little by little, the scaffolding of a new kind of community.
Speaker 1:Then came something remarkable Major athletes began opening up arenas literal arenas to welcome migrants and refugees. It was a gesture of care and of power, reminiscent of what the New Orleans Saints Arena became after Hurricane Katrina, but now infused with activism, education and celebration. And it worked. Deportation plans stalled. More people's hearts and minds shifted. Mutual aid, once a slogan, became a lived ethic and, to be honest, that ethic had been missing from some corners of the anti-fascist resistance.
Speaker 1:Another front was confronting Trump's appointees. Activists didn't just call them names, they investigated, they explained, they offered better alternatives. They made clear it wasn't just about who sits in the seat, but what vision the seat serves. They even went to the homes of these powerful figures, not with violence, but with clarity and purpose. Here is where the decisions are being made. Here is who they affect. We flipped the script. It built connections.
Speaker 1:I remember in Philadelphia, the Eagles football field tent shelters spread across the field, kids playing, athletes working out A strange and beautiful scene and through it all, people learning to share, building something real, suddenly avoiding climate catastrophe, rebuilding from storms and pushing back against repression. These weren't isolated issues. They were a shared responsibility. Mutual aid replaced resignation. People stopped casting suspicion on every working class person with questions about immigration and instead began building bridges. We didn't shy away from hard conversations, we stepped into them.
Speaker 1:I remember one March we walked four miles from a struggling neighborhood straight to the Secretary of Defense's mansion and when we got there I took the bullhorn and said it plain this man is wrecking the planet, waging wars, pushing hate. We know where he lives and we want the world to know too. Not to intimidate, but to expose, to say we see you, we have better ideas and we're not going anywhere. 2,000 people blocked suburban streets in front of this cabinet member's home. Neighbors watched Cameras everywhere. Here come the police. Great, what are they going to do? Tear gas, scarsdale? I interject. Do you wonder if these kinds of resistance could arise in our world? What would need to happen for these types of activism to not only arise and appear widely, but to persist and grow? As I convey the interviewee's words, I feel this question in many shapes over and over. Do you, miguel, asks?
Speaker 1:But there was another dimension to the efforts around immigration, wasn't there, bill, bearing on how it was understood and addressed, yes, much opposition to immigration stemmed from fears about wages, jobs or, at its worst, straight-up racism. And yes, those elements were there, no doubt. But over time we started to realize they weren't the full story. In fact, they might not even have been near the heart of it. Ironically, it was Trump and the far right who seemed to grasp something deeper, before many of us on the left got it. They recognized that some communities and individuals harbored a fear that ran beneath economics and skin color, a fear that immigration might upend familiar ways of life, that a sudden influx of people with different customs, languages, holidays and norms could dilute cultural identity and create social friction. Was that always a rational fear? No, was it always free from prejudice? Certainly not. But was it real and sincerely felt by many? Absolutely, and that mattered. The right saw that and they exploited it. They amplified cultural unease and then channeled it into an economic anxiety and racial hostility. They turned a legitimate, though hugely exaggerated, discomfort about being what they called replaced into a divisive weapon.
Speaker 1:When the left finally came to grips with this, we worked to bridge those cultural divides. It wasn't easy, honestly. In the beginning most attempts were awkward and ineffective. But we learned. We began proposing arrangements that didn't just integrate immigrants into existing communities, but honored the traditions and identities of both groups. The aim wasn't assimilation through erasure, but coexistence through respect. That was the RPS approach. We didn't vilify those who feared change, nor did we sanctify those who demanded it. Those who feared change, nor did we sanctify those who demanded it. We listened, we addressed the real material concerns and we tackled racism head-on when it appeared. But we also leaned into the broader cultural dimension, because you don't win people over by dismissing their fears. You join with them by understanding their fears and showing a better way forward.
Speaker 1:Miguel asks were there other important focuses in RPS's early days? One of the most consequential efforts, especially for its long-term implications, was how it responded to the proposed budget increases for the military and for police departments. Instead of just saying no, activists painted a picture of a better yes. We highlighted how those funds could be reallocated not just to avoid harm but to do good. We called for changes in police policy budgeting and accountability. We proposed converting underused or decommissioned military bases into low-income housing, funded not by charity but by redirecting military dollars. One of our slogans became quote build houses, not bombers. Another was quote housing instead of corpses. That one got attention. We proposed that soldiers who helped build homes would get first dibs if they wanted to live there.
Speaker 1:We didn't just ask ourselves what were we against. We asked who we could include in the solution. Could our demands meet short-term needs and still reflect long-term values? Could we appeal to workers, communities and even, yes, to summon law enforcement and the military? That was the RPS challenge. That was the RPS promise.
Speaker 1:The aim wasn't just the projects themselves, it was creating lasting connections, durable local ties. We invited police officers to neighborhood meetings, even into people's homes. It may sound absurd to some, like it would have to me years earlier, but we said let's talk, let's figure out how to make our streets safe for everyone. At first hardly any officers showed up, but gradually more did. We organized at police stations, on military bases, not just in protest but in dialogue. And let me be clear, it wasn't easy. We got pushback and, yes, we took our share of beatings, but we kept showing up because we believed it mattered. This is even on the road to RPS, not just later for RPS itself. I interject Is this unreal, make-believe, magical thinking, or could this happen? Could real people in our world act as we hear? These people in their world acted? And would it be wise Remember? Their world was like ours until it diverged. Bill continues.
Speaker 1:After the earlier murder of George Floyd, stopping police violence remained urgent, but later we paired that urgency with vision. We started seeing police and military personnel not as unreachable enemies, but as people caught in systems, tools of the system, often vicious, yes, but also potential partners in its transformation. We had to relentlessly call out racism, sexism and class oppression, but we also had to genuinely believe that no human being was beyond reach, which included those in uniform. That broader spirit of inclusion without compromise began to build momentum as we moved from resistance to reimagining. Grassroots assemblies started forming, neighborhood by neighborhood, workplace by workplace. But it didn't start with mass meetings or resolutions. It started with conversations, with listening, and it looked different depending on where you were. Rural Iowa didn't move like the Bronx, and that was good. Local initiative was the point.
Speaker 1:I remember, after Trump's first victory, and the second time too, wondering was it enough to just fight back, to just resist in a fragmented way, issue by issue, crisis by crisis. He acts, we react, courageous, necessary, but where would that wind up? Could we build something more that connected the dots, something multi-issue, multi-tactic, big enough to both block injustice and build a better world. The answer, eventually, was yes, but it took time. It took losses and it took learning from each of those losses, and when it came to how we organized what structures we built, we had to innovate. The old models weren't working. We needed new approaches that welcomed diversity, practiced collective leadership and protected against the traps of sectarianism and intellectual elitism. That meant opening space for people to speak who hadn't always had the floor and making sure those who were used to dominating conversations learned to listen. Because here's the truth Many folks, especially from marginalized backgrounds, were rightly skeptical.
Speaker 1:They'd seen movements hijacked. They'd seen well-meaning people become gatekeepers. They worried that if we leaned too heavily on intellectual frameworks, the folks with the most privilege and education would take over. That's a real, a valid concern, but the answer wasn't to ditch vision or program. The answer was to build in safeguards, to develop inclusive methods that elevated every voice.
Speaker 1:In time, we came to understand how certain policies and structures could inadvertently lift up what we later came to call the coordinator class, the professionals, the administrators, the experts. Back then, though, we didn't always have the language, so sometimes the fear of hierarchy just led to avoiding any planning at all, and that created a vacuum and in that vacuum, the loudest or most confident voices tended to fill the space Exactly the outcome folks were trying to avoid. So, yes, it was frustrating, but it was also real and we had to face it with humility. If we wanted an inclusive movement, we had to make it work for everyone, not just those with time, education or rhetorical skill. We had to build something genuinely democratic, something that belonged to all of us. That was the road to RPS. Miguel asks what about actual program? The road to RPS. Miguel asks what about actual program?
Speaker 1:People's responses to program, at least early on, were often scattered. One group would fully commit to a cause, reproductive rights, say, or eliminating the electoral college. Another would pour everything into defending immigrants or perhaps fighting for affordable housing. Still others threw their weight behind tackling pollution, pushing for a wealth tax, resisting the minimum wage or demanding community control of police. These were all deeply important efforts. Each spoke to real needs and injustices, but what we saw was that folks often stuck it to their own lane, their own issue, and, as a result, activism happened in silos. You'd hear it in conversations, quote you do your thing, I'll do mine.
Speaker 1:That kind of fragmentation wasn't just inefficient, it fostered a mentality of me first, or at least my issue first, and understandably, some folks worried that calls for unity might mean top-down conformity, that coming together might end up looking like the kind of rigid sectarian unity that history has shown us doesn't work. Now, even with the best participatory intentions, it doesn't help to avoid reflection and critical thinking. Still, I want to emphasize that what people were expressing wasn't, in my view, anti-intellectualism. It was a pushback against a certain kind of gatekeeping, a resistance to people using education or access to dominate decision-making, often in subtle but powerful ways, and resistance to that, while sometimes messy in how it showed up, was justified. I remember some of those arguments. You'd have someone well-spoken, polished, advocating what they called reason. But it was their reasoning, their conclusions and often their control, and the response at times came off like a rejection of thought itself. But that wasn't really it. It was a rejection of the idea that quote reason belonged to a few and that everyone else had to fall in line. It wasn't about turning away from intellect, it was about insisting on equity and who gets to use it.
Speaker 1:Over time we started to hear the deeper concerns, feel the undercurrents. We began to ask who's getting heard, who's setting the terms of the debate, and as more voices entered, as more experiences were brought to the table, a better balance began to form. It didn't happen overnight and even today we're still working on it, but one of RPS's early lessons, especially in analyzing Trump and everything that came with him, was to recognize that what looked like anti-intellectualism was in fact a reflection of class tensions. It was about who had access, who had time, who had voice, not about rejecting thinking time, who had voice, not about rejecting thinking, miguel asks. So what attitude toward program emerged, bill, from all the many currents of thought?
Speaker 1:I remember a speech that really brought it all home. It went something like this quote we must combine campaigns to end deporting immigrants through local airports with campaigns to clean up plumes of toxic waste from those same airports. We must mesh efforts to curb CO2 emissions with efforts to protect the poor from rising waters and to create and ensure good jobs and new housing. We must combine ending the use of fossil fuels with preserving the incomes and improving the circumstances of coal and oil workers. Community centers must feature speakers on women's rights and also on wage struggles. Activists for prison reform must support and be supported by activists for solar power. Activists for electoral renovation must support and be supported by activists for military reduction. It wasn't rhetoric, it was sincere desire.
Speaker 1:What RPS realized and what many of us came to embrace, was that the only way forward was together. Those working to end war needed to link arms with those fighting for immigrant rights, who, in turn, stood with environmental organizers, who stood with public health advocates, and on and on. Each cause had to strengthen the others. The goal wasn't to flatten differences. The goal was to weave them together into something stronger. This is what drove us together toward encompassing organization. That was not imposed from on high. It was initiated from below. Miguel asks as calls for program began to resonate more widely, certain proposals started to gain real traction On the national stage.
Speaker 1:There was strong momentum to address inequality by raising the minimum wage. That opened the door for broader support to increase taxes on the wealthiest among us. And then came an even deeper, current one, calling not just for fairer pay but for shorter work days and shorter work weeks. The idea was simple but powerful let's create full employment and more leisure for all without reducing incomes. At the same time, people were demanding a better quality of life for everyone, health care for all, housing for all, deeper but also more accessible education, including canceling student debt and making college free. There were broad-based demands to shift public spending away from war and surveillance toward rebuilding our infrastructure and expanding public services and offering free child care. Now, these weren't yet a full-fledged blueprint for a new set of foundational institutions, but many folks already had long-term vision in mind and, maybe more importantly, in practice, the pursuit of these aims pushed us in that direction. These conversations, these campaigns, they became stepping stones to deeper discussions about how we wanted our society to work.
Speaker 1:I might be rambling a bit here, but let me be clear about the core idea. We hoped and needed that, even as single-issue movements continued to fight for their priorities whether around war, immigration or climate and even as organizations with specific, focused missions, like Greenpeace say, stayed focused on their work, they would all also connect to something broader. We wanted everyone to sign on to a shared agenda, to lend their support not just to their own fight but to all the fights that pointed toward justice and dignity for all people. That kind of unity had been missing. We didn't just need smart policy proposals. We had those. What we needed was to share those proposals with each other across our movements. That meant you would commit to support campaigns, not only for what spoke most directly to your personal experience, but also for the fights that spoke most clearly to others. That was how you build solidarity. That was how you build solidarity. That was how you build solidarity. That was how you build power.
Speaker 1:Those who focused on war would support those focused on immigration. Who would support those focused on global warming, who would support those focused on racial justice, gender equality, economic democracy, and on and on. It was about weaving a web of mutual aid and shared commitment. That evolving sentiment called forth overarching organizational means. That became RPS. One powerful pre-RPS example stood out. Labor activism was then on the rise. At the same time, there was a groundswell of campus support for Palestine and growing opposition to war spending. For a while, those streams ran in parallel, but then they began to converge. They found strength in one another. That kind of alliance was what we needed, miguel asks why was it that some activists began to feel the need, no, the hunger for an organization like RPS, one that wouldn't silo, struggle, wouldn't bow to the habit of picking just one oppression to fight, but would rise to face them all together?
Speaker 1:What made those comrades different from the ones who kept their heads down and clung to the old, single-issue ways. Was it deeper understanding? Was it defiance, an unwillingness to live by the rules of a dying world? Or was it something else entirely, a militant clarity that named each barrier in its path and then stepped forward, steady and unflinching, to tear it down? I wish I had a clean answer for all that. Honestly, I don't know. Could have been insight, could have been confidence, maybe even some stubborn hopefulness, maybe all the above. Whatever it was, the truth is it happened, and really that's why you're here during these interviews, isn't it? To figure it out. So that's the end of chapter four. And just a little note don't go looking for the book at the store or on Amazon or wherever. It's still sitting on my computer. It's still being refined and who knows if it will ever be published. And all that said this is Mike Albert signing off until next time for Revolution Z.