photo top: Hilary Klein background photo: David Hanks

POST-ISSUE ACTIVISM
Jason Justice
— HOW TO CHANGE THINGS —
A more important distinction is which direction is the concession moving
toward? Is it a concession that releases pressure on the system and
thereby legitimizes illegitimate authority? Or is it a concession that
teaches people a lesson about their collective power to make change and
therefore brings us closer to systemic change?
NGOism creates ripe conditions for going beyond mere ineffectiveness and
into outright complicity with the system. Time and time again we’ve seen
social-change NGOs grow to become a part of the establishment and then
be used as a tool to marginalize popular dissent by lending legitimacy to
the system. Whether it’s the World Wildlife Fund giving a green seal of
approval to oil companies or the American Cancer Society’s downplaying
of environmental pollution’s role in cancer, 27 it’s clear that NGOs can
become an obstacle to transformative change.
The professionalization of social change requires extensive resources, and
it’s obvious that NGO agendas can be shaped by their funding needs.
Whether reliant on a membership base or institutional funders, NGOs are
often forced to build a power base through self-promotion rather than selfanalysis.
Not only does this dilute their agendas to fit within the political
comfort zone of those with resources, it disrupts the essential process of
acknowledging mistakes and learning from them. This evolutionary
process of collective learning is central to fundamental social change, and
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Protests against police brutality and the war on Iraq following an April 7, 2003 police attack on demonstrators, longshore workers, and
members of the media with rubber, wooden, and plastic bullets, concussion grenades, and motorcycles. The police attacked in response
to a community picket to shut down SSA and APL corporations at the Oakland Docks, one of the major arteries for global capital’s
shipment of goods for the western United States. April 2003.
People from community, labor, and antiwar groups reclaim their right to picket and protest one month after the April 7 police attacks.
The docks were again shut down, and this time the police backed down and did not interfere. May 12, 2003.
Eric Wagner
Eric Wagner