Four hours after the acquittal of three New York City detectives who killed Sean Bell, my inbox filled with emails promoting a rally to demand justice for Sean Bell and his family.

Olympia, WA, February 22nd, 2008 —

Courtney Martin has recently noted that there is no shortage of activism of college campuses.  However, according to Martin ("The Problem With Youth Activism," American Prospect, November 19), much student activism is ineffective because students have been pacified by what she calls the institutionalization of student activities and activism.  In defense of student activists, Tim Fernholz ("The Kids Are Alright, Campus Progress, November, 27) argues that Martin is wrong and that her basic premise is indicative of a failure to understand politics.  Fernholz goes on to argue that today's college activists are smarter then those of the 60s because they are willing to work within the system instead of engaging in protest, boycotts, and civil disobedience.  Both Fernholz and Martin make some valid points.  Yet neither mentions power in any regard.  My aim is to make their conversation more complex by discussing how power impacts student activism.    

Because the last fifty years have produced phases of rapid political change and massive political reaction, activists in the US today are faced with an unprecedented political reality. This new political reality requires new theoretical and organizational innovations in the same way that new personal problems require new ways of solving them. However, very few left or progressive activists and intellectuals have discussed the need to develop new theories to solve these problems.  Instead, many have continued to uncritically apply the ideas of Marx to the US while others have tried to recapture the spirit of the 1960s by modeling activism after successful 60s organizations that lacked a rigorous program for political development.  Aware that I run the risk of being labeled apolitical and individualistic, this week I'm following the words of Martin Luther King and suggesting that activism must begin with the application of love to the current political reality thereby creating a radical revolution in values, which could cause us to think about politics in entirely new ways.      

In most progressive and leftist circles, the cause of the war in Iraq is correctly attributed to the Bush administration's desire for oil, power, and oil money. However, these explanations are only partial.  A complete understanding of the causes of the Iraq war requires an understanding of how the military industrial complex operates in the US.  Once this is achieved, it becomes apparent that the current organization of the US economy requires war to prevent recession, and that the struggle to end the war has the potential to reorganize the very structures that shape life in and out of the US.  

Because there is an undeniable crisis in the US felt by the majority of residents, the question of how people become active is very important.  The masses of US citizens are not convinced that the crisis facing the US is indicative of something profoundly wrong with the US system itself, only that there is something wrong with the people who are currently in charge of it.  Given this reality, it makes little sense for people to take revolutionary action because the masses of people will respond to revolutionaries as if they are crazy because they do not see the need for revolution. In response, a number of prominent intellectuals who believe there is something wrong with the US system have assumed the task of trying to convince the masses of people that there is something wrong with the system itself, not just the people in charge.  I will call a certain sector of these people public intellectuals because they have chosen to pursue this path through the use of popular media outlets.