Political Gerbil Wheel

Last night I was sitting in a meeting. We were talking about various strategies for moving the mission of an organization forward through electoral politics. I expressed reservations that such action was like pedalling on a stationary bike, we'd exert lots of effort and not move the mission forward. My friend described this trend as a political gerbil wheel. As we move forward across movements, my belief is that we must not act like caged rodents spinning in a wheel. We must act. Hearing a friend who works at the American Friends Service Committee describe how easy it is to get sucked into meetings that don't move things forward, I wondered what the responsible ways were of creating boundaries and simultaneously organizing. So much of what we've been doing in the anti-war, counter-globalization, and anti-capitalist movements feels like spinning. The time to break out of our cage and fight for our lives is now. Let's quit spinning, asses rotting in meetings.