Advice For The Age Of Trump: Observe - Orient - Decide - Act

Backbone Campaign’s artful activism is bold, principled, powerful and invigorates social movements striving for equity and justice. And Bill Moyer is their Executive Director. Below is a guest post by Bill exploring a simple concept— that our "No!" is only as powerful as our "Yes!" is compelling.

Backbone Campaign’s Resistance And Resilience Strategy
By Bill Moyer

Fundamentally, I'd say that we are for a world/paradigm in which things of ultimate importance are simply not for sale. Our co-authorship in life's journey, conviviality of community, well being of the natural world that sustains us and our obligations to future generations are sacred. The paradigm of commodification is a paradigm of oppression— where the concentration of wealth and power are fundamental values in an idolatry of capitalism. Our's is a "We are all in this together" ethic.

I fully agreed that we cannot be defined by the onslaught of daily obscenities. In the study of Grand Strategy, there is an idea called the OODA loop. (Observe - Orient - Decide - Act). It describes a decision making cycle, and was described in this way by Col. John R. Boyd a famous fighter pilot. The objective of the fighter pilot is to cycle through the loop more quickly than one's opponent— deciding on an action that shifts the reality of the opponent before they've had the chance to fully orient— decide and act— literally causing them to be in a constant state of orientation— or disorientation— and thus defining the reality and defeating the opponent. This is called "getting inside the opponent's OODA loop.”

It is essential that we refuse to allow the Trump administration/corporatocracy (etc.) to define the terms and control the reality. We must play offense and stay focused upon our causes in a way that undermines the cohesion of our opponent's alliances and the resolve of its members.

Backbone Campaign is calling it our Push-Pull and/or Resistance and Resilience strategy. All engagement is grounded in the fundamental values of the ‘We are all in this together’ paradigm. The resistance needs to be bold, beautiful, and disarming and the resilience enrolling and recruiting from the base of those who wanted change so desperately that they voted for Trump despite his obscenity.

Our main recruiting "Pull" strategy is called Solutionary Rail. We just published a book that is the core organizing document of a non-ideological coalition unified by their diverse but intersecting interests in the electrification and modernization of US railroads and use of the corridors for transmission of renewable energy.

Another idea that I'd love to see is an end run around the threat to dismantle the ACA with a State or multi-State Single Payer initiatives and other forward looking initiatives that sidestep Federal dysfunction (single payer in California/Oregon/Washington for example).  Let those ready for the world we deserve have it— and let the others envy them enough to scrap the BS and come to their senses. (One problem that has became obvious last night at a meeting about health care is that the Democrat party MAY be more interested in lumping ACA with Medicare and Medicaid— possibly in order to defend an unworkable plan/Obama legacy than go on the offense— admit that the ACA did not measure up to delivering universal access to health in an affordable/sustainable way— and that single payer/medicare for all has always been the real/elegant way forward. We need to shed party power politics and get down to making life better for regular people ASAP.

Personally, I am dedicated to having a fantastic and winning next four years. I’ve sat and practiced drums four days in a row this year— first time in 13 years that I have allowed myself to do that. I am for personal time, well being, friendships, music and lots of joyful, beautiful struggle for a better world— AND DELIVERING VICTORIES that make a material difference in people's lives. I'm definitely not going let the bastards get me down— this is gonna be awesome!

Winning is more fun!