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November 4, 2012

Marginalized Progressives, Small Acts and Making a Difference

By Rob Kall

Thomas Frank observes, "The only honest way for progressives to assess the experience of these past four years is by coming unflinchingly to terms with our own futility and irrelevance." We can make a difference and we can do it with small acts. In fact, small acts are almost always the way things get done.

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There's a very interesting interview with Tom Frank, author of Pity the Billionaire, Tom Frank: Obama's made left "futile and irrelevant" 

Frank observes,
"The only honest way for progressives to assess the experience of these past four years is by coming unflinchingly to terms with our own futility and irrelevance."

And,
"...   this, by the way, is very typical of Washington, D.C. The left is something that everybody in the circles of power in the city " everybody knows that they don't have to deal with. And when they are asked by people like you and me to answer to left-wing criticisms, they instantly react with contempt. They don't have to answer. That's something that they do not have to pay attention to.  
Once this damned election is over, we need to get to work-- supporting Occupy, supporting progressive people-- whatever party they are a part of. At the end of the day, on election day, Dennis Kucinich will be on his way out. Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown will be alone in the Senate. 

Progressives must organize outside any existing parties to develop ways to get traction with Obama and Congress. We must also return to grassroots, local activism. Re-localization is the key to combating the system, combating globalization, combating big anything-- government, pharma, farming, duopoly political parties...

As an individual it can feel daunting and frustrating, that you can't do anything on your own. But be certain, be absolutely certain that everything single change for the better, every single step of progress towards a better future, a better world, a more just kind humanity was taken starting with one person. Small acts are always at the root of the biggest movements. 

Big people, big actions are always created, inspired or catalyzed by small acts by one person or a small group. 

You can make a difference. But to do so, you must ACT.

You never know what it is you do, what act of kindness, what step out of the way to take a stand, to speak out, to refuse to tolerate the status quo or refusal to go along with a wrong will start a movement. 

So, practice small acts... every day. One of them may become the butterfly wings that cause the wind that is felt around the world. 

If enough people do this, and it doesn't take millions, it absolutely WILL change the world. it's a bottom up thing.


Authors Bio:

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.


Check out his platform at RobKall.com


He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity


He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com


more detailed bio:


Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.


Rob Kall Wikipedia Page


Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 400 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Or check out my Youtube Channel


Rob Kall/OpEdNews Bottom Up YouTube video channel


Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.


Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.


To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.


For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.


Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table

Talk Nation Radio interview by David Swanson: Rob Kall on Bottom-Up Governance June, 2017

Here is a one hour radio interview where Rob was a guest- on Envision This, and here is the transcript..


To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.


Follow Rob on Twitter & Facebook.


His quotes are here

Rob's articles express his personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.


Join the conversation:


On facebook at Rob Kall's Bottom-up The Connection Revolution


and at Google Groups listserve Bottom-up Top-down conversation





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