Insurgent American is multi-modal, interactive intelligence and communications site. It is designed to be a practical strategic resource.
The name is not meant to call up visions of gun nuts in the back alleys. We like a bit of irony. The US government has for many years designed its domestic population control programs bawed on a military doctrine called counter-insurgency. The “insurgents” are now pretty much anyone who disagrees with the dominant consensus and does een a little bit more than talk about it… like the Quakers that the government “infiltrated” a couple of years ago.
Insurgent American will feature analysis that is not aimed at supporting false comfort — the bliss of ignorance. On the other hand, no one should ever follow anyone who runs around saying “The sky is falling!” (even if it is).
IA is a practical strategic resource.
Practical: concerned with actual use or practice
Strategic: relating a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal
Resource: a source of aid or support that may be drawn upon when needed
We believe in leadership, but less in the old, masculine sense of directing and bossing, and more in the sense of connectors as described by Malcolm Gladwell and others. They are everywhere, and IA wants to connect connectors.
In our case, however, we look beyond the ability to create a “buzz,” and beyond the ability to generate fads and fashions. Connectors must also be the midwives of new practices that orient toward some common vision of community. This makes leadership more than just a connector.
We believe that there is such a thing as good leadership and bad leadership, and a few shades in between. For us, good leadership does not sow fear, but instead promotes patience, realism, and — when necessary — stubborn determination.
These things — patience, realism, and determination — are not always easy; and they require the sharing of experience, both joy and hardship. They require community.
We believe that we live in a destructive and unsustainable social system that makes people shallow, alienated, and unhappy. The real power of that system is based mostly on dependency.
It’s easy enough for any of us to say, “Stop lamenting this reality, and do something.” But we need to have some idea what to do.
We exist to promote a fundamental transformation of the power relations within our society. Most folks agree that this is needed.
Anyone can commit to this vision, and anyone can actively work to bring it about. And it doesn’t require capering around with a gun, dressed up like Che Guevara, or issuing long-winded manifestos. There are small, relatively do-able steps anyone can take that accumulate into bigger steps, then qualitative leaps.
Insurgent American wants to help people help each other to figure these steps out.
American society is in crisis. That is not because we once had a good thing, and now it’s gone bad. There has always been some section of this society in crisis. What has changed is that crisis is now beginning the process of generalization. This can be a source of fear… or hope. It can be seen as a slow death… or as a form of gestation.
A crisis for a destructive system is not necessarily a bad thing.
We are optimists. This site is designed to contribute to the development of midwives.