#kairos-resistance

#kairos-resistance

"We have a great opportunity in our movements to learn how to be opponents without being enemies," says Tanuja Jagernauth. This perspective emphasizes the importance of maintaining respect and understanding even amidst conflict.

In her latest book, Indignity, Ypi blends archival material with a fictionalized account of her grandmother's childhood in Thessaloniki and her arrival in Albania, exploring themes of memory and dignity.

Real change rarely happens through debate or persuasion. Instead, transformation grows out of relationships, shared struggle, cognitive dissonance, and practice. Together, Kelly and Lewis explore what organizers can learn from the science of neuroplasticity, the role of rupture and confrontation, and why movements need to focus less on 'changing minds' and more on creating conditions where people can unlearn harmful beliefs and step into collective action.

I lived in Argentina in the mid-1980s, just after the fall of the brutal military dictatorship that ruled from 1976 to 1983. The country was taking its first, shaky steps back toward democracy. It was a time of great hope, but also of grave uncertainty - because while the generals were gone, the political culture that enabled them remained. Like most of the nation, I was captivated by the pioneering trials of the military generals that promised to restore justice.

In the environmental nonprofit sector, "centering frontline voices" has become a familiar slogan, often detached from how decisions are made or resources allocated. It appears in grant proposals, conference agendas, and organizational values statements. And yet, too often, those voices are still positioned as illustrative rather than authoritative-invited to animate strategies already decided, asked to translate lived experience into language legible to funders, or flattened into narratives that travel more easily than the truths they carry.

According to Fast Company, businesses across the country - including in Portland, Maine; Denver, Rochester, New York; Omaha, Nebraska; Las Vegas; and Los Angeles - have said they will be closed today in support of the strike. Local NBC affiliate 9News reports that multiple school districts in Colorado are canceling classes due to teacher and student participation in the strike. And while it remains to be seen how widespread the national shutdown will be, this is likely only the tip of the iceberg.

Like us, you may feel paralyzed in the face of the relentless images of violence we see every day. Suffering children, military occupations, the devastated neighborhoods, the cries of parents mourning their dead-these scenes haunt us. Whether it is happening in Palestine or Minneapolis, we are witnesses to suffering, and that witnessing takes a heavy toll. Clearly, the devastating situations in the West Bank and Gaza and in Minneapolis differ

He is not worthy of the presidency. He takes bribes blatantly. And now he's being a racist, blatantly. They were supposed to deport the dangerous criminals. They were not supposed to go after small children, storm schools, bring terror upon, you know, the little kids and the women and children, not just the immigrants in the school. All the children are scared.

There's a myth in our society that real change requires force, strength, and domination. We celebrate athletes, CEOs, and politicians who crush their opponents. But history tells a different story. Lasting social change has often been triggered by humble people whose weapons were passion, principle, and an unwavering commitment to justice and the truth - not the truth we see on TV or read in print media, but rather the truth that we feel deep inside ourselves.

It's common knowledge that we are awash in misinformation that can have severe negative consequences for society. When people hold false beliefs about the safety of vaccines, the outcomes of elections, or the causes of climate change, it is much more difficult for them to make responsible decisions on behalf of their families and communities. It is tempting to respond to this challenge by insisting that expert scientists know best and to dismiss those who challenge the experts.

At a time when geopolitical certainties of old are crumbling away, it has become the go-to quote to make sense of the current moment in all its seeming senselessness. The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters is a line attributed to the former Italian Communist party leader Antonio Gramsci. Over the last two months alone, it has been quoted and often mangled by a rightwing Belgian prime minister, a leftwing British political leader, an Irish central banker and in the title of the most recent BBC Reith lecture, given by the author Rutger Bregman.