Gebbie and Grassroots: Toward a Mass-Movement Organizing Style

On July 8, National AIDS Policy Coordinator Kristine Gebbie
announced her resignation, effective August 2. She has faced
growing criticism during the last several months, and
influential AIDS organizations have called for her to be
replaced.

Clearly the major problems in the Federal response to AIDS,
the major lost opportunities, are much more fundamental than
issues of Gebbie's performance. The White House failed to
give her office the support it needed, and this failure
reflects deeper problems in the nation as a whole. These
problems will not be corrected by Gebbie's departure and
replacement. We believe that they can be fixed, however --
and that you, the reader, wherever you are, can start now to
fix them.

The Clinton shift on AIDS -- from the campaign promise of an
"AIDS czar" to the long-delayed reality of an office
deliberately made too weak to deal seriously with the problem
-- reflects the fact that we in the AIDS movement have not
been strong enough to defend ourselves and defend Clinton
against pervasive attacks by the right-wing hate industry in
this country. The basic reason we have not been strong enough
is that the AIDS community has not organized itself as a mass
movement, while the hate industry has. For better or for
worse, we have entered a world where a mass-movement style
may be essential for survival. This article includes a first
draft of a checklist to evaluate whether an organization is
operating in a way which is consistent with it becoming part
of a mass movement. We do not know of any AIDS organization
today which does so.

An illustration of the basic problem was the major defeat of
the AIDS community early in the Clinton administration, when
Congress voted to overrule the unanimous recommendation of
public-health experts, and bar travelers and potential
immigrants with HIV from entering the United States without a
waiver. Since applying for the waiver is impractical and
possibly hazardous (as doing so might subject one to
discrimination in one's own country or in third countries),
potential visitors are better off if no one knows their HIV
status. By setting a worldwide example of discrimination
against people with HIV, Congress created an incentive for
everyone in the world not to get tested for the virus, not to
deal with the health system to get treatment for themselves
and to learn how to avoid spreading the virus to others. (The
ostensible motivation of Congress was to save money by
excluding HIV-positive immigrants who might use publicly
supported health care; the real purpose which drove the issue
was to embarrass and damage President Clinton, who had agreed
to remove the entry ban.)

The next big defeat as a result of not having a mass-movement
style was on the issue of excluding gays from the military.
While this was not an AIDS issue, it is related, in that the
national attitudes which are preventing an effective Federal
response to AIDS are often rooted in hatred and
discrimination against gays. While polls consistently showed
that the public was about evenly divided on this issue, or in
favor of nondiscrimination, letters and calls to Congress
sometimes ran more than a hundred to one in favor of
exclusion. Since Clinton could not win in Congress, he had to
evade the issue with an unworkable compromise.

What Clinton and the White House staff learned from these
experiences is that the AIDS and gay communities would not or
could not support them effectively if they took the lead on
AIDS or gay issues. Therefore, Clinton had to avoid AIDS and
focus on areas where he had more chance of success --
especially the economy, health-care reform, and crime. This
is why the National AIDS Policy Coordinator office was
crippled from the beginning -- to make sure it could not
independently bring AIDS into the forefront of national
attention. Therefore it could not address the root of the
problem, the national attitudes which have made effective
institutional response impossible. The first candidates
offered the position rejected it; finally Gebbie accepted, at
the height of public cynicism over the gays-in-the-military
issue. Only a miracle worker could have succeeded under those
circumstances.

What Can Be Done?

A fundamental problem blocking a serious national response to
AIDS is that the AIDS community cannot generate tens of
thousands of phone calls, letters, and visits to Congress and
other public officials, and thousands of letters to the
editors of newspapers, calls to radio talk shows, etc.
Therefore, the AIDS community can only advance where those
who can generate such volume are not interested. Without a
mass movement, AIDS activists tend to succeed only where
there is no mass-movement opposition -- on issues such as
access to treatments approved abroad, and structural research
reform. We do poorly on issues like the travel ban, medical
marijuana, condom education programs, and needle exchange.

For years there have been projects to organize letterwriting
to Congress, etc., on AIDS issues. Usually these efforts have
not worked very well. The basic problem, we believe, is that
the national leadership on AIDS is not oriented toward mass-
movement work -- and even is threatened by it. (This
leadership excels, instead, at inside-the-Beltway work -- for
which we should all be grateful, although that is not enough
by itself.)

Since AIDS needs a mass movement and does not have one, and
does not currently have leadership with talent in this area,
we have been drifting for the last several years. But we can
make the essential changes now, without waiting for the right
leadership to come along. We can begin by developing a mass-
movement style within the work we are doing already -- by
practicing ways of operating which are consistent with being
a mass movement. Then we can link up with each other and with
other movements, building the necessary leadership along the
way.

We believe that to be eligible to become a mass movement, an
organization must:

* Combine political work with peoples' social and other
needs. Most people will not get involved in purely political
activity. Until organizers integrate political communication
with other human needs, AIDS politics will remain a movement
of activists who can get media attention but are not a major
political force.

Here is one potential example of what we mean by integrating
the political and the social. In San Francisco and some other
cities, there is so much need for ways to meet people that
small industries are developing around it. But many do not
like to go to parties or events set up for mixing with
strangers, but would rather start by working together with
others who share a commitment. There could be a great
response to a political organization which, also, is
explicitly and skillfully social.

Peoples' social needs vary greatly, so there is no one
formula for addressing them. For example, some areas (such as
big cities in California) tend to be footloose and singles
oriented, while others are largely made up of couples and
traditional families. Many different kinds of
social/political organizations will be required.

One problem with most meetings is that those who attend
usually do not meet anybody. They may file into an auditorium
and then file out when the program is over; or smaller
meetings may be so packed with the formal program that when
they finish, people have to hurry and leave. When a meeting
needs to be too large for individual contact -- for example,
to hear a background briefing by a leading expert -- it could
break out into smaller groups based on interest and affinity.
In any case, we suspect that a successful mass movement will
be based on thousands of small, personal groups which meet
regularly, more than on large meetings.

* Be easy for new people to find and try out. Ideally, each
major national organization should have a number to call to
find a local branch in one's area -- or, if there is no local
yet, to talk to a regional coordinator who can provide
assistance in starting one. There should be no uncertainty or
hesitation at all in telling a new person how to get
involved.

And organizers must make sure that all the advice that goes
out to potential new people is workable -- that those who use
it are likely to be satisfied with the result, to find what
they are looking for.

* Make every meeting productive, right from the beginning. A
big deterrent to new people getting involved in political
action is that they have to sit through boring, pointless
meetings, where infighting is processed and egos displayed,
in order to make contact with the organization. (The
alternative is to start by sending a check to Washington or
New York and becoming a member-by-mail -- another style which
works OK for some, but does not have majority appeal.)

Instead, the organizers should be prepared so that people can
work together to write letters and practice making phone
calls, or make the actual calls, right in the meeting itself,
from someone's home or office. Organizers or invited speakers
can give a short background talk about an issue when
necessary. Business meetings should usually be separate.

Only a minority will motivate themselves to write letters
alone. Most will feel that they are not informed enough, if
they have only read a mailed fundraising appeal or action
alert. Working with other people gives a sense of the reality
of the issue, in a way that written material does not.

Organizers should remember that the hardest part is getting
people to write the first letter or make the first call;
then, sending two, five, ten, even 20 or more short,
personal, but largely identical letters or calls to other
appropriate officials is not much more difficult, providing
that all the names, addresses, and other such information are
properly prepared and presented. Organizers should always be
ready to take advantage of this multiplier effect.

* Practice permanent mobilization, then build from there in
emergencies. A mass movement requires ongoing mobilization
and political communication as part of a way of life.
Thousands of letters and phone calls need to be going out all
the time, instead of trying to build the network from scratch
when a major emergency arises.

What, then, will people do when there is no urgent AIDS issue
up for immediate decision? Part of the answer is that there
is always a need for public education -- and for letting
public officials know that AIDS does matter to their
constituents. Also, there are many AIDS organizations and
projects which need ongoing public support.

In addition, AIDS organizations can support coalition
partners, who may be having their critical issues being
decided at times when ours are not.

* Build on consensus. Organizing techniques will not do the
job without shared goals that make sense to people. In AIDS
there is a tradition of each group acting on its own, with
little regard for others. (This habit developed for an
understandable reason. Due to the lack of effective national
mobilization to deal with AIDS, the choice was often between
acting alone and doing nothing.)

Consensus can be built two ways, top down or bottom up. The
former requires a kind of national leadership which the AIDS
community does not seem to have at this time.

But we can also develop consensus through improved
communication, listening, and respect for each other. Of
course we will not agree on every issue. But if we have a
better understanding of where each other is coming from, then
those who propose initiatives will have an incentive to build
on consensus when possible, in order to make their own
projects stronger. And we will all benefit as a result.

Meanwhile, we already have consensus on a number of issues,
for example the travel ban, needle exchange, and probably
medical marijuana.

* Work in Coalition. A mass movement requires coalition. For
example, an AIDS letterwriting organization could invite
spokespersons for cancer, health-care reform, civil liberties
organizations, etc., to present an issue to its weekly or
monthly meeting, bringing addresses to write and phone
numbers to call. Those who chose to do so would write or call
in support, preferably at the meeting itself.

An additional benefit of doing this is that the AIDS
organization will have something important to offer other
groups, becoming a valued coalition partner, able to get
wider support on our issues when we need it.

* Study mass movements in history, and abroad. Worlds of
experience have been left out of U.S. culture, perhaps
deliberately. Through persistent study we can find models and
guidance -- and examples of mistakes to avoid.

*JJ*JJ*

This article is only a first draft on how an organization can
operate in such a way that it could become part of a mass
movement, if there is enough public feeling about the issue
-- as there certainly is with AIDS. Others can improve and
refine these suggestions.

Nothing we have suggested is difficult to do. But we do not
know of any AIDS organization which operates this way.
Instead, their operating styles usually rule out any
possibility of becoming a mass movement, no matter how much
the public is ready. We suggest that the AIDS community start
evaluating existing organizations on this basis. You can
raise these issues in your organizations, so that AIDS
political work can be improved.

Until we have a mass movement supporting humane and workable
AIDS policies, the current problems will continue.