Losing staff could be detrimental to the projects we worked on, and there was a growing dissatisfaction with how meetings were run. These mostly one-sided discussions left the quieter half of us feeling pushed aside, like our thoughts didn't matter much. If things stayed this way, I worried the good people on our team would start quitting one by one.
Three recent appointments demonstrate Mamdani's commitment to that long-cited political adage that personnel is policy. He and his team are drawing qualified, visionary, sometimes unconventional talent from the best of previous administrations-all deployed to pull on as many levers as possible to make New York a more just and affordable city.
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.
Blasting away one of Labour's biggest majorities shows that under the more left-populist leadership of Zack Polanski, the Greens are now playing in a different political league. Polanski and the party's new MP, Hannah Spencer, were explicit that they do not see this as a self-contained local contest but as the blueprint for all sorts of other parts of the country.
In an Instagram post, Equal Rights Oregon announced that "after thoughtful consideration," it was moving forward with the "difficult decision" not to pursue Initiative Petition 33, known as the Equal Rights for All measure. The measure would have let Oregon vote on adding a constitutional amendment stating that equal rights "shall not be denied or abridged" based on "a) pregnancy/pregnancy outcomes and related health decisions; b) gender identity and related decisions; c) sexual orientation, including the right to marry."
In any given relationship or group, there is always one person who makes things happen. Everyone says "hey, we should get together!" but this person finds a date and makes the restaurant reservation. After a family meet-up in a park, everyone says "we should do this again!" but this person suggests meeting next Saturday at the children's museum at 10 a.m. since the forecast calls for rain.
People say it takes a village to do difficult things: raise a child, sustain a community, build a barn. But we don't often talk a lot about what it takes to be a villager. What does it mean to not just be in a community, but to help create one? Priya Parker, author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, says the key is to put yourself out there, even if it's scary.
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.
The principle of intellectual charity is fundamental to constructive political conversations. This principle states that, in any discussion, we should accept the best version of an opponent's ideas, not a distorted version or a "straw man." Exaggeration and distortion of opposing opinions (always present, to some degree, in political debates) have become the standard form of political argument in contemporary America.
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.
Mamdani's campaign is unique and his success extraordinary in several respects: he went from polling at 1% to defeating his opponents by a landslide margin in just over one year; his campaign recruited over one hundred thousand volunteers, engaging first-time voters and immigrants typically overlooked or deliberately excluded from electoral politics; and his platform was centered on affordability-not only the most deeply felt issue for the vast majority of New Yorkers (and, increasingly, others around the country),
