Subtitled A Toolbox for Revolution, the anthology Beautiful Trouble offers advice on how to plan and execute successful protest actions. Coeditors Andrew Boyd and Dave Oswald Mitchell have assembled the wisdom of many activists and troublemakers like themselves into a book about what works and what doesn’t, how to recruit people and keep them engaged, and where to direct efforts for the greatest impact. The following selections are just a few that, for us, brought clarity to old concepts and introduced new ones. Beautiful Trouble is published by OR Books and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. To learn more, visit beautifultrouble.org.
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Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories
Beautiful Trouble
Correspondence
In “Beautiful Trouble” [May 2014] Steve Lambert says that “no one wants to watch a drum circle” and refers to the drummers as “self-indulgent dipshits.”
Sheesh. I suspect a couple of his chakras are blocked, or maybe he’s just a jerk with a big ego.
If the drumming is too loud, Lambert should move farther away. If the park is too small, he can go to a different one. Or, even better, he could try looking at the expressions of pure joy or utter tranquillity on the faces in the circle as the inevitable unifying trance takes hold. See if he can feel the moment when all become one. The last thing the drummers are there to do is judge each other.
Lambert seems to pat himself on the back for being unable to see the beauty in such a simple activity. He comes across as the most irritating kind of professional activist: a righteous one with an extremely limited perspective.
Drum circles are activism personified. They pull people in and spread love through visceral rhythms that resonate throughout our bodies, whether or not we are conscious of it. Imagine a world in which everyone (except Lambert, of course) comes together once a week to participate in a drum circle. How violent or judgmental a place do you suppose that would be?
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Also In This Issue
May 2014
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories
I Sang For Everybody
Pete Seeger’s Testimony Before The House Un-American Activities Committee
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