UMass Resistance Studies Initiative hosts activist and author George Lakey

UMass Daily Collegian ^ | 9/22/16 | Munnelly

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...The talk was organized as a part of Resistance Studies Initiative Fall Speaker Series.

Lakey has a long history with social movements including co-founding Training for Change, an activist group dedicated to nonviolent social change.

His most recent efforts have centered on Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT), an activist group that was successful in its five-year campaign to have PNC Bank stop financing mountaintop removal of coal in Appalachia.

Lakey began his talk by asking everyone in the room who was frustrated with American politics to raise their hands. Everyone did. He then focused his talk with the question “What might be possible regardless of who our president is next November?”

According to Lakey, the deep polarization that is occurring within American politics today is the exact catalyst for change that the great social movements of the 1930s and 1960s used as their method to create positive policy change for Americans.

“Polarization is an opportunity…opportunity for us to make change. However, it is an art form to make that change,” said Lakey.

The variable that links all these time periods of social unrest is deep economic disparity, according to Lakey.

“There is no politician who has anything in place that will reduce economic inequality…no matter who wins, inequality will grow,” said Lakey.

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Resistance Studies? Paid for in large part by state income taxes.

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Give up! All hope is lost.

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Economic inequality will continue to thrive as long as so called social programs continue to repress energy, ambition and achievement via hand outs, vote buying, and pandering.