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“...Our Revolution [in the early 20th century] had to be for the purpose of

accelerating our evolution to a higher plateau of humanity.…

… [The] American revolution, at this stage in our history and in the evolution of technology and of the human race, is not about Jobs or health insurance or making it possible for more people to realize the American Dream of upward mobility.

It is about acknowledging that we Americans enjoy middle class comforts at the expense of other peoples all over the world.

It is about living the kind of lives that will end the galloping inequality both inside this country and between the Global North and the Global South, and also slow down global warming.

It is about creating a new American Dream whose goal is a higher humanity instead of the higher standard of living which is dependent upon Empire.

About practicing a new more active, global and participatory concept of citizenship

About becoming the change we want to see in the world

The courage, commitment and strategies required for this kind of revolution are very different from those required to storm the Kremlin or the White House. Instead of viewing the American people as masses to be mobilized in increasingly aggressive struggles for higher wages, better jobs or guaranteed health care, we must have the courage to challenge them and ourselves to engage in activities that build a new and better world by improving the physical, psychological, political and spiritual health of ourselves, our families, our communities, our cities, our world and our planet.

... [It] is not enough to organize mobilizations calling on Congress and the President to end the war in Iraq.

We must also challenge the American people to examine why 9/11 happened and why so many people around the world who, while not supporting the terrorists, understand that they were driven to these acts by anger at the U.S. role in the world, e.g. supporting the Israeli occupation of Palestine, overthrowing or seeking to overthrow democratically-elected governments, and treating whole countries, the world’s peoples and Nature only as a resource enabling us to maintain our middle class way of life.

We have to help the American people find the moral strength to recognize that, although no amount of money can compensate for the countless deaths and indescribable suffering that our criminal invasion and occupation have caused the Iraqi people, we, the American people, have a responsibility to make the material sacrifices that will help them rebuild their infrastructure.

We have to help the American people grow their souls (which is not a noun but a verb) enough to recognize that since we, who are only 4 percent of the world’s population, have been consuming 25 percent of the planet’s resources, we are the ones who must take the first big steps to reduce greenhouse emissions.

We are the ones who must live more simply so that others can simply live.

[We] need to begin creating ways to live more frugally and cooperatively NOW because as times get harder, we “good Americans,” if we view ourselves only as victims, can easily slip into scapegoating the “other” and goose-stepping behind a nationalist leader, as the “good Germans” did in the 1930s, with Hitler...

“…This kind of transformation is what the next American revolution is about. It is not a single event but a process. It involves all of us, from many different walks of life, ethnicities, national origins, sexual orientations, faiths.… I see the Millennial generation playing a pivotal role. As Frantz Fanon put it in The Wretched of the Earth:

“‘Each generation, coming out of obscurity,

must define its mission and fulfill or betray it.’”

“The Next American Revolution” speech by Grace Lee Boggs, Left Forum Closing Plenary, Cooper Union, New York, March 16, 2008: http://www.boggscenter.org/; http://conversationsthatyouwillneverfinish.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/the-next-american-revolution/ Also “Making Change” on Against the Grain Tuesday July 15, 2008: http://www.againstthegrain.org/program/42/id/291446/tues-7-15-08-making-change.

Grace Lee Boggs is a prominent activist, community leader and author, Rhode Island born 1915 of Chinese immigrants, studied at Barnard College and Bryn Mawr and received her Ph.D. in 1940. “Her studies in philosophy and the writings of Marx, Hegel, and Mead led not to a life in academia teaching others to question themselves and those in power, but rather to a lifetime of social activism and collaboration with others.”

From the Chicago-based tenants’ rights to the 1941 March on Washington, Grace Lee “found her niche as an activist in the African-American community, focusing specifically on marginalized groups such as women and people of color.” In 1953 she married African American auto worker and activist James Boggs (d.1993) and moved to Detroit, Michigan. Today she continues her activism and writes columns for the Michigan Citizen.

“People are aware that they cannot continue in the same old way but are immobilized because they cannot imagine an alternative. We need a vision that recognizes that we are at one of the great turning points in human history when the survival of our planet and the restoration of our humanity require a great sea change in our ecological, economic, political, and spiritual values” – Grace Lee Boggs -http://www.boggscenter.org.

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MORE THAN A MILLION DEAD; MORE THAN FOUR MILLION DISPLACED. Updated July 17, 2008: U.S. Deaths in U.S.-led Invasion and Occupation (accurate figures unknown): Just Foreign Policy:  http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html: Iraqi deaths due to U.S. Invasion: 1,236,604. Iraq/Afghanistan Casualties http://www.icasualties.org/oef/: U. S. deaths in Iraq 4,121 (all 4,435). U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan: 556 (all coalition fatalities: 891). [http://www.antiwar.com/casualties figures since March 19, 2003, Iraq: U.S. wounded 23,000-100,000; fatalities 4,121]. Iraq BodyCount Civilian deaths, reported from news wires, resulting from the U.S.-led military intervention in Iraq http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/: 85,966-93,778.

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