During the workshops I conduct to strengthen people’s skills in organizing grassroots movements, I encourage the participants to use humor, wit and satire in raising issues. Even hard, scary issues such as nuclear weapons can be approached. When people are laughing, their defenses are lowered, so they can see things in fresh ways.
You can watch for FREE the movie I linked here. It came out in 1966, during the height of the Cold War. It pointed out – in very funny ways – the ridiculousness of some people’s fears, and also the humanity of Russian submariners.
I watched it when it came out and watched it again twice in recent years.
Since the late 1960s Glen Anderson has devoted his life to working as a volunteer for peace, nonviolence, social justice, and progressive political issues. He has worked through many existing organizations and started several. Over the years he has worked especially for such wide-ranging goals as making peace with Vietnam, eliminating nuclear weapons, converting from a military economy to a peacetime economy, abolishing the death penalty, promoting nonviolence at all levels throughout society, and helping people organize and strategize for grassroots movements to solve many kinds of problems. He writes, speaks, and conducts training workshops on a wide variety of topics. Since 1987 he has produced and hosted a one-hour cable TV interview program on many kinds of issues. Since 2017 he has blogged at https://parallaxperspectives.org He lives in Lacey near Olympia WA. You can reach him at (360) 491-9093 glen@parallaxperspectives.org
