“The system is rigged.” “The system is broken.” “The system reeks.” “The system sucks.” Comments like these are common. Most people know something is seriously wrong with how our society is organized — how it’s structured. We know we need major structural reform, but it’s unclear what kind of change is needed.

Dismantle? Overthrow? Destroy? Un-rig? Fix? Reform? Transform? Democratize? Rebuild?

Answering this question depends on your understanding of what "the system" is and how it works.

As far as I know, Holistic Democracy offers a unique perspective on these issues: an analysis of the problem and its root causes, and a strategy for action, including concrete next steps, that no one else has presented.

There’s no widespread agreement on these issues. Holistic Democracy suggests some answers. No final answers. No blueprints. Just food for thought. It encourages people to develop their answers, compare notes, debate them, and see if we can reach consensus on what to do. Can we build a powerful movement to change the dominant social system?

I invite you to respectfully discuss these matters with me and others, with an open mind, constant curiosity, humility, and a willingness to think together. One place you can discuss these issues horizontally is on the Holistic Democracy listserv. You can subscribe here.
 

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For more than sixty years, I have devoted my life to relieving suffering, advancing justice, and spreading joy. In 1967, I dedicated my life to helping to organize caring communities. Along with many others in the counterculture, my goal was fundamental social reform. As Andrew Kopkind wrote, "For those who did not experience the intense communitarian closeness of struggles like People's Park, Cuba, or Paris in May, Woodstock gave them a glimpse of what life could be like after the Revolution."
 

After four years at UC Berkeley (Field Major in Social Sciences) and two years at the Pacific School of Religion, I became involved in a wide variety of projects as a self-taught organizer. These diverse experiences had mixed results. Some were clearly successful. Others were clear failures. Yet others bore unpredicted benefits. Regardless, they taught me many lessons. In this book, I glean what I can from these efforts.
 

I'm not a "fast thinker." I'm a "slow thinker," deliberate, rational, logical. I follow thoughts to their logical conclusion, look below the surface, dig deep. I've come up with some original ideas, but mostly I evaluate and absorb others' ideas. I'm no expert specialist; I'm a generalist who connects the dots. I'm no genius, nor a polymath, but with the help of Claude AI, I have at my fingertips an enormous wealth of knowledge and a tool that helps with editing and research (I always do the final edit).
 

I think clearly and have learned a lot. Here, I share my learning.
 

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Early on, my mother shaped my values and my interests. In Arkansas, she was a free-thinker who opposed racism and sexism and never found a preacher she did not consider to be a hypocrite. She inspired me to pursue Truth, Fairness, and Beauty. 
 

While in high school, I discovered Bertrand Russell, Voltaire, and many other iconoclasts. As a freshman at UC Berkeley, I heard James Baldwin speak during the 1963 Montgomery bus boycott. He moved me profoundly with his message that whites should support civil rights not merely for Blacks' benefit but also to save their own souls. I proceeded to read everything he had published.

Then, in early 1964, I became immersed in the civil rights movement in the Bay Area, Dallas, and Alabama. In retrospect, the commitment to nonviolence, the focus on winnable goals, the willingness to negotiate compromises, and the upbeat, positive spirit rooted in inspiring music were key to these efforts' successes. 

Later that year, however, the understandable, frustrated impatience of the Black Power movement and the success of armed struggle in some third-world countries led me and others to embrace anger and hate and engage in, support, or accept violence.

At the same time, I became immersed in the human potential movement that Esalen Institute launched. Massage, sensory awareness, encounter groups, psychodrama, and other methods relieved my emotional repression. 

Working as a psychiatric orderly for twelve months further opened my heart. When I returned to Berkeley in 1965, marijuana and LSD liberated deeper emotions, including spiritual experiences while backpacking in the High Sierra. 
 

During these years, many authors influenced me, including Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Martin Luther King, Jr., Albert Camus, Martin Buber, Paul Tillich, William James, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. 

I
remained politically active in the student, anti-war, and People’s Park movements and supported the Black Panther Party.
 

In 1967, I decided to integrate the personal and the political. Inspired by the “coffee house ministry” in New York City and San Francisco, and having learned from multiple theologians to reinterpret fundamentalist myths into contemporary language, I entered seminary at the Pacific School of Religion, committed to organizing communities of “faith, love, and action.” This has been my focus ever since.

I
n 1969, I moved to San Francisco to work at Glide Church and the National Sex and Drugs Forum, where I learned from feminist advocates such as Phyllis Lyon and Sally Gearhart and authors such as Robin Morgan, Kate Millett, and Jo Freeman. 

I then began my self-taught organizing efforts without any formal affiliation with established organizations. 

1970s: I initiated the New Seminary Movement, Alternative Futures Community, Network Against Psychiatric Assault, and the Bay Area Transit Coalition. I also supported two San Francisco Community Congresses and campaigns for controlled growth, rent control, and district elections. 

1980s: I worked as the only paid staff for the Other Avenues Food Co-op and initiated the District Eleven Residents Association. I worked for the South of Market Food Co-op, joined the Aarti Hotel Co-op, and initiated the 509 Cultural Center, the Tenderloin Self-Help Center, the Solutions to Poverty Workshop, and the Campaign to Abolish Poverty. I also joined the staff of the Tenderloin Times newspaper.

Before 1987, I often raised money from foundations and worked on these projects as paid staff. Then I discovered I could survive working part-time as a cab driver, which let me do my community work as a volunteer without having to hustle foundations. It also let me interview my passengers and keep my finger on the pulse of the real world.

1990s: I initiated the Internet Learning Center, San Francisco Progressive Challenge, and the Bay Area Committee for Alternatives to Psychiatry. To get feedback and input from associates, I also began writing a series of self-published books, beginning with Economic Security for All: How to End Poverty in the United States. I also had several articles published by Common Dreams.

In 1996, I joined Ronnie Dugger’s national Democracy Alliance. I also served on the boards for Baker Places, Western Addition Community Mental Health Centers, District Five Community Advisory Board, the San Francisco Mental Health Advisory Board, and the Community Board for the Vanguard Public Foundation.

In 2003, I joined Kathy Kelly’s Iraq Peace Team (“Why I Am Going to Iraq”), went to Baghdad during the U.S. invasion to protest the war, and published the Baghdad Journal. 

In 2004, I published Promoting the General Welfare: A Campaign for American Values. In 2007, I published Global Transformation: Strategy for Action and became active in the San Francisco chapter of the Obama for President campaign, pushing it to sustain its grassroots movement after the election, which it declined to do despite the will of many of its lead organizers.  In 2011, I organized the Occupy Be the Change Caucus with Occupy San Francisco. In 2014, I published Searching for Deep Community: An Autobiography and became an active member in the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, which was co-founded by Howard Thurman in  1944 as the first multi-racial church in the United States.

Since 1997, I’ve convened numerous strategy workshops to explore how the progressive movement might be more effective, served as President of the Western Park Residents Association, participated in a monthly spiritual support group and a weekly Coffee Klatch that other residents organized, and edited earlier versions of this website.

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Ideally, readers will learn from some of my lessons to enrich their lives and help fundamentally change the system that dominates the world. 
 

Related:

• My Influences

• My Intellectual Journey