Our Principles
These are the principles –– rooted in and inspired by the integral nonviolent liberation tradition and one of its greatest American expressions, Kingian democratic socialism –– that guide our work. They are a living guide which will be refined over time.
We are committed to universal, unconditional compassionate love as a spiritual and moral foundation for our labor, our lives, and the society we strive to create. We understand love to be an active force for justice and the most powerful of all social forces.
We practice nonviolence and strategic nonviolent action, including a militant commitment both to (1) nonviolent discipline devoted to non-aggression and non-retaliation and to (2) nonviolent escalation that enacts the highest levels of sacrifice and disruption in direct action when necessary for our mission.
We aspire toward Beloved Community as a radically inclusive and redemptive vision of society and a culture for our organization’s community –– which rejects the logic of supremacy and the despair of cynicism and contempt in favor of an ethic of fellowship while centering the conditions of those who suffer most, leaving no one out, and nurturing the leadership gift of every kind of person.
We pursue a multi-issue, moral fusion, progressive populist political vision that strives to make America a multi-racial social democracy of service to the international community and to realize justice, freedom, peace, and democracy for all people through enacting a transformative, 21st century policy agenda oriented around the transcendent imperative of the climate emergency.
We embrace a “deep patriotism,” taking responsibility to redress the injustice and harm done in America’s name while claiming the legacy of egalitarian aspiration and struggle that runs through American history as a noble heritage to honor by realizing our nation’s democratic promise for the good of all people. Our flag belongs most truly to those who uphold the highest aspirations for which the greatest Americans lived and died.
We must contest for and achieve transformative leadership of the Democratic Party as our only viable electoral and governing vehicle through an independent but committed progressive movement strategy of realignment.
We seek to cultivate and practice an integrative or holistic view incorporating as much truth as possible, understanding that this is essential to guide our actions to be helpful in the world as it actually is. The search for wisdom and truth is never fully complete and requires a disciplined practice of openness toward new insight and knowledge from all people and every experience. Where new experience or data challenge our established views we will strive to adapt or replace them.
We support a holistic social movement-based strategy that includes nonviolent direct action and civil resistance, electoral campaigns and voter mobilization, and constructive programs of education and alternative institution-building while seeing the task of winning and wielding the power to govern our democratic institutions as central. (We embrace the Game Change, the outside game, the inside game, and new-game-building.)
We seek to practice servant leadership that embraces sacrifice, rejects greed in favor of a voluntary commitment to “enough” as a principle for our material conditions, stays close to the lives of everyday people and in direct service to those who suffer most, rejects elitism while still valuing experience, expertise, and development, and rejects career ambition and personal status as motivations or measures of success in favor of accountability for enacting positive change in the life conditions of our people, especially the least of these.
We encourage contemplative spiritual practice as a priority in our movement and for our leaders both to develop individual consciousness and leadership capacity and to transform culture.