No link – the effective activist 18 card is all over the place – it’s made by climate

activists, critiques movements without organization, and is a perf con with FW

because it says policy actions are unsuccessful. We read yellow*
Effective Activist 18 (Effective Activist – Zine produced by climate activists Nico White, Ratih
Sutrisno, Laurel Hecker, and Noah Campo. The writers are board members and affiliated of NASCO, a
flagship conference that invites cooperative leaders and employers. Nico started the Isla Vista Food
Cooperative and Ratih studied Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of
Minnesota. The zine’s internal citations (https://effectiveactivist.com/references/) include
numerous academic journal articles. – https://effectiveactivist.com/references/ -- pub: 2018)
gds-simlow
Organizing without a strategy is like watching pee-wee soccer, where you throw a ball out and a bunch of little four-year-olds come. They kick
the ball, they put everything into it…and occasionally somebody gets the goal, but you can’t figure out how it happened and you can’t replicate
it and you can’t do it better in a more efficient manner. -Chris Dixon, quoting a friend, in his 2014 book, Another Politics: Talking Across Today’s
Transformative Movements (p. 110). While reactionary activism in the face of a crisis can sometimes get things done, activists
need
strategic plans in order to consistently achievelasting and widespread change. Activists must know how far
they’ve come and what work they still need to accomplish in order to keep moving forward. Effective activist strategies
also can help you leverage your power efficiently to create more impact. Indeed, some movements have even been
able to win large successes despite a severe lack of resources by developing an effective and
creative strategy.[1] How do you develop a good strategy? We will give you an overview of the main components of a strategic plan,
help you avoid some common activist planning mistakes, and detail an example of an effective strategy that led to real-world changes. At the
end of this section, we will help you create your own plan to move you forward in your efforts to change the world.
Effective activist
strategic plans[2] include six primary components: Vision Goals Objectives Targets Tactics Measures of success
Vision
Your vision is your ideal future, the better tomorrow that you work towards every time you engage in activism. Our visions are often
grand—a world without oppression, an equitable and sustainable economy, the end of climate change. Understanding your vision
can help you maintain motivation and connect with other change-makers.
Goals
It’s important to distinguish our activist vision from our goals. Our goals are the checkpoints along the
way toward our vision, getting us closer and closer to the world we want to live in. The most successful activist campaigns take
time to plan and set a variety of goals that will all gradually help them work towards their vision. Successful campaigns do not necessarily
accomplish all of their original goals, but they are able to adapt in the face of changing contexts and continue moving forward toward their
vision. Setting a number of goals and being flexible and resilient can help you stay on course and allow you to
celebrate your successes along the way. Aim to develop goals that are specific, achievable, and realistic, and avoid amorphous or poorly defined
goals. Your goals could include reducing bullying by a certain percentage at your school by the end of the year, or passing a progressive ballot
proposition in the next election. What is achievable and realistic differs based on an individual’s or a group’s experience and skills. If you are
brand new to activism, goals to change national-level politics or target multinational corporations may not be realistic; choosing smaller, local
goals may be smarter. Additionally, some activist goals have been incredibly difficult to achieve. Activist
campaigns attempting to
target policies closely tied to the national structure and with high levels of political or material resources
at stake, such as trying to reduce military spending or stop wars, have largely been unsuccessful.
[3] Campaigns trying to expel a specific person in power have also usually fallen flat.[4] Reading about social movement success in the next
section will help you evaluate how realistic it is for you to tackle larger issues.
Objectives
Objectives are the even smaller building blocks that help you reach your goals. These are small steps that help you direct your action. If your
vision is a world where the rights of all peoples are protected, and one of your goals is to make your city a sanctuary city for immigrants, your
objectives may be to draft an ordinance, gain popular support for the change, and convince your city council to pass the
ordinance. Objectives are also important because they help you keep track of your progress. If you only
have a goal with no objectives, you could work for years without understanding how far you’ve come and where you need to go next. If you
can see that you’ve accomplished many of your objectives, but still have a few to go, you can better plan future
actions.
Targets
Targets are the people or institutions who you seek to influence. Our goals and objectives often rely on
targets implementingsome sort of change, such as a lawmaker passing a bill, a company changing a harmful practice, or a community
adopting healthier behaviors. There are two types of targets: primary targets and secondary, or “proxy,”
targets. Primary targets have the most direct influenceon our issue, and are often the most
visible or obvious target for our work. Secondary targets are individuals or institutions that
are related to your issue area—they may not be the most direct cause of an issue, but they still
have influence over it.[5] Many activists throughout the years have found that they’ve had little influence or leverage when their
primary target was the government or state. If you’re a member of a marginalized group or if your government is inaccessible, or even hostile
to you, know that activists
have been successful at working with secondary targets when they
don’t have access to the government or the state.[6] One of the most famous examples of this is Cesar
Chavez’s farmworkers movement, which lacked access to the state to implement labor laws but
was able to successfully coordinate a grape boycott to improve conditions and wages for
farmworkers.[7] Always consider both your primary targets and secondary targets when planning action, and choose the targets
that utilize your leverage and power the best.
Tactics
Tactics are the specific actions we take in order to influence our targets so that we can meet our
objectives, which will bring us closer to reaching our goals, which will help us in
our journey towards achieving our vision. Tactics include protesting, boycotting, lobbying, media
campaigns, and more. We’ve dedicated a whole section of the guide to reviewing what makes certain tactics more (or less) effective, so
be sure to read up on scientifically-proven best practices for each tactic before you employ it.
Measures of success
It’s important to measure your success in achieving your objectives and goals in order to know whether you’re making an
impact. If your tactics are not bringing about change, you’ll need to switch them up. If your tactics are helping you achieve
your objectives, but meeting your objectives is not helping you accomplish your goals, you’ll need to
define new objectives. If you don’t know what’s working and what isn’t working, you will
be fumbling in the dark with your activism. Activists sometimes mistake frenzy, exhaustion, public
opposition, imprisonment, and state repression for success.[8] While these measures are easy to see, and some radical
communities have built a warped sense of pride and reputation around them, these measures actually hurt movements and
make activists less likely to meet their goals. It’s also essential to collect accurate data. Self-reported data is a common metric,
but studies have found that self-reports may not line up with actual behavior change.[9] For example, people may say that they feel
more informed or that they’re making a change when they’re actually no more knowledgeable than
before or haven’t really adjusted their behavior. One study found that when researchers asked people which materials most
influenced their decision-making, the materials that people consciously rated the least influential (materials containing information on social
norms) actually changed their behavior the most.[10] Be sure to pick measures
of success that represent concrete, positive
changes in the world, such as lower incidences of violence, larger progressive voter turnout, or the
implementation of progressive policies, just to give a few examples. You can rely on outside sources of information—such as
government reports or scholarly literature—or conduct your own small studies to acquire information—such as measuring changes in
individuals’ behaviors. Be sure to take a baseline reading or collect statistics on the current state of the problem before you start acting so you
can see how much your efforts have an impact.

Voter – equating Palestinian movements as “frenzy” is a voter for ableism and violent
discourse in this round. It assumes that Palestinian folks are less competent and are “fumbling
in the dark” with their activism.