The Movement of Movements (MOM) - Dancing the Future Now

How to catalyze collaboration among groups to create a better world for all.

Now is the time for the movement of movements (MOM) to manifest and move into action. There are many movements, institutions, organizations, and individuals working to create social justice, participatory democracy, and ecological regeneration. It is time for them to coalesce, join hands, speak in harmony, and be a powerful, nonviolent force for truth, peace, happiness, sustainability, and compassion for all.

The forces of harming people and planet seem to be stronger than ever. Therefore it is now, that the forces of kindness, intelligence, and wisdom are being called to rise as never before.

The movements that will come together include the democracy movement, the rule of law movement, the climate movement, the ecological regeneration movement, the women’s movement, the social justice movement, the civil rights movement, the labor union movement, the human rights movement, the healthcare for all movement, the peace movement, the regulated and responsible AGI movement, and many others.

This is what I wrote about MOM in my book A Compassionate Civilization:

How will we get from our current situation of crisis to a new civilization of compassion? Fortunately, there are already several forces moving us in that direction. These are the many movements that each promote a particular vision. If they can work together, these movements will become a powerful “movement of movements” that will help humanity realize its full potential.

How Will the MOM Save Us?

One person acts out of conscience and passion, then another. They form an organization to accomplish their mission of making a better world. Their organization links up with other similar organizations. Then, many such organizations come together to form a movement. Finally, several movements join forces to form a movement of movements (MOM), a network of networks. This is the way it works by the laws of attraction and cooperation, a groundswell of good intentions and compassionate actions.

Take the natural environment. There are many powerful organizations at work with different founders and approaches. Greenpeace, 350.org, and Transition Towns are three of them. How do these three, along with hundreds of other similar organizations, share knowledge and strategies, join forces, and engage in cooperative activism to form a movement for sustainable environment and climate chaos mitigation and adaptation?

How then does this movement link up with movements committed to other societal goals, including gender equality, participatory governance, campaign finance reform, human rights, fiscal reform, universal health, stopping the sex trade, education for all, job creation, cultural and religious tolerance, disarmament and peace, and so on, to manifest in a MOM?

MOM should be light and networked. No need for more legal entities, buildings, meetings, committees, and CEOs. MOM needs websites, apps, chat rooms, LISTSERVs, Facebook pages, LinkedIn pages, shared blog posts, joint training events and rallies, cooperative projects, common lobbyists, orchestrated mass media releases, synergistic talking heads, get-out-the-vote campaigns, mass boycotts, strategic fund raising, e-newsletters, e-journals, and more.

A Sampling of the MOM

Environmental, Climate, and Green Energy Movements: The environmental movement is committed to protecting the natural environment. The climate movement is motivated to help us mitigate and adapt to climate chaos. The green energy movement is promoting the rapid transition to an energy system of 100 percent renewable energy from the sun, wind, water, geothermal sources, and algae. This includes networks and organizations such as just mentioned, 350.org, Greenpeace, and Transition Towns.

Women’s and LGBTQ Movements: The women’s movement promotes the rights, voice, leadership, and protection of women. Women gained the right to vote in the US only ninety-five years ago, and they need to be paid the same as men for the same work. The LGBTQ movement is concerned about the safety and freedom of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer youth and adults. Groups in these movements include the National Organization of Women (NOW) and International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and others.

Direct Democracy and Decentralization Movements: The direct democracy movement promotes the formation of new democratic processes and institutions that allow the views and needs of citizens to be the basis for policy formulation. Three important signs of hope in the United States are Indivisible Guide, Democracy Spring, and Our Revolution. The decentralization movement helps move power, decision-making, and service delivery beyond national and state capitals to towns and villages throughout a country. Cities and associations of local authorities are often more progressive than their national governments.

Labor Union and Transformed-Capitalism Movements: The labor movement helps workers organize into unions that can negotiate their salaries and benefits so that they are not taken advantage of by management. Workers must be paid a living wage. The transformed-capitalism movement is promoting the creation of a new economic system that values the well-being of all the people and all of nature over profits for a small elite. Recent books by Robert Reich and Naomi Klein clarify that we need a capitalism for the many, not the few, and we must change the form of capitalism that is endangering life on Earth through climate change.

Human Rights and Peace Movements: The human rights movement is committed to realizing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for every woman, man, and child. The peace movement is working hard to promote nonviolence, diplomacy, and negotiation; to stop wars; and to delegitimize war as an acceptable manner for resolving conflict.

Group Facilitation and Social Artistry Movements: The facilitation movement is promoting the power of group facilitation as a way to involve all the people of an organization or community in its own decision-making. This includes the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) and the ToP Network (the Technology of Participation Network), created by the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA). Every year, International Facilitation Week celebrates the power of group facilitation. The social artistry movement trains educators and leaders in organizations and communities to enhance people’s creativity and passion in ways that create a world that works for all. This includes the work of the Jean Houston Foundation.

Of course there are many other movements as well. The point is that when these movements work together, they are unstoppable. They can and will create a new civilization of compassion. The UN is among those at the forefront of the MOM. One hundred and ninety-three member states of the UN launched seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030. Achieving these goals will take us a long way toward a new civilization of compassion.

The situation is more urgent and challenging in 2025 then it was in 2013 - 2017 when the above excerpt was written and published. The transformative leadership of the MOM is needed now with the rise of authoritarianism and oligarchy, acceleration of climate disasters, subversion of the Constitution and democracy, disregard for the rule of law, destruction of the civil service, silencing of the media, denying climate change, threats to women’s rights, species extinctions, a growing wealth gap, bullying of other countries, the challenges of AI, the spectre of nuclear holocaust, and more.

The MOM can emerge, organize, and take actions at every level of society - neighborhood, local community, town, city, county, state/province, nation, region, and in international, bioregional, and global networks.

We can each be part of the MOM in our activism in our local communities, nonprofits, and networks. Here in Swannanoa, NC, post hurricane Helene activism brought people together to care for those in need and for the surrounding watershed.

Some of the people and groups who are thinking, writing, and taking actions related to the MOM include Robert Reich, Heather Cox Richardson, Bernie Sanders, Rebecca Solnit, Christopher Chase, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Bayo Akomolafe, Naomi Klein, Daniel Christian Wahl, Rosemary Cairns, Nafeez Ahmed, Elizabeth Warren, Bill McKibben, Dee Love, Mark Cuban, Karen Armstrong, Mark Davies, Ameena Zia, Christian Sarkar, Walden Bello, Third Act, Sunrise Movement, the Charter for Compassion, The Wicked 7 Project, the Global Compassion Coalition, Extinction Rebellion, the ACLU, Plum Village, the Institute of Cultural Affairs, Bluesky, the UN, and others.

My questions include: How can the MOM be empowered and orchestrated to take the most effective actions with the most beneficial results? Should it focus only on the local community level (creating islands of sanity and beloved community) or can it make a powerful difference at state/provincial, national, international, and global levels, and if so, how? Should someone create an online group of the above people and groups and others for ongoing dialogue, strategic thinking, and collaborative actions?

Nafeez Ahmed, a British author of the Age of Transformation, had this to say concerning what to do (in his article of February 11, 2025):

There is ultimately only one antidote. That is to upgrade our ability to see and make decisions based on recognising the reality of the unfolding planetary phase shift; and to scale that new consciousness as far as wide as possible across our contexts and beyond.

We need to shift from the narrow, narcissistic, fragmented mode of consciousness that characterises the Alt Reich into a holistic systems awareness – what MIT's Otto Scharmer has described as moving from “ego” awareness to “eco” awareness.

The more we are able to scale this consciousness and through that process forge new networks of connection and collaboration, the more we will accelerate the emergence of a new collective intelligence capacity across communities, nations, sectors and regions that the Alt Reich cannot conquer.

For too long, we've conceived of ourselves as 'the resistance' - outsiders ceaselessly reacting on a battleground created by those at the helm of the incumbent system. This is the wrong frame, and we have to let it go. Because we're watching the system fall on its own sword, and while this is going to be incredibly and tragically destructive for so many of us, it's the beginning of the end for the old paradigm.

We are not the resistance. We are the future. And we’re about to arrive.

And from Christopher Chase, a professor in Fukuoka, Japan, writing on Facebook yesterday on the group page “Creative Systems Thinking”:

From a historical perspective, Modern Globalization is a continuation of Empire Colonialism, responsible for building the world's factories, polluting the air and rivers, centralizing power, destroying traditional and indigenous cultures, enslaving other species and using fellow humans as "cheap labor" to mass produce products for global consumption.

Each side masks their darker projects (like the 4th Industrial Revolution ideas supported by some Fabian-Liberals) and the misery caused by their investments, while promoting what makes them look good.

It really is a kind of "Game of Thrones" yes? With a new royal class, playing a game of "pyramid power" that goes back thousands of years, to the dawn of feudal empires and so called "civilization."

And the first step to ending this game (in my opinion) is to bring it into mainstream awareness. Practice critical and creative systems thinking, be willing to question what schools, politicians and the media have told you.

Support local communities, local businesses, local education, food production and economics. See the predatory and parasitic nature of our global top-down economic pyramid model for what it is, that's the only way.

Discuss, investigate and re-learn. Keep your heart and mind open. Try not to hate others who think differently. Become aware and help make others aware.

Your thoughts please.

And remember, as T. S. Eliot reminds us, there is only the Dance!