Social movements grow through solving problems. As the movements grow, the problems grow, hopefully along with our capacity to solve them. If we continue to solve the problems that face us we will get to catalyze transformational change, making freedom and justice a possibility for all.

The "new activism" that is expressing itself in the U.S. through mass direct action has, fortunately, some problems to solve. Here I'm suggesting some options that might work: creating dilemma demonstrations instead of relying on "disruption" (although they may sometimes be just as disruptive), making conscious decisions about who in "the public" we're most eager to influence, designing and implementing campaigns rather than simply showing up where the power holders decide, working more realistically with mass media, increasing the contrast between protesters and police behavior, taking the powerful attitude of openness toward state repression, and committing with more depth and explicitness to strategic nonviolent action.

These options focus on direct action itself, and leave out many other questions of strategy and organization, for example, the importance of creating a vision of just alternatives. I look forward to participating in more dialogue on all these questions; we have much to learn from each other.

Many thanks to our readers! This article first went out in draft form and received helpful comments from many activists. Thanks to each of you. More comments, disagreements, affirmations would be welcome, addressed to me at Training for Change; I'll try to answer as many as I can.