As best I can discern both the No Kings demonstrations with 5 to 7 million participants, but also the pathetic Military March and its minuscule turnout that showed Trump’s declining public support were a huge June 14th resistance success. If Trump didn’t have the federal government, he would not have much. The trouble is, he does have the federal government and the federal government is not nothing. A week after June 14, it still represses LA at home. It still devastates Gaza abroad. And now it sends hard rain to Iran. The struggle to stop Trump and fascism, while it progresses positively, is certainly not over. What next?

Suppose I was in your vicinity. I see you and I say, Hi. How you doing? You might consider the question subjective. You might hear it like someone sincerely asking how you feel. You might say fine, or crappy, but in either case you would likely look inward to answer. The question seems seriously subjective but is it always about our feelings? Should we always look inward to answer? Consider two factors. How are we doing relative to what. And how are we doing regarding what.

For example, you may ask a sibling, a friend, a classmate, a neighbor, a teammate, or a fellow activist, how are you doing? Each person may smile and answer, I am doing okay, or perhaps frown and answer I am not doing so great.

Does the sibling mean he feels light afoot, light of mind, light of heart? Does the friend or classmate mean her social life or grades are good? Is the question about a diet, a job, one’s health, or one’s mood? What is the measure the asker asks about?

If I answer I am doing okay what does it mean? Sometimes, the asker, the answerer, and then the asker who hears the answer actually know what the various words refer to. There may be extreme concision but nonetheless the context clarifies what the questioner’s quick ask and the answerer’s equally quick reply mean. But how often we have clarity in these type exchanges even when they are purely personal? Sometimes, who knows what pain and trauma or joy and desire lurk behind our quick words.

Okay, that’s a general observation about anyone anytime answering how are you, but let’s get back to us and to now. Suppose you want to change the world. Mom or dad ask, how are you doing? How’s it going? Or maybe you ask them. Or a friend asks you. A reporter asks. A teacher asks. Whoever. You say, I am doing okay. The questioner hears you, but what does your answer mean? What information has flowed? For that matter, why do you go to a demo and then feel what you feel about it, say what you say about it, write what you write about it, or do what you do after it?

We want to change the world. Someone asks us how we are doing. We answer we are doing great or maybe we are barely hanging on. But what is our metric of measurement? Do we have one, two, or many possible criteria of judgment? To lack of clarity about what to measure is our movement measurement problem.

How are you doing? Compared to what? To last weeks efforts. To efforts decades back. To efforts elsewhere. To some absolute scale. Or regarding our intentions. Did we fully block something or barely block it at all? Shut down something or spectate it? Get arrested or escape arrest? Get gassed or avoid gas? Sing loud or sing low? March far or sit near? How much media coverage did we get? How many participants did we have? What should we measure? What metric matters?

We should measure relative to our short-term aims and regarding that which affects our attainments vis a vis our long-term aims. So how would people on June 14th answer if asked, why are you demonstrating? What would be success? The why should be clear but the success part can get complicated. What factors actually bear on us nearing or diverging from our sought goal? An answer depends on what we think, what our team thinks, or what our movement thinks furthers our goal. To change the world, we organize, rally, march, block, protest, defend, disobey, strike, and maybe even burn. For that matter, we also converse, write, and criticize or advocate.

Shouldn’t how we describe how we are doing depend on what was our immediate and what is our long term goal and on what would further or impede reaching our goals? That isn’t our subjective feeling about what we did. That is are we collectively moving toward where we want to arrive.

Unless we have some semblance of shared agreement on where we want to arrive and on what results can aid our getting there, our answer to how we are doing won’t convey much and sometimes it may convey nearly nothing. Doing fine. Okay, wonderful, but what is fine?

Eyes on the prize. Absolutely. But will growing our numbers, growing our commitment, growing our consciousness lead where we desire to arrive? How about to be on camera or not, to fill the streets or not, to get arrested or not, to block or burn cars or not, to disobey or not, to strike or not, to build self managing organization or not? We converse or we write before and after. What the hell matters? What should we discuss, propose or assess?

Suppose we want to end genocide, prevent global ecological suicide, and stop fascism from entrenching and suppose we know in our hearts and minds that it is all one big fight. Even further, suppose we ultimately want to win a better world. We act. Someone then asks, how’d it go? What do we measure to decide our answer? We have a measurement problem if we don’t have a lot of shared collective clarity about how to judge our acts.

We don’t need one mind. We are not bees in a hive. Different strokes for different folks is wise. But it is wise because given our different circumstances, resources and commitments, different folks will do better or worse at different things, where better or worse means they will help move society further or less far toward ultimate success.

June 14th was demo time and it will soon be demo time again. A couple of thousand demonstrations at once or even more. Rallies, marches and perhaps blocking some roads. Many........

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