Over the years, many activist templates have been developed in successful campaigns to influence social policy and public opinion. One of the most successful templates has been developed and utilized by James S. Turner, Esq. , one of the original Nader’s Raiders and author of The Chemical Feast: The Nader Report on Food Protection at the Food and Drug Administration (1970) , an example of the template, and Making Your Own Baby Food (1977), an integrated muckraking and activist self-help book for parents that draws on the template. The many successes that Jim has been involved in include passage of the Organic Food Protection Act of 1990, a four-year campaign on the dangers of artificial sweeteners (Nutrasweet, Saccharin, Aspartame, and Splenda), and the campaign to block Swine Flu vaccination (1976). He also led the legal and scientific team that persuaded the FDA to reclassify acupuncture needles as safe and effective for legal U.S. importation and distribution (1996).

Through these workshops, you will recognize that there are habitual structures in society which limit our ability to be effective, and there are additional structures - often, if not usually overlooked -which will enhance and empower effectiveness if we are congruent with their bedrock reality. Explore the basis of and learn to use this activist template, the backbone of successful campaigns that resulted in intentional, positive social change.

The focus will be on the following:

• How the habitual cultural structures have blocked marginalized groups from success over the years.
• Five examples of how this process has been successfully applied and five campaigns that are currently facing similar challenges.
• How you are grounded in conscious activism and how conscious activism is grounded in you.
• Turning minority opinions into majority actions.
• Practice, theory, strategies and tactics for: (1) the strong, adaptable and open-minded realist; (2) the stressed, burnt-out and overworked idealist and (3) the conscious pragmatist who skillfully integrates realism and idealism.
• Introduction to a new modality for strategic planning that has been utilized in successful political campaigns and by others in need of identifying systemic strengths and weaknesses.

This series of highly-interactive online workshops will be limited to serious activists. If you wish to enroll in our next program, please email us at info@consciouswoman.org with your full name, contact information, and 1-2 paragraph explanation of why you would like to participate in these workshops.

COMING JAN/FEB 2008! (focus: intactivism)

Please email us at info@consciouswoman.org if you and/or your organization have an issue that you would like to have addressed using this approach.