There is a necessary place for protest and dissent, but I don’t want to spend most of my time just fighting against the status quo. I also don’t want to just do research or talk about the problems and what should be done about them. It is too easy to criticize, and much harder to find good solutions.
I want to be part of building better alternatives to the existing system. However, many approaches advocated by environmental or social justice organizations proposing to correct the problems generated by the system are too conditioned by the values and way of thinking (and funding) of that very system. Even if well intended, their approaches need to be carefully evaluated.
From what I’ve seen, many or most nonprofit organizations spend more effort on marketing, on fund-raising, than they do on actually accomplishing the real work they advertise. Most are tied to the interests of big corporations, if not through direct corporate donations, then through foundations with corporate origins, government agencies, intergovernmental agencies including the United Nations and the Organization of American States, big NGOs or universities funded by corporations and therefore supporting their interests.