social change idea of the day

"Okay, thinking a bit more on this "institutional change movement"(ICBM - not sure what the B stands for yet, but I like the acronym!). seems to me the first thing to do would be to identify those values that one would hope to see prevail in society perhaps humanist values, if not, certainly those that have been demonstrated to be life-affirming. Bill, I think you have the handle on this. Once those are identified (so they would represent an ideal-type of sorts), then one could begin to consider how to manifest them in the daily lives of people. The barriers to their current realization would also need to be identified so that one could consider what kind of institutional change is needed.

Other thought is doing a content analysis of the different movements that exist and see what the common values are. This would be another way of identifying common ground between the different movements. Again, I think one of the problems about most of the current social movements is that they are attempting to utilize existing institutions to effect the changes not realizing that it is the institutions themselves that are problematic.

Examples:

Stopping the war by drawing attention through mass protests - the institution of the media is NOT deeply flawed???
Ridding Bush et al in the next election - the political institution is NOT deeply flawed???
Revoking charters of corporations through the courts - the legal system is NOT deeply flawed???
Educating the populace about democracy, social responsibilities, etc. - is NOT our educational system deeply flawed???
Forcing change by economic boycott (in the US) - is NOT the economic system deeply flawed???

You get the picture? we can't use a malfunctioning part of a system to fix the system - it will always result in maintaining the malfunction. Something new needs to be introduced - the system and its parts need to be replace, not just fixed"