Actions always fail, but movements usually succeed

Actions on their own can't change much, no matter how cool or amazing they might be. But movements almost always succeed — so as part of a movement, actions succeed as well. It's that simple.

The Zapatistas, feeling their way into poetic rebellion against NAFTA, wholeheartedly gave their communities over to a different world, ultimately inspiring the Seattle activists in shutting down the World Trade Organization, which was NAFTA writ large.

Seattle in turn inspired many thousands more activists, who encircled meeting after meeting of the world's most powerful for several years — rising up again as Occupy Wall Street, freshly inspired by rebels in Tunisia and Egypt.

OWS, in turn, gave its heart to the Bernie Sanders campaign, which came not so far from taking the Presidency, twice, and is the reason there was ever anything even slightly progressive about Biden's plans (and there was, for a while, until there wasn't).

So many actions — and in a way, one single movement.

Instances in which we learned this lesson

One leak, and over a 48-hour period we scuttled Chevron's campaign... and then many friends scuttled it a lot more. It remains scuttled today.
Here's a sketchy timeline of the Yes Men's most mammoth project, a collaboration with the Anti-Advertising Agency and many other groups and…
Back in 2011, a small brainstorm around the NYPD's racial profiling ("Stop and Frisk") led to an idea that everyone laughed and cringed at…
Shortly after launching a battalion of Survivaballs to draw attention to the climate crisis in advance of the COP15 (that we had some fun at as well…
In 2012, as part of helping Shell to (mis)launch their Arctic drill rig, we decided to "help" Shell with their "Let's Go" ad campaign too.  First,…
Together with our brand-new police escort, we all headed towards the Wall Street Bull a few minutes south. When we got there, the protest changed…