Progress Illinois

The "New Way Forward" (ANWF) anti-bailout protests scheduled for April 11 are brilliant in their lack of institutional organization.  One of the main drags on widespread involvement in public demonstrations is that they're often sponsored by groups that engender suspicion or who push an agenda that is broader than the motivating concern -- an agenda that deters potential participants who don't share the organizers' views.

The ANWF protests, by contrast, aren't based around any organization, ideology, or individual.  They stem from the widespread frustration with Washington's handling of the financial crisis and seek to advance an idea for a better approach.  As Show Me Progress recounts, ANWF's genesis came as a bunch of friends with organizing experience watched a Bill Moyers Journal episode on the banking crisis:

The topic of discussion on that week's episode was the crisis in our banking system, and Moyers' distinguished guest was the economist Simon Johnson, who has among other things worked for decades in resolving financial crises for institutions such as the International Monetary Fund. (Naturally, he has a blog.) In his crisis prevention work, he had helped advise other countries suffering through similar financial crises on how to clean up their banking system, which usually involved nationalizing the banks responsible for the crisis, and reorganizing them into smaller, healthier units back in the private sector. And this is essentially what he advocates that the U.S. government do now. [...]

From their own experience that an ordinary citizen can make a big difference with an idea and a little effort, they decided they would had to find someway of getting this message out to people and to our elected representatives - you know, the people who actually can do something about the situation. The idea is this: create a series of public demonstrations to show support for a three step plan to get this banking crisis behind us. Nationalize, Reorganize, Decentralize. The government should nationalize the zombie banks, reorganize them by sorting out problem assets and flush out those responsible for the crisis in the first place, and finally break them up into smaller, healthier units for the private sector where they will no longer be "too big to fail."

The organizers then built a great-looking website that urged like-minded individuals across the country to organize protests in their cities and towns on April 11.  When we first wrote about ANWF earlier in the month, there were six rallies that had been announced and Chicago wasn't on the list.  Today, there are 40 announced rallies, including one in the Windy City.

Furthermore, the ANWF movement went full circle last night when Bill Moyers' mentioned the mass protests during his PBS program, while interviewing William Greider.  Watch: 

To learn more about this grassroots effort, click here.

UPDATE: And to learn more about Simon Johnson's plan for the banks and the thinking behind it, please read his article in the latest issue of The Atlantic.