Two quotes from an interview with Marshall Ganz:
Grassroots organizing is about building power
And:
Is living your life in an individually responsible way enough to
bring about the kind of change that you would hope for? I think
the answer is no. It takes collective action. It takes mastering
the tools of power, because there are very powerful institutions
committed to making your preferred way of life impossible.
There's a bad truism among certain activists that education is the key. The
key to what? Like all truisms the idea is incomplete. Decades of
valuing education over action have left social movements educated and
impotent. Thinking about power is more important than thinking about
education -- spreading information is only important if people will do
something with that information. We've figured out how to spread the information, but people
aren't doing anything with it.