GoLeft’s Star-Activist Interviews - Steve Theberge

GoLeft’s Star-Activist Interviews
GoLeft tracks where pop culture and activism meet (who doesn’t enjoy the escapism of Hollywood and the great shoes?), but the real celebrities of our world are the progressives working every day to fight injustice, improve everyone’s quality of life, and build community. So here’s our version of the celebrity profile: GoLeft’s Star-Activist Interviews, which helps us get to know some amazing people doing fascinating (and important) work.

Interview with Steve Theberge

Steve is the Organizing Coordinator at the War Resisters League where he works on many projects including the Not Your Soldier campaign. Our GoLeft interview with Steve covers organizing, relationships and love of music and gives credence to why progressive activists need pop cultural escape more than others. To find out more about the work Steve is doing you can visit the War Resisters League’s website or NotYourSoldier.org.

GL: How do you explain your work to people?

Steve: I do on-the-ground counter-recruitment with youth around the country. My job is to think both about the big picture – how can we build the anti-war movement and on-the-ground work. Our main counter recruitment work is through the Not Your Solider Project, which is a collaboration between War Resisters League, the Ruckus Society, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. 

GL: What is great about being an organizer?

Steve: What’s great about being an organizer is that there is a sense of commitment and passion in everyone around you. It’s also the struggle (which can be a pain) but having to meet the challenges you face and learning from them, that’s one of the best parts.

GL: And what makes you a great organizer?

Steve: My interest and excitement about connecting with people. I try to not get stuck in looking at numbers in terms of building a movement. I believe we need to keep a sense of humanity that comes out of this work and really connect with people to engage them to become part of the larger community and movement.

GL: What’s the best line you’ve ever used to engage someone in your campaign?

Steve: Well for the counter-recruitment work what really shocks people is when we share the fact that one in three women in the military have been raped or assaulted. That is a disturbing fact that gets people to stop and think – do I really want to be a part of this.

With my general recruitment for War Resisters League, I stress the essential power of our history and the need, as young people, to take responsibility for what we have inherited from older generations. We need to look at both the limitations of the movements that came before us, and also the positive and powerful traditions we are a part of.

We also need to work to rebuild the progressive institutions that we have. War Resisters League is an 84-year-old organization that owns a building in NYC, not many groups can claim that. We don’t have much on the Left in terms of resources, but we need to take pride in, and ownership of, what we do have to make sure it keeps going for the next generation. 

GL: What do you love about pop culture?

Steve: The way it brings people together and gives us something to talk about, fight over, share and approach. From an organizing perspective it’s a way to take a pulse on the culture, and see what is sparking the popular imagination.

GL: What’s the last pop cultural reference you used in your organizing?

Steve: I can’t think off-hand, but we use the Simpsons’ Navy recruitment clip (see here) in our organizing trainings.

GL: Which celebrity would you love to have come out on your issue?

Steve: Well, celebrities like Susan Sarandon and others come out against the war, but I would love to see someone surprising like Fifty Cent or even Kid Rock, because he was so pro-war in the beginning.

GL: What music lyrics do you live by?

Steve: “Change is Gonna Come” by Otis Redding also Nina Simone’s “I Shall be Released” in addition to the punk rock soundtrack of my youth.

GL: How do you balance your passion for your partner with your passion for organizer?

Steve: That question is a tough one and something that I struggle with. The solution is about not turning off part of you at the end of the day, and is also about being honest with your partner. The passion for freedom and justice can’t undermine the passion for relationships. You have to be able to respect the needs of your work and your needs as a person, and find a way to maintain a balance in your daily life.

There are not many successful models out there of people who have found that balance – I’ve seen to many people’s relationships break down. This lack of balance is mirrored in our organizing work - where we may be more efficient – getting numbers, media coverage, web hits – but we’re less effective in building community and really connecting and establishing long-term relationships.

I think a lot of people feel like they need to choose between politics and a personal life. I know when I entered organizing I was trained by people who were four or five years older than me not ten or fifteen years older because they had already left the movement, probably to start families or meet other needs in their lives.

GL: Do you have family support for your organizing? How important is that to you?

Steve: Family support is essential and yes I have it. I come from a family of organizers. My parents were one of the few models I’ve seen on how to blend political work with family. But they made sacrifices for how and when they could enter the movement. I think what is helpful is to see your life in stages – not having to do everything at once.

GL: Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. Anything else to add?

Steve: I just wanted to stress the importance of pacing ourselves. Not just focusing on small battles but what the big ones are and know that we’re working toward something larger that we may not see realized in our lifetime.