Civil disobedience is a transformation of consciousness, a sudden revelation that something new must be done. It is the knowledge that there are two options: disrupt and change the system or remain silent in the face of injustice.

Right now, civil disobedience is emerging from the anti-war and environmental movements in significant ways, most notably around opposition to the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. In this video with historian and writer Gar Alperovitz at the Liberty Tree Foundation’s 2011 Democracy Convention, he wonders when the leadership from these campaigns will inspire the shift in consciousness that will change our broken environmental and economic systems.

See his other interview from the 2011 Democracy Convention here.

—Anna Lekas Miller