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We live in an age of protest.
我们处于一个抗议的时代。
On campuses and public squares, on streets and social media, protesters around the world are challenging the status quo.
在大学校园，在公共广场，在街道，在社交媒体，全世界的抗议者们正在挑战现状。
Protest can thrust issues onto the national or global agenda,
抗议活动可以将问题推到全国乃至全球，
it can force out tyrants, it can activate people who have long been on the sidelines of civic life.
它可以推翻暴君，它可以帮助那些长期游离于公民生活边缘的人群。
While protest is often necessary, is it sufficient? Consider the Arab Spring.
虽然抗议活动经常是必需的，但这就够了吗？想下“阿拉伯之春运动”。
All across the Middle East, citizen protesters were able to topple dictators.
席卷中东地区，抗议的市民推翻了独裁者的统治。
Afterwards, though, the vacuum was too often filled by the most militant and violent.
然而，权利真空往往再次被军事化武装和暴力占据。
Protest can generate lasting positive change when it's followed by an equally passionate effort to mobilize voters,
抗议活动可以延续正向的改变，只要我们以同样的热情和努力去号召选民，
to cast ballots, to understand government, and to make it more inclusive.
进行投票，了解政府的工作并提升抗议的包容性。
So here are three core strategies for peacefully turning awareness into action and protest into durable political power.
因此，我在这里列举了三条核心策略，可以将理念和平地转化为行动和更为持久的政治力量。
First, expand the frame of the possible, second, choose a defining fight, and third, find an early win.
首先，团结一切可团结的力量；其次，明确斗争目的；第三，取得早期的胜利。
Let's start with expanding the frame of the possible.
下面从团结一切可以团结的力量开始。
How often have you heard in response to a policy idea, 'That's just never going to happen'?
你们是否常听见这样的政见响应：“那从来不可能发生”？
When you hear someone say that, they're trying to define the boundaries of your civic imagination.
当你听到有人这么说时，他们正在试图界定你的公民想象力范围。
The powerful citizen works to push those boundaries outward, to ask what if -- what if it were possible?
一个强大的国家公民会努力将这想象力的边界向外推，并反问大家如果这是可能的呢？
What if enough forms of power -- people power, ideas, money, social norms -- were aligned to make it happen?
如果有多方面足够的力量：人民力量、想法、金钱、社会规范等，是不是这些力量集合起来成功就能实现？
Simply asking that question and not taken as given all the givens of conventional politics
光提出这个问题就好，且不要把传统的政治假设视为真理
is the first step in converting protest to power.
这就是转化抗争为力量的第一步。
But this requires concreteness about what it would look like to have, say,
不过需要具体呈现你的要求，像是说，
a radically smaller national government, or, by contrast, a big single-payer healthcare system,
缩小国家政府的编制，或者相反，扩大单一的医疗系统的规模，
a way to hold corporations accountable for their misdeeds, or, instead, a way to free them from onerous regulations.
或是一个能要求企业为自己的错误行为负责的办法，或是一个可以让他们摆脱繁冗法规的替代方案。
This brings us to the second strategy, choosing a defining fight.
这就引出了我们的第二个策略：目的明确。
All politics is about contrasts. Few of us think about civic life in the abstract.
所有的政治都是相对的。我们当中很少有人会用抽象的方式思考公民生活。
We think about things in relief compared to something else.
我们考虑的是与其它事情相对的一些理念。
Powerful citizens set the terms of that contrast. This doesn't mean being uncivil.
深具影响力的公民要能定义出其中的差异性，这并不意味着要你粗鲁地辩论。
It simply means thinking about a debate you want to have on your terms over an issue that captures the essence of the change you want.
这只是要你在你定义的前提下做辩论，议题上含有你想传递、改变的精髓。
This is what the activists pushing for a $15 minimum wage in the U.S. have done.
这也是推动美国十五元最低工资的积极人士能成功的原因。
They don't pretend that $15 by itself can fix inequality,
他们不妄想十五元本身可以解决不平等现象，
but with this ambitious and contentious goal, which they achieved first in Seattle and then beyond,
但他们完成了这个极具野心又争议性的目标，首先在西雅图实现，并向外推广，
they have forced a bigger debate about economic justice and prosperity.
并推动了更大型有关经济正义与繁荣的辩论。
They've expanded the frame of the possible, strategy one, and created a sharp emblematic contrast, strategy two.
他们已经尽可能团结了人民，就是策略一，并且建立的明显的标志性的对比，就是策略二。
The third key strategy, then, is to seek and achieve an early win.
接下来就是第三个策略，取得早期胜利。
An early win, even if it's not as ambitious as the ultimate goal, creates momentum, which changes what people think is possible.
早期胜利，虽然没有终极目标来的伟大，但所造成的声势足以改变人们对可能性的想法。
The solidarity movement, which organized workers in Cold War Poland emerged just this way,
团结工联运动，冷战时期的波兰工人就是以这样的方式被组织起来的，
first, with local shipyard strikes in 1980 that forced concessions,
1980年首度在当地船厂罢工，迫使政府让步，
then, over the next decade, a nationwide effort that ultimately helped topple Poland's communist government.
之后的十年，在全国的努力下，最后推翻了波兰的共产主义政府。
Getting early wins sets in motion a positive feedback loop, a contagion, a belief, a motivation.
早期的胜利为运动带来了正面的反馈，一种蔓延的形式，一种信念，一种动机。
It requires pressuring policymakers, using the media to change narrative,
这需要向决策者施压，利用媒体改变事情的叙述方式
making arguments in public, persuading skeptical neighbors one by one by one.
在公开场合举行辩论，逐一说服抱持怀疑态度的朋友。
None of this is as sexy as a protest,
这虽然没有抗议来的感性，
but this is the history of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, of Indian Independence, of Czech self-determination.
但造就了美国人权运动的历史、造就了印度独立的历史、造就了捷克自制的历史。
Not the single sudden triumph, but the long, slow slog.
没有单一的突然胜利，而是长期的、慢慢的推进。
You don't have to be anyone special to be part of this grind,
参与这份苦差事，你不必要是一个特殊的人，
to expand the frame of the possible, to pick a defining fight, or to secure an early win.
而是团结一切可以团结的力量，设定明确目标，或者确保早期的胜利。
You just have to be a participant and to live like a citizen.
你只需要成为参与者，并活得像一位公民。
The spirit of protest is powerful. So is showing up after the protest.
抗议的精神力量是强大的。这是抗议后显现出来的。
You can be the co-creator of what comes next.
你可能就是下一个抗议的组织者。
