About LLZ

Activists are a wildly diverse bunch of people connected to many cultures, but all of us share a unique culture as activists.

Regardless of our particular identities and types of activism:

Like most people, we oppose injustice and desire a healthier, kinder and more equitable world. But unlike most people, we deliberately plan, organize and ACT in the world collectively to help make this happen. This makes our life experience distinct in a number of ways:

• We clash with the existing power structure, creating unique tensions in our lives and organizations;

• We grapple daily with the old ways as we’re working to bring forth the new, confronting the contradictions of living inside the boxes we’re trying to dismantle;

• In the course of our movements we carve out liberated zones to survive within the belly of the beast, struggle against it, and forge alternatives to it. These embattled spaces, within ourselves; in our families and neighborhoods; in our movements, organizations, co-ops and communes; at Zucotti Park, Oventic or Tahrir Square; or even in whole regions and countries, are where we take refuge, resist, and practice what we propose.

Life in the Liberated Zone explores, in fact and in fiction, the experience of being an activist in our society–our culture as activists. Greater awareness of our culture can bring us together despite differences, help us identify and resist the specific oppressions activists are subject to, better appreciate ourselves as a people, and enhance the liberated zones we’re constantly opening up to begin creating the new world now as we confront the the beast of greed and oppression we’re struggling to transform.