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I have my own memory of Randy Kehler from the 1980s. Back then I was active in the Central American solidarity movement with a group called the "Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua." Several of our members, myself included, attended a three-day training workshop run by an organization called the Peace Development Fund (PDF), and Randy was one of the trainers. He had co-written a booklet titled "Thinking Strategically: A Primer on Long-Range Strategic Planning for Grassroots Peace and Justice Organizations," and PDF was using it to train organizations in how to think about long-range strategic planning. It was one of the most illuminating training that I think I have ever experienced. He explained that activists sometimes tend to engage in a flurry of "activities" -- protests, letter-writing campaigns, etc. -- without giving enough thought to their theory of change and the steps needed to achieve the changes that they want, which may require years or decades to achieve. He noted that long-range strategic planning is a standard tool used by the US military. In itself it isn't a tool for achieving "peace" or other progressive goals, but it can enable people to achieve results that might not happen otherwise. For me, that workshop was a light-bulb moment, and I've tried to apply the lessons he was teaching not just in my political activism but in other aspects of my life as well.

That was my only personal encounter with Randy Kehler. It happened a little before the Kehler's home was seized by the government in response to their tax protest. I've wondered sometimes if the tax protest was a strategically wise thing for them to do, but of course they did it out of principle. In my experience from that workshop, he was not just someone with strong moral commitments but also someone who thought seriously and pragmatically about how to translate those moral commitments into actual social change.

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