A few days ago, Lester, a frequent commenter on this blog, reiterated his concern that those “blowing off steam” online–here and elsewhere–are substituting commentary for tangible action. In a private comment, I challenged him on that assumption, pointing out that he had no way of knowing what activities various commenters might–or might not– be engaged in.
I am aware of no data that either supports or rebuts Lester’s evident belief that people who regularly participate in online discussions (or diatribes) do so in lieu of other efforts to address America’s current dysfunctions. In fact, if I were to hazard a guess, I would expect that people who clearly care deeply about the political and social issues so often discussed here would be more likely than others to be involved in civic efforts to ameliorate those problems.
In response to my challenge, I got one in return: “ask your readers what they are doing to save American democracy.”
Fair enough. So today, I am asking regular readers (including you “lurkers” who rarely or never comment) to prove me right! What are you doing to improve your communities, to engage and mobilize rational people, or to educate your fellow-citizens about the nature of the challenges we are facing?
My sense is that there is much more civic and political activity “out there” today than most of us recognize, and that includes not just the incredibly important traditional efforts to support good candidates, register people and get out the vote, but also multiple endeavors that aim to change the culture–to make our neighborhoods, cities and states more inclusive, more equal and more humane, and to raise awareness of the truly existential threats we face–threats not just political but also environmental.
So–here’s my request to all of you. Post a comment and tell me (1) what political and social problem you consider most threatening; and (2) what you are doing to help solve that problem, other than complaining about it.
Make my day!
Thanks Larry for reminding me the we installed solar panels in January 2018. To date we have avoided putting 30,000 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere an we continue migrate home power equipment to rechargeable electric equipment including a lawn mower and a hedge trimmer. Gas mowers account for five percent of all air pollution in the United States
I am wealthy enough to send $$$ to political candidates that I like. Money is my way of helping.
I believe that I would fall under the category of “complainers” because I’ve done little more than talk about our circumstances, what’s wrong, who’s doing us in, etc. That would be a short answer and a weak observation as well. A great deal of my commentary is meant to light a fire under people to get them active in ways that challenge their comfort zones. I routinely denounce the same old tried (and failed) solutions and conclusions to fix all that needs fixing. I put out a lot of ideas that if utilized might take up some of that slack in the doing department. Much of my voice is aimed at friends or associates in common circles.
Since I became loud and started writing about problems, ideas and solutions, the one consistent thing that I’ve seen since then (2017 honestly) is the lack of taking risks or chances. Like a fool running in circles I continue to challenge people and toss out ideas that if considered and at least tried might oil the gears enough to get the old machine of answers working again.
Please forgive my pessimism. There was a time when I believed the hype and sincerely thought that people would rise up and challenge our toxic culture. I’ve witnessed so much of tepid reactions to very serious and difficult problems that I’ve concluded that we’re basically scared.
I’m not scared. I grew as a child with heroes of MLK and a generation of young people beginning in the sixties putting the active in activism. I was several years younger, but I listened to them. I honored them for what they did. They are my role models. Just like they were I’m not afraid to take bold chances and even leave my personal safety not-safe if that’s what it takes. The downtrodden weren’t afraid back then. They hadn’t been domesticated by the American dream.
I’m still the idealist and weekly, if not daily, I can be found studying the issues and what has been done, what was successful and why somethings failed. I spend a lot of time trying to get the lifeless back to life.
So I might not be knocking on doors even if I thought it would help, but I’m busy trying to find new formulas for these new times. For example. Just today I answered back at those crying for boycotts of Walmart, at&t and others like that because of who they give political support to. Simply put, it won’t work.
As I said, we’re not back in the sixties when protest marches got the overlords upset. Hitting them in their income bracket is still a viable ideal, but that income is in some pretty secure brackets. Patches of boycotts making up 1.5% of customers isn’t even going to get them to pause and take notice. So bigger “guns” are required and as long as people keep bringing six shooters loaded with five rubber bullets to the battle we’re just fooling ourselves.
I leave you this one thought. Another way in which we are different from the sixties is a tremendous amount of technology is available to use. Technology can be utilized to bring about those bigger guns. We have to change our battle plans from yesteryear. They don’t work very well these days. Take what we do have and make it work for us. It’s right there on the shelves in front of us.
Greatest threat is continual threats that weaken our democracy. I am working through the League of Women voters, Women4Change and the Indiana Bar Foundation, among other organizations to promote transparency in voting rights generally and civic education.