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Six Things to Do in 2010
In my travels, I've heard many cries of despair from you good folks about the timorous Obama presidency. On issue after issue, it's been go-slow and don't-rock-the-corporate boat. "Where's the 'audacity of hope?'" people are asking. "Where's the 'change you can believe in?'"
The answer is that in our country's democracy, audacity and change are where they've always resided: out there with you and me, at the grassroots level. For some reason, the guy who was elected by running from the outside is now trying to govern from the inside - which is where change is taken to die.
The good news is that the American majority is with us on nearly every issue, so the chance for change remains strong - if we can push it. Now is the time for us to be more aggressive, more demanding, more active than ever. Many of you have asked, "Fine - but how?" Here are some suggestions:
1. Start by considering what's reasonable for you. Few of us can be full-time activists, and the list of issues and problems is long and complex. So, just take one bite, choosing an issue that interests you the most, then start contributing what you can (time, skills, contacts, money, enthusiasm, etc.) to making progress. Every little contribution helps - it all adds up. As a young Oregon woman said of her half-day-a-week of volunteer door-knocking in a legislative race: "I was only a drop in the bucket, but I was a drop. And without all of us, the bucket would not have filled up."
2. Inform yourself. A little effort can quickly connect you to accessible, usable information and insights on any given topic, helping you gain a "citizen's level" of expertise so you can talk to others about it. Read progressive periodicals, tune in to progressive broadcasts, get information from public-interest groups and plug in to good websites and blogs.
Don't know how to go online? Nearly all public libraries not only have computers, but also librarians and volunteers who'll help you find the info you want and teach you how to use the machines.
Or, find a youngster (maybe your granddaughter or someone at church) who'll help you. Yes, you can do this!
3. Democracy belongs to those who show up. Join with others. Everyone feels better when they're part of a group, a movement, a community (whether real or virtual). In your own town or neighborhood, many others share your progressive outlook and are either already working together or willing to help form a group - seek them out, maybe at bookstores, book clubs, coffee shops, events, churches, blogs, websites or other meeting places.
4. A community is more than a collection of issues and endless meetings. Get to know each other by combining the serious with the social. Remember the Yugoslavian proverb: You can fight the gods and still have fun! So discuss your issues and strategies at potluck suppers, throw an annual festival of politics, establish sessions of beer-mug democracy at local taverns or political coffee talk at the coffee shop, etc.
5. Become the media. Create a local newsletter, blog, online bulletin board (or, a real one), an Internet radio broadcast, etc. Just as importantly, enlist high school or community college speech and journalism teachers to help others learn how to do radio and TV interviews and how to get local media to cover your issues. Also, get them to train you and others in public speaking, so you can have your own speakers' bureau to address clubs, churches, schools, etc.
6. Hold your own "what to do" sessions in your community. National progressive groups haven't figured out a cohesive strategy for focusing people's anger about the meekness of the Washington's Democratic leaders, so don't wait on them. Instead, have your own discussions about what should be done nationally - if anything - and start zapping those ideas to other communities, heads of national groups, progressive media outlets and so forth. Let the ideas/discussion percolate up from a thousand localities!
If you're looking for genius, don't look up, look around where you are, and trust you're the wisdom of your own community. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, "Common sense is genius with its work clothes on."
37 Comments so far
Show All#7. don't be afraid.
If Obama had simply "not rocked the corporate boat" it would be bad enough. Obama is adding insult to injury by enhancing corporate fortunes with unprecedented amounts of corporate welfare, at our expense. While Obamacare and Wall Street bailouts are the two most egregious examples, Obama has already created a widespread legacy of corporate sugar daddy.
Don't vote for Democrats or Republicans, vote third party.
We need to transcend the left-right paradigm. If we are to beat the banksters we need to ally with those on the right who share core values. If we could get lobbyists out of or at least minimize their power in the governing process, end the days of aggresive empire building abroad, and abolish the federal reserve (and start making our own money instead of having a private bank do it and charge us interest on it), we would have come a very long way towards accomplishing the goals of most real progresive groups. This would also be adream come true for most real libertarian groups.
We need to see past our differences and get down to the core of the problem. The hour is late (2 seconds till the ball drops). We need (as a fox pundit recently said in reference to protests against flu vaccines) an 'unholy alliance' of the far left and the far right.
The elites want us divided on peripheral issues like abortion that, while they are important, do not affect the power structure either way they are decided.
#8. If you have the wherewithal, get out of the United States, especially if you have children.
#2. People reading this are already on computers. Should have been; help others learn how to get on-line.
#1 Switch to third party on January 13 th
Grab your power now!
Even a miniscule third party can have alot of power ( think Lieberman)
" If you are not part of the solution then you are part of the problem"
All Power to Alll People !!!!
make love not war
stop kissing frogs hoping they'll turn into princes...
Kissing frogs is what the apologetic wing of the Democrat Party does best at least when not sticking their collective head in the sand.
And by the time we get even that little bit of 'grassroots' organizing going on, the Bankster Owners of The Place and their Big Everything Else partners will continue stealing anything they can get their hands on at an unprecedented pace.
Not to mention all the dead bodies that will continue to pile up, or the melting of Earth...
What we need is some sort of 'grassroots' Citizen Rapid Reaction Force - yea, we'll all be friends later, but right now we got streets to shut down and Banksters to annoy...
Great ideas, Jim. Here's my problem:
If I join any progressive group, I'll wonder if the guy next to me might be the little pr*ck who called me a racist (for daring to criticize The Lisping One) during the primaries.
Or one of the Obama zealots who called half the women I know the C word--over and over again.
You see the problem? Today's progressives are foul-mouthed Philistines. They are not worth sh*t.
Perry I think your generalizing a bit.
And any thinking progressive knew Obomber was foul when he voted for FISA immunity.
Obviously the Progressives who are taking Obomber down now are not Obomber zealots,
and many only held their noses and voted for him.
Do not weep for Hillary she is as bad or if possible worse than Obomber.
Leave the demopublicans/republicrats...join the Green Party...build the future. you don't need to wait...do it today. If you live in a state with voter registration by party: re-register GREEN PARTY. In any event, find your
state or local Green Party and become involved.
Links to state Green Parties are at: gp.org
Switch your registration to a third party January 13 th.
Seize your power !
Google A NEW FEDERALIST PARTY. It makes a lot of sense and the timing seems right.
Demand an accounting for who is donating to/bribing your representatives and find out how they vote...and call in to the local radio mouth with the info. Start the clamor for campaign finance reform and accountability... If we as taxpayers are paying the wages of our supposed reps, then corporate donations should be regarded as illegal bribes.
Some good suggestions from Jim Hightower and the posters below. Yes, most of the progressives are aware of the problem,but have a difficult time finding solutions. We need more of the solutions and less of the negatives, even though preaching to the choir is important to be aware of what is happening, it does not seem to get us anywhere. I think if every one of us is doing our level best to be part of the solution, even though it may look small, it is still important. Like the Chinese proverb that says: " a thousand mile journey begins with the first step".
If the media would stop jumping on the bandwagon to harass Obama and ask the Republicans who keep attacking him what solution THEY have--rather than publish this rhetoric: "Republicans Chastigate Obama Over Airline Incident" it would help a lot.
I agree with all points, as expressed in the initial sentence or so.
"Everyone feels better when they're part of a group..."
Trouble is Mr. Jim Hightower the progressive group is like being in a terminal cancer ward at a hospices.
Yeah, they can be. I've been to a few.
Yet...there are groups that are alive, supportive, and progress-ive. The ones I know of have nothing to do with politics or protests.
Join Your Local Green Party ...
The Democrats, as a party, stand for bankster largesse, health care serfdom, illegal, unwinnable, immoral wars.
It is no longer a question of politics. It is a question of conscience.
Hang your flags upside down, don't vote, don't borrow money, don't buy anything new, and eat organic.
#9 All politics is defensive. Go on the offensive - do something meaningful (and don't wait for instructions).
Begin to "build the structure of the new society within the shell of the old" by shifting from state-corporate institutions to counter-economics. For example, keep your saving in a credit union instead of a corporate bank. Buy fair trade certified coffee and other products. (My Smygo news list has a folder on counter-economics in the links section.)
--
Dan Clore
Smygo: News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Eyrie of the Arch-Anarch:
http://www.nolanchart.com/author341.html
"and start zapping those ideas to other communities, heads of national groups, progressive media outlets and so forth. Let the ideas/discussion percolate up from a thousand localities! If you're looking for genius, don't look up, look around where you are, and trust you're the wisdom of your own community."
This is good advice. We need such messages repeated, A LOT.
Now let's look at some statistics. There are different messages and each has a repetition rate in the media. The message above is probably the best message that can be given, and its repetition rate, in the media, is probably once a month.
Meanwhile, public enemy number one, the elites, are repeating a thousand times a day in the media, messages that DISEMPOWER THE PEOPLE.
The elites are crowding out our good messages. So let's get the message out at the local level. We'll put the elites to groveling at our feet within a year. They're already on their knees, basically drunks who can't put down the bottle.
What an Annus horribilis this has been.
I wonder how it might have been with McCain and Palin...shudder.
Annus finis...?
Fact: according to bloomberg news FOX news is
engaged in a life or death battle with TIME WARNER.
Because of LOST REVENUE due to advertiser BOYCOTTS'
FOX cannot pay its shitty "STARS" their GRIFT.
Now is the time to organise and bury ALL OF
RUPERT MURDOCHS scumbucket organisations underwater
and DROWN THEM. Send that pusillanimous scumbag back
AUSTRALIA where he began and start reclaiming OUR MEDIA.
"according to bloomberg news FOX news is
engaged in a life or death battle with TIME WARNER.
Because of LOST REVENUE due to advertiser BOYCOTTS'"
I haven't been able to find any Bloomberg story mentioning boycott as a cause for this dispute. Could you post your *Bloomberg* source please?
Forget the "leaders", follow your own inner wisdom. In business and politics most "leaders" are selfish at best, and sociopaths at worst.
"Be the change you wish to see in the world". Gandhi
IF you want to be a part of the SOLUTION instead of the problem, SUBSTITUTE healthy proteins for animal products.
51% Greenhouse Gases are attributable to livestock products per studies by Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang.
Please be part of the solution.
For more information see www.worldwatch.org/ww/livestock.
Am I alone here? Am I the only one who finds Jim's suggestions much too optimistic? First, a reality check. All of Jim's suggestions have been tried and retried and failed. My suggestion would be to accept reality - and then try to change it. The reality is that the voters got us where we are. I bet you that 90% + will vote for a dem/repub in the next election - just as in the past. That means that the real question should be - how do we create change when the vast majority of voters are opposed (to peace, health care, fair wages, etc). Malcolm might say - BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.
Dear rose, stop watching Fix(fox) news,,,
A vast majority of Americans want to end the wars,want national health care,and better better wages.
Put the Fox cool aid cup down, stop drinking the stazi poison.
5. Become the media. Create a local newsletter, blog, online bulletin board (or,
a real one), an Internet radio broadcast, etc.
One of the things I want to do this year is learn how to blog. Does anyone know of any resources I could check out to learn how to do this since I have no knowledge of web site design? How does one go about formatting blog posts, getting traffic to the site, etc? Any links or info would be helpful.