Action

There are 59 posts filed in Action (this is page 3 of 6).

New York Magazine: Do You Remember the Ecstasy of Electing Joe Biden? How the coalition that defeated Donald Trump crumbled. – I don’t agree with the title of this post. I think that coalitions can be rebuilt to keep Trump out of the Oval Office, but there has been some “splintering” since January 2021.

Colin Walker points to Misu talking about writing consistently, and I love this quote from Colin: “if you don’t do the things you want to get better at then you never will and there’s no point moaning about it.”. I also needed to hear that!

Followup on tools for activism

Ken Smith writes again on this topic, referring again to the need to organize to be successful in activism or other group projects. I recently finished listening to a podcast called “Panther: Blueprint for Black Power“. The podcast tells the story of fighting for voting rights in Lowndes County, Alabama in 1965 and 1966, after passage of the Voting Rights Act. The “blueprint” is not very specific, basically the community organized with the help of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) for voter registration and voting. The community also created a separate political party, the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, to provide an alternate slate of candidates to oppose white supremacy Democratic candidates. Their symbol was the Black Panther, and this was the inspiration for the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California.

Ken Smith also brings up the topic of tools for organizing that were part of the 2008 Barack Obama campaign website. Thanks to Google, I found a site that collects presidential campaign websites, and saw there were several captures of the original Obama website. I looked at a page with the site after the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Reviewing the home page, there were ways for people to register with the site, to sign up for a newsletter, to find a local group where they could get involved, an area to volunteer to help, and (of course) a donation link. The bottom half of the page looked like a news blog where stories of interest could be posted and read. I assume that these “tools” are what Ken Smith is talking about.

All of these “tools” are pretty standard elements of website design for political websites (link is to collection of 2024 websites). I did a quick review of BuddyPress, a WordPress plugin that “helps you build any kind of community website using WordPress, with member profiles, activity streams, user groups, messaging, and more.” (from the home page). I found an example of a NGO using this application, as well as a collection of 20 other examples. On a broader note, the Action Network provides organizing tools for groups (at some cost). I mention these examples to demonstrate that there are tools and applications available at little to no cost to provide ways for people to organize, read, and write on a topic or issue, so I do not see the “tools” issue as a problem (they exist, but require time and effort to set up and use). The “problem” is that there needs to be a group of people sufficiently interested in an issue to want to organize, and to take the time to use available tools to support that organization. As I have written earlier, the Community Tool Box from the University of Kansas is a comprehensive set of tools/methods to help communities identify issues and organize to address them. I welcome Ken’s input on if the examples in this post meet his expectations of what people need to organize and take action.

Followup on consumerism and activism

Ken Smith posted recently, continuing to riff on musical performances (here, being on Ed Sullivan) and also remembering his posts on Pete Seeger, and relating them to acts of activism. In the recent post, he notes how people go to concerts and are more disposed to spend money on things related to the concert/group they heard. As consumers, they already know how to spend money on things that they want. For a performance by a musical activist, there should be information/flyers/greeters at the end to communicate about “how to affiliate with others and help move the issue forward in our civic life” (my idea) (quote from Ken’s recent post).

For any issue, there are people for it and against it. Attending a concert where an activist performs could be considered an act of activism, but (as Ken Smith says) if there is no follow-through, the momentum/energy of the event fades away. So – what to do about it? Here, I think some distinction should be drawn between the person who is already an activist and a person who thinks they want to be an activist, but are not sure what to do. If a person is an activist, and is not having much success in promoting an issue or cause, perhaps one of the ideas from my Activism in Atlanta post is appropriate (find the organization that is already working on that problem). Hillary Rettig, in her book “The Lifelong Activist“, has an entire section on how to be more successful in pursuing activism ( the full text of the book is available as a free PDF). In a November 2022 post, Ken Smith lists 6 areas of what he calls the “activism toolkit” that could also apply here.

Activism in Atlanta

I did a search for “activism 101” yesterday, and found an episode of the podcast While Black, recorded in 2019, interviewing an activist called City. City does activism in Atlanta, Georgia, with a current focus on police brutality. I listened to it today, and jotted down some notes when the interviewer asked for three things that someone who wants to get involved in activism should do (35-40 minutes into the podcast):

  • Find what problem that you are going to be passionate about.
    • Half of the people only find problems that everyone is talking about, but are not passionate about it 
  • Find your organization that is already working on that problem.
    • You don’t have to join them, but you can work along side them
  • Put yourself in a position where economically your problem can be fixed
    • Make sure that your livelihood is not affected
    • Have something or someone that can take care of you/family
  • Everyone is needed – even social media activists
  • You need goals
    • If you don’t have that, you will be running around with your head cut off

Tools and activism

Ken Smith posted some quotes from Pete Seeger recently, where Seeger states that working within one’s home community is the most important work we have to do right now (Ken’s post title is “Essential Local Politics”). I feel that there is a great amount of information available online to help/assist/train individuals how to do work/activism within their communities. I have a list of resources available here, but I think the Community Tool Box from the University of Kansas is an excellent place to find frameworks for identifying an issue or issues to get involved with, and to identify concrete next steps.

In an earlier post, Ken Smith appears to express the opinion that he would like to see tools that help people get together to do work, to create content, to organize activities, and to have identity to allow them to affiliate with others and have a stronger voice. In a similar way to my first paragraph, I think there are many available online tools to help people with this work. Stephen Downes has created a massive resource called “Creating an Online Community, Class or Conference – Quick Tech Guide”. I think the tools identified here could satisfy a lot of what Ken is looking for supporting activism. I welcome Ken’s input on this. 

DIY Television: A handbook

Community Media: A handbook for revolutions in DIY TV (via Frank Meeuwsen) – I read through this site today, it has a nice history of alternative television (my words) and suggestions on tools/methods on creating your own television (notice I am not using the word “videos”). The impression this handbook gives is that distribution is as important as production (if no one is watching, is it TV?). In today’s splintered landscape of news/information/entertainment in video form, I don’t know if this will take hold to any significant degree. However, it did make me want to make a video…

There was also some discussion of podcasting as a democratic new medium. As a podcast producer myself (Convocast, Thinking About Tools for Thought, In The Car Podcast), to me this might be the way to go to get your message out (and can still be done cheaply on WordPress.com or using my notes on self-hosted WordPress).

Making progress in the world

It is easy to fall into a “consumption” mode of life, where most if not all free time is spent taking in news and information about things, but not producing anything with that news/information, or not producing anything at all. Similarly, it is easier to comment on the current state of affairs in the world than it is to take action to make something happen. It is easier to complain about your job, or neighbors, or other people or events, than to make some change (get a different job, find new friends, move). 

To me it comes down to three things: (1) what do you want?, (2) what do you need to do to get what you want?, and (3) what are you doing about it? I have problems with the first one, for sure. Trying to make a decision about what to do with my free time, or what thing I want to change in my life, can be a difficult process – there are so many choices, and only so much time. If I do not decide what I want, I can’t move on to items 2 and 3.

Here is an excerpt from a post by Gary North (paywalled), writing on “What Do You Really Want to Achieve?”: 

Here are the three inescapable questions: (1)What do I want to achieve? (2) How soon do I want to achieve it? (3) What am I willing to pay (do without)?

When you have this on paper, you are ready to develop a plan to achieve this. This plan must have time markers: quarterly, yearly, five years. It must have specific intermediate goals that will let you measure your progress.

This is psychologically difficult to do. Most people will not do it. Those few who do will not follow through with self-evaluations on time, which involve plan revisions. So, time dribbles away. Progress is catch-as-catch-can.

Finally, this post breaks down this method of making progress (even though it focuses on screenwriting, the advice is sound for any endeavor):

“A dream written down with a date becomes a GOAL. A goal broken down into steps becomes a PLAN. A plan backed by ACTION makes your dreams come true.” 

Time to get started figuring out what I want!#