Activism

There are 126 posts filed in Activism (this is page 9 of 13).

In the end, it is up to us

This phrase first came to my mind in a therapy session, but since then I have realized that it applies to every aspect of our lives. The first time it came to me, I wanted the therapist to “fix” something, but in that session, I saw that it was up to me and the others involved to solve the issue. The therapist could suggest options or encourage/facilitate dialog, but it was up to us to solve the problem in front of us.

In this current political, economic, social, and media atmosphere, there are many people (sometimes, it feels like EVERYONE) who are calling out problems wherever they turn. Many people are experiencing social and economic problems. Many people look to their local, state and federal governments for help, and those organizations/agencies/administrations all seek to address the problems of towns, cities, states, and the nation. Still – I believe that for almost all problems that occur in our lives, the first step to solving the problem starts with us. In the political realm, it may mean giving up the comfort of armchair quarterbacking the evening news and spending your time and money to support or fight against an issue or candidate. In the economic realm, it may mean having to seek other employment, education, or assistance. In the social realm, maybe the people you associate with are dragging you down, and a change is needed. For many, inaction is the default response to problems.

So, the next time a problem appears in front of you, ask yourself the question – is there something I can do about it? It may be that the answer is no, but the reflection is vitally important. I feel that all of us have agency to take some steps to improve our lives or where we live or our world. Indeed, in the end, it is up to all of us to work together to solve the problems that face us. 

Wrapping up the January 6th Committee hearings

My wife and I watched the final hearing this week from the House January 6th Select Committee on the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 (also, see C-SPAN archive collection. It was a day that I remember well, having kept a liveblog of the day’s events (also see posts here and here). I think that the committee has done an excellent job of telling the story of what led up to this event and how Donald Trump was the central figure in trying to overturn the 2020 election. My fervent hope is that the Department of Justice is going to pursue Trump and hold him accountable for his crimes (i.e., indict, arrest, and convict him!). The site JustSecurity.org has a January 6 clearinghouse of information on this event, well worth checking out, as well as a citizen’s guide to the evidentiary record.

The most striking part of the hearing was the documentary video of the congressional leaders at Fort McNair filmed by Alexandra Pelosi (Nancy Pelosi’s daughter). CNN also carried more of this footage the evening of the hearing (also here). It was riveting. One question came up in my wife and I discussing the hearing – how was it that Alexandra Pelosi came to be there that day? And for myself, how is it that this is the first time this footage is coming to public view? Was she planning to make a documentary with this? Her Wikipedia page says she works for HBO, but she has not released any documentaries since 2020. I hope that some journalist will dig into this a little more.

Using non-violence techniques to achieve goals

In a recent post on Waging Nonviolence, organizer George Lakey related a story about use of non-violence training and techniques in a boycott of South African sport teams during the apartheid era. Through these trainings, anti-racism and anti-apartheid groups were able to work together to come up with a plan to stage de-centralized civil disobedience events. The New Zealand government could not handle this approach, and cancelled a tour by the South African rugby team.

With the upcoming mid-term elections, there may be problems resulting from election protestors and disrupters. These techniques may be of use in this troubled time. We will have to wait, watch, and perhaps take action to preserve our democracy through civil disobedience.

Upholding our democracy

The United States is having challenges in maintaining and upholding democracy. In Oregon, all of the candidates for governor have all called each other “extreme” for one reason or another. In many states, people who deny the results of the 2020 presidential election won their primaries and are candidates for high office. The Democracy Day journalism collaborative held an event in September 2022 to highlight issues and seek solutions. In a post on Waging Nonviolence, the group outlined seven ideas for coming together as partisans for democracy:

  • Look beyond electoral politics
  • Define “anti-democratic” behavior beyond partisan identities
  • Bridge the understanding of “anti-democratic” behavior to mobilize against it
  • Calling out toxic othering
  • Now is not the time for neutrality
  • Partisanship for democracy versus bipartisanship
  • A cross-ideological democracy movement is both necessary and possible

This post is excellent reading, with many links to supporting material. As for each of us, let us do what we can to help uphold our democracy.

More thoughts on organizing information for use

I recently created a web app to use the opmlPackage NPM module from Dave Winer to display the contents of four OPML files at one time. The app uses the includes feature, which can read other OPML files from a single OPML file and save the content locally for processing. I created four OPML files myself for this test app, but the four files could have been created by anyone. 

So the main benefit of the OPML Includes site is that it can display multiple outlines (which can be edited by multiple people, not just one person) and have the content refreshed whenever someone goes to the site. If the content is changing on a frequent basis, this could be an easy way to see the updates. If the content is fairly static, it may not be significant. In that case, single page apps could be used to view the outlines separately, so perhaps there is not much benefit in using the includes feature in opmlPackage.

Ken Smith has had some thoughts about potential uses:

“And I’m still musing about uses. About the slide down into the archive problem of blogging and social media, and maybe using the app as a partial remedy. Keeping the good stuff in view, and adding to the good stuff over time and linking the good stuff to a wider circle of relevant content. Taking the web part of the web seriously rather than letting the slide down into the archive turn it all into ghostly memories.”

Again, an OPML outline, rendered using existing tools, could provide a way to collect that information in a single document. In 2010, Jay Rosen’s Studio 20 journalism program at New York University partnered with ProPublica to research the area of “explainers”, or explanatory journalism at a site called explainer.net. The site is still available on the Internet Archive. I think that this is a method of addressing the “slide down into the archive” problem, but it does take effort. Someone has to create such an explainer, and then monitor the Web for items related to that topic, read and curate them, and add them to the explainer as needed. The main problem is someone has to have the desire and interest to collect information on a topic and share that information. If there is no one with that interest, no tool for collecting and displaying that information is going to be of much use.

Using OPML to organize information for use

Recently, Ken Smith shared an example of a directory of activities to do during a wedding weekend (primarily for attendees not familiar with the area). I recently started a OPML directory of sorts on Oregon elections. Using the drummer.this.how feature from Dave Winer, these directories can be easily reviewed by others. I also recently created a Github repo to collect thoughts on organizing information for use, but it is not in OPML format (although it could be…)

In the early days of OPML, some people were trying to organize podcast directories using OPML files. The idea was that someone could be the maintainer of a directory on a topic, and that file could be included as a folder/directory within a larger directory structure. After playing with the new includes feature in opmlPackage, I started thinking about this again. My impression is that many people who post lists of things do so with the idea of sharing, but the reuse of that sharing is difficult. However, if the list was in an OPML file, this would lend itself to reuse/sharing/remixing. If you had a group of experts who could summarize/curate information/resources for a set of topics in OPML, this could be the basis of a larger work which could be updated at anytime by any of the experts (see Ken Smith’s “Beyond griping” post for more info). As I mentioned in this post, maybe starting a little “beachhead” for experimentation would be in order. Watch this space for more details!

Who is running to represent you?

As I posted yesterday, with primaries wrapping up, the candidates for the major parties are being chosen. Some candidates will run as an independent (like Betsy Johnson in the Oregon governor’s race). For most, if not all, states in the United States, the state office of Secretary of State is responsible for running elections within a state. These offices have been working to be able to provide unofficial results as soon as an election concludes. To find this, search for “secretary of state yourstatename elections” to start. Oregon has an excellent site, and your state probably does as well. Check it out!

Who represents you?

With the primary elections wrapping up across the nation, you might have a question – who is my representative? At the state level, a voter has a state representative and a state senator (except for states that have a unicameral legislature (one chamber, not two)). At the federal level, a voter has a US House representative, and two US Senators. But with redistricting going on as part of the 2022 elections, someone different might be representing you.

How to find out? The Oregon Legislature has a page to allow you to enter your address and find out who your current representative are (searched on “how to find my representative in Oregon”). Next, you might do a search on “yourstatename redistricting”. For me in Oregon, this lead to a website for the Oregon Legislature on changes made for redistricting. This site also had links to a GIS site with PDFs for Oregon state House and Senate districts, and US House districts. From the earlier page, I could find my state House and Senate district, and was able to download the map. In a few minutes, I had all the information I needed.

Next step – who is running for office this fall? Tune in soon!

How change happens

Seth Godin had a great post last week that speaks to Ken Smith’s citizen toolkit post, here are the key paragraphs:

Going to the protest of the day, performing acts of slacktivism, hopping from urgency to emergency–this is how people who day trade in our culture are whipsawed. But the people who are consistently and actively changing the culture are not easily distracted. One more small action, one more conversation, one more standard established.

The internet would like us to focus on what happened five minutes ago. The culture understands that what happens in five years is what matters.

Focused, persistent community action is how systems change. And systems concretize and enforce cultural norms.

If you care, keep talking. Keep acting. Stay focused. And don’t get bored.