The new regime in DC has created more activated citizens than any presidential administration in history. I’ve been writing on my blog, which used to be more food and garden based back in simpler days, about how to take effective action.
Back in January, I put out a simple 3 point plan for effective action. It’s time for an update!
You’ve been playing by the rules. Submitting public comments. Signing petitions, sending emails to your elected decision makers.
You’ve bumped it up You learned that petitions are close to useless, and that emails are regularly ignored. Now, you’re using the phone. Calling every day, you’ve got the numbers of your congress people and senators programed in your phone, and if the DC line is busy, you’ll call those regional offices until voice mail or a person picks up.
You’re consistent and persistent. You follow daily action tips whether that means calling the national security council to stop that creep Steve Bannon or you might be calling that republican congressman in Florida who introduced a bill to eliminate the EPA.
Be aware, this might impact your health. Is it starting to feel like a crazy game of whack a mole? Blood pressure, sleep, digestion are all impacted by high stress levels over extended periods of time. Every day is more crazy than the last. CNN and other networks continue to bang the drums of fear 24/7
It’s time to step back and re-consider if our efforts are having any meaningful impact.
Dandelion Insurrection author Rivera Sun writes:
“Be aware of ‘strategies’ that funnel citizens straight back into the same-old ineffective cattleshoot of merely calling officials. There’s a ton of them being advocated right now. The Gilens-Page Study has demonstrated 20 years of examples of how Congress does not respond to the ordinary citizen. Businesses and rich people can call elected officials and get results. We can’t. So, please friends, we need to strategize deeper and differently. We need to move our money, boycott, strike, use nonviolent direct action. We need to use acts of protest and persuasion to speak to one another, not to powerholders who have their fingers in their ears. We need to build, support, and participate in new systems that create the world we want to live in.
Be awake. Be aware. Until we fix our broken, non-democracy the game of what I call “Beggar Politics” (please, please, oh elected official, do the right thing for once) needs to be challenged. We have an untapped source of political power: nonviolent action. Noncooperation. Nonviolent Intervention. Nonviolent Disruption. We can build campaigns that use many of these types of actions strategically to achieve our goals.”
The time has come to get more “radical”. Don’t let that word scare you. Radical merely means “root”. Get to the root of things. If you try to put a dandelion out of the ground and don’t get the root, that dandelion will return in no time! You’ve got to address the root cause.
This creatively made short video will help you to consider the concept of “radical” and how to use your natural skills and talents in the growing resistance movement. Even those who teach gardening to kids can be radicals! You can embrace despair with defiance. We’ve got this!
