politics

Ideas For Political Activism!

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OK folks, the world is in a tough spot, the US midterms are coming, and you want to get active.  So here’s a bunch of places to go!  I’ve starred my favorites and I hope to add to this the more I discover.

General Activism and Pro Democracy

  • * DemCast – Communications-heavy activism!  Great for writers and users of social media.
  • * Indivisible Team – A pro-democracy, broad activist group.  Well worth joining.
  • * Movement Labs – Text bank for easy, fast activism!  Well worth signing up for.
  • Popular Democracy – Democratic community building
  • Swing Left – Flip states, counties, cities, and more blue with focused efforts.
  • Way To Win – Collective progressive action.

Disinformation

Voting Rights and Registration

Youth Voting

Spare Me The Sudden Experts

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When the US pulled out of Afghanistan, I was surprised. I was used to us being there, and “leaving” was something always discussed in the future. It came fast.

The news kept coming fast. The Taliban on the move, the invasion of Kabul. Everything was so rapid.

What was even more rapid was watching so many people suddenly become experts on Afghanistan. Social media lit up with opinions and advice and critique and so on. Plenty of people were happy to provide great wisdom that, for some reason, they’d never shared before.

It was the same as everything else I’ve seen online and in the news for years. Plenty of very confident people holding forth sudden opinions on complex subjects. Of course, most of them had political agendas, even if they didn’t know it. Even an opinion I might agree with stoked suspicion.

Sadness oozed through me like hot tar. Twenty years in Afghanistan and it took a day or two for it to become the territory of Reply Guys, Keyboard Warriors, and annoying pundits. The all-devouring news cycle closed in, and the opportunists pounced on fresh meat.

Spare me these sudden experts.

I watched the same kind of people opine on Benghazi and COVID-19, Biden’s electability and the safety of going maskless at school. There are legions of people, for pay and for free, who will pontificate about anything for no good reason.

Our culture has no place for ignorance. For admitting you don’t know. For humility and re-focusing. It’s all about the immediate satisfaction of acting like you’re right. It’s all about a high, engagement numbers, and whatever agenda.

These experts are meaningless. Scrambling, hollow things trying to feed a voraciously empty ego. No plans, no goals, just the next buzz and sometimes a political agenda disconnected from their moralistic posturing.

Of course, I know where this goes – I feel I can hold forth on this due to observation. The American attention span is short. People won’t want to go back. Afghanistan is going to be a discussion, then a buzzword, then a footnote. Also we have COVID-19 to deal with.

The Sudden Experts will just find something else.

After the Coup

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

I write my blog posts a week ahead of time, usually on a Tuesday or Wednesday. On Wednesday January 6th I didn’t write anything because there was a coup in my capitol. You probably saw the whole thing with the screaming, Congress hiding, all egged on by Trump.

It was sad, shameful and very nearly the end of my country. We got close to murder of Congressmembers. Congressmembers encouraging the mess suddenly were melting down in light of what they did. My country was humiliated in media.

I didn’t blog then, obviously.

I spent days trying to track what was going on.

I had flashbacks to 9/11 (there’s a story there: I worked at an insurance company when it happened).

I soldiered on, as did everyone else.

And know what, if you felt you had to push yourself during it? If you felt you had to keep up with everything? You didn’t, and depending on your mental and physical state, you don’t now.

But why are you reading this? Because I love to write. It means something that I write, and I feel better doing this.

Do what you gotta do – and don’t do what you don’t need to.

Regular posting next week, probably.

Steven Savage