The obsessive focus on electoral politics has to be combined with practical efforts at mutual aid and support. Yes, vote. Yes, campaign. Yes, do door knocking. Yes, build your party. But also do what you can outside the electoral system – organize community gardens (we’re probably going to need the food), clean up the neighborhood, check in on the elderly, whatever you can do to build a community and not just a political party.
In these times when elections are not necessarily free, fair, and honest, we have to build local social structures that can deliver practical results to counter some of the effects of a political system that has been captured by big money boyz and grifters. Doing nothing but building the party for the next election and giving away all your power to elected representatives is not democracy, in my opinion. Democracy is do it yourself so do it yourself and with others.
To repeat, before I am totally slagged, Yes, vote. Yes, campaign. Yes, do door knocking. Yes, build your party. But also do what you can outside the electoral system down here on the ground that makes a difference today, even if it seems infinitesimally small.
Incidentally, when the lockdown first began, I was inspired by the wave of mutual aid efforts I saw and tried to collect them and disseminate them (my inclination and my skillset) but I have not seen anyone with a public platform do the same. I haven’t seen, for instance, a local TV station run a campaign to funnel those who want to do something to those who are organized to do so, I haven’t heard a politician do the same. Why not? My suspicion is that a) people with power tend not to recognize voluntary association and mutual aid when it is happening and b) if they do, it is a threat unless people with power can control it. Such direct action for practical purposes by ordinary people make people with power nervous because it makes their power superfluous and redundant.Anyway, that is my observation and I can certainly be wrong. I might have missed power’s support for the flowering of mutual aid that the pandemic has brought forth and would be happy to hear about where it has actually happened.
https://bluemassgroup.com/2020/05/politics-is-for-power-an-indictment-of-everything-weve-ever-done-here/#comment-422660
I would only add: “The obsessive focus on Presidential politics especially.”
The second half of the fourth paragraph is a bit cynical for my tastes.
OTOH it resonated for me.
I do think George might have mentioned the potential opposite effect, when mutual aid or direct action unleashes a wave of suppressed hope in people and creates new possibilities. Think Occupy Wall Street.
There is a level of change that only grass-roots, outside-the-system activities can permit, though it may require inside-the-system activism to ratify the change.
I worry that today the pervasiveness of thoroughly mediated and managed social media will blunt that possibility.
Thanks for the resonance. I didn’t mention the positive effects of mutual aid and voluntary association because I feel they should be self-evident, especially in this forum.
My experience with Occupy was somewhat disappointing as I was actively trying to connect with Occupy people about what more they could do with renewable and sustainable technologies and tried to have conversations with Occupiers in NYC, Providence, and Boston all of which went nowhere.
From my observation, there are aspects of Occupy that still exist and continue resonating in the examples of the Strike Debt and Debt Jubilee efforts and the Occupy Sandy activities which I suspect, and again I could be wrong, are still going on unrecognized in response to the pandemic. The networks that developed through Occupy have resulted in many, many people becoming politically, socially, culturally, and economically active in ways that they wouldn’t have been without Occupy.
That’s literally all Joe Kennedy is doing with his media appearances and campaign emails. Getting people to organizations that can help during this time. Markey is doing similar stuff and met with the Chelsea Collaborative to coordinate aid. The entire City of Revere has put aside division and united behind helping everyone in city limits. So I am not as cynical as the OP. It’s all local action that matters and moves people. It always has been.
So I see a lot of positive action, at least in the communities I work in. Saugus and Revere may not be full of climate voters, but they all hate the Wheelabrator plant and want to shut it down. That cause doesn’t even mention climate, it makes it about public health and local green spaces. That’s why it’s winning.
Social media is a tool, in many ways it has made accessing politics easier and in other ways it has given folks a false comfort that it can supplant direct action. But social media is largely what awe have to fall back on now, and in that sense, I think it’s important to use our platforms to digitally campaign for causes we care about. Digital signature gathering and voting at home are going to be the new normal and we should embrace that rather than insist people can only be active if they do it the old way.
How old are most town committees? Or town meetings? I feel like they are going the way of the Elks club and moose lodge and golf and bowling leagues. People, especially working people and young people, do not have the time to join organizations. People are also skeptical of existing organizations and the inherent power imbalances they have.
Parents barely have the time to juggle full time jobs and full time parenting even in normal times. I do not even have kids and have felt completely unable to give back to campaigns. My wife and I give 100% of our time and in her case, her body, to directly helping others in our day jobs. Why should we sacrifice the few weekends we have together to go to caucuses or conventions for candidates or to pass platforms those in power routinely ignore?
I’ve been more spiritually and politically active under quarantine than I was before. Virtual churches are awesome and have allowed me to see a variety of worship styles and sermons and really reconnect to my faith. It’s a lot less intense than driving, parking, waking up early, fearing judgment, and worrying that it’ll be too big to be noticed or too small not to stick out.
For politics I work with my union which works with Revere Youth in Action and with the Neighborhood Developers. I’ve done some remote work for Progressive Massachusetts and I vote and donate and I post here. I try to inspire young people to do the same.
My days of volunteering a lot of in person man hours for a candidate or a campaign are done, and I do not feel guilty about that.
I’m going to agree about public officials … I think the good ones, or the canny ones, step out and try to amplify, or co-opt, organic community action. Some really are listening. And if something is popular, they want a piece, one way or the other. That’s just democracy.
The old slogan was, if the people lead, the leaders will follow.
The plug for JC’s guy Joe feels as out of place in this context as his slam at Town Meeting.
The rest of the comment feels schizophrenic. It starts by attacking civil society, and ends by endorsing it.
I shudder at the vision of citizens as mere consumers, anesthetized by social media, who lack the time or energy to engage with their neighbors to solve problems. That’s what Town Meeting is; as much a part of civil society as the churches and unions you rightly celebrate after explaining how people can;t spare the time.
I shouted out both Senate candidates for transitioning to direct relief. Both candidates have volunteered at the Chelsea Collaborative. I think that’s a good thing and something I hope can unite both of their supporters by example.
The Revere Food pantry needs everyone’s help and donations.
My union is also raising money for The Neighborhood Developers to contribute to working families financially affected by the disease. Contributions are welcome from everyone.
That post was a little schizophrenic since these times are. I am not suggesting we eliminate the old ways of doing activism, not in the slightest. I do think if that’s our only yard stick we are falling woefully short of engaging everyone in this process.
Questions anyone in any organization should be asking are ‘does this space truly welcome diversity?’ ‘Are we truly accommodating to everyone regardless of ability, prior knowledge, or disposable income?’ ‘What services or activities can people do remotely?’ ‘How easy is it to onboard and become an active participant?’
My own Speech and Debate team is asking these questions as we elect a new officer board and hope to recruit the next generation of students to the team. As I take on greater responsibilities as the lead coach from being an assistant. We are also wondering how we can better serve the wider Revere community and reach out to even younger children to plant some seeds. I think these are good questions for any organization that hopes to be relevant in the future to ask. Not chiding people for not knowing where to show up or what to do. Not shrugging and saying “well this is always the way we’ve done things”. That’s how organizations die. It’s how democracies become vulnerable to men who say “I alone can fix it”.
Being in a couple of high risk groups, I don’t go out much and haven’t seen ANY campaign literature from either Markey or Kennedy so I am happy to learn that they are directing people to local aid groups, as they should. I do get regular emails from my state reps but am puzzled why I am the person who has to pass on timely and vital information from those emails to social media like Nextdoor, something I have contacted them about, with, so far, no reply.
I also learned (from an ad on Facebook) since I wrote my piece that AARP is actively connecting people with mutual aid groups (https://aarpcommunityconnections.org) but I haven’t seen the samefrom other such organizations or on ANY of the local stations, not that I watch local news all that much so I could be wrong and would, again, be happy to learn that I am wrong .
My point, and I have learned over time that my point often evades people however clear I try to be, is that an obsessive focus on electoral politics to the exclusion of local individual and collective action on practical matters results in a poverty of democracy. Representative democracy, in my observation, has devolved to a point where we, the people have delegated the vast majority of our powers to our representatives and we, the people should act on our own and take that power back.
But then whathehell do I know, some senile loner who doesn’t work well with others?
Good on Sen. Markey for going to Revere. The community appreciates the visibility and the help.