We can not be Ostriches...

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Amskeptic
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Re: We can not be Ostriches...

Post by Amskeptic » Fri Dec 23, 2016 3:53 pm

TrollFromDownBelow wrote:How do we go 'out in the field' so to speak, and really make the effort count?
I was on the Washington Mall in April of 1971, IIRC, protesting the Vietnam War. My mom invited me. I got tear-gassed as did all of us. "This is so cool," I thought. I am still bitter than Amy's mom did not let her go with us.

I was "arrested" at the Seabrook Nuclear Plant protest in May of 1977. My sister invited me to go. They wouldn't arrest me because I was gainfully in school and there was talk of not being able to graduate, but I liked to tell people I was arrested. My sister got on the FBI's List Of Very Annoying Citizens.

Nowadays, all you have to do is join Change.org and MoveOn, visit the Daily Kos, sign a few petitions, and your name and email start propagating through the internet mailing lists. After not much time, you are going to get targeted solicitations to host activist parties at your house. You will get messages that inform you of protests in your area. You can easily seed and sow the level of interaction you want to try. Best of all, you can meet thousands of people far more polite than me who can hold their act together when someone blames Obama for being arrogant (!) for the temerity to nominate a Supreme Court Justice of such well-considered qualification. SEE? There I go again, but anyhow.
Colin
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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JLT
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Re: We can not be Ostriches...

Post by JLT » Fri Dec 23, 2016 6:07 pm

TrollFromDownBelow wrote: Tell us a good story of political, or community involvement that made a difference.... my wish/hope is that it will inspire folks like myself, give us ideas, of how we too can make a difference.
Well, you asked.

With me, it started in college in the late 1960s. I helped run a coffeehouse and did some draft counseling for people who wanted to avoid serving in the military during the Viet Nam war. I also tutored an inner city kid.

In June of 1969, I and a number of other people were arrested for demonstrating on the steps of the US Capitol. The charge was trespassing. It was a peaceful demonstration, during which we read the names of those who had died in Nam. Did it make a difference? I don't know. The tourists were hostile at first, but quieted down, and some actually stopped to listen and maybe reflect. It might have made a difference to the cop who arrested me; he had tears in his eyes. The demonstration was organized by AQAG (A Quaker Action Group), who later got the charges dismissed on free speech grounds.

That fall, I was at the scene of the Moratorium demonstration, again in Washington. That's a long story that I won't repeat here, but I told it an an article I pasted on my blog:

http://jayeltee.blogspot.com/2014/04/th ... eamed.html

Yup. Quakers again. If you want to make an effective protest, you could do worse than throw in with these people.

About a year later, I participated in supporting the Farmworkers strike by handing out leaflets in front of the liquor stores in the town where I lived. The leaflets listed which winemakers were opposing the farmworkers, and which were supporting them, so people could boycott the anti-farmworkers if they chose. Did that make a difference? Again, I don't know, but at least it gave other people the chance to make an informed choice, and that's something, I guess.

Then my life got very, very itinerant and I didn't do much in the way of rabble-rousing after that, except for showing up at a demonstration here and there. And voting. I never missed a vote, except for once when I moved to a new state but didn't have time to register before election day.

I'm also a member of the ACLU, and support other action groups with my dollars. But I don't know if that really counts, either.
-- JLT
Sacramento CA

Present bus: '71 Dormobile Westie "George"
(sometimes towing a '65 Allstate single-wheel trailer)
Former buses: '61 17-window Deluxe "Pink Bus"
'70 Frankenwestie "Blunder Bus"
'71 Frankenwestie "Thunder Bus"

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