Yes, remember how we stopped the Iraq war? Oh wait....

http://www.thepaincomics.com/weekly050525a.htm

What you're recommending is a way to feel good without achieving anything. Nobody in power gives a shit about protests unless they become overwhelmingly large and people are willing to die en masse.

Also, we are not the world's first experiment in self-governance. that's a bedtime story for people who don't read history books.

Fine. The world's oldest, still functioning experiment in self-governance :)

Maybe if I add more qualifiers to it you'll see past that quibble for the larger point.

> "Host lecturers, host sign making jams, make art, make friends."

As if we needed more performative signaling today...

I don't necessarily share GP's viewpoint but it's incredibly naive to assume that the US government isn't completely controlled by monied interests at this point... More than half of Trump's cabinet donated to Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Furthermore, just being a whimsical, creative person doesn't wrest power from those who control our nation... the 60's and 70's pretty conclusively proved that if you needed evidence. If you want to take power from those who have it (which is the definition of enacting climate change legislation) then you literally have to take power. Given that money was used to move power away from the people, it seems a good place to start in taking it back.

"Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured."[0]

Whimsy is not what I advocated. If that's how it came across perhaps I chose my words imperfectly. I'm trying to figure out secular, modern ways of building community. MLK used the power of religion to build and sustain his movement. And to pretend that it didn't successfully create change is historical revisionism.

0. Letter from Birmingham Jail - Martin Luther King https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....

You'll find Dr. King's approach was a heck of a lot more than "trying to raise awareness", or "building communities".

I do not think it is just an odd coincidence that most people have forgotten the economic, political, and social militancy that came with the Civil Rights movement in favor of a disney-ified[0] version where mere marches, willpower, and belief in a certain set of principles caused widespread change.

[0] http://inthesetimes.com/article/14524/santa_clausifying_mart...

I have not gone to any kind of leadership / political organization training. Just flying by the seat of my pants; running on faith, awareness and just a little bit of rage. If you have any recommendations, please share :)

I'm very much aware that MLK had a larger vision for shared economic prosperity, a vision for "a beloved community," that is very much sanitized by the mainstream narrative. The article you posted doesn't really do service to telling the actual message. I recommend this On Being interview where Vincent Harding [0] gives an overview.

0. http://www.onbeing.org/program/vincent-harding-is-america-po...

Except this time the tension is between nature and human. The activists do not necessarily bring that tension more to the surface than muddling it with societal tensions.

Believing that Get out in the streets and put your body on the line will do anything is questionable. I don't share that belief.

Reality gets sink in, not by watching TV or listening to activists. So for me, try to open my eyes and sort out my logic is the action to make. When enough people understand the reality without internal contradiction, the right action will show up.

So I am acting on my belief, advocating truth and logic here.

"I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured."[0]

We speak and march to create visibility, to bring to light and make tangible the struggles that are hidden and quiet and disconnected. There's only so much typing messages into the infinite electric void can accomplish. Be careful to understand the difference between truth/logic and beliefs you choose to hold to keep you sheltered in your apathy.

0. https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....

The problem with "for the people, by the people" is that most of the people want just the former and not the later. They want to tell some other people how to govern for them and then return to staring at their iphone.