Fellow citizens,
I’d like to have a word with those feeling pessimistic. I have a two part system for you to use to find success in the coming years.
1. Pick an issue and stick with it.
Don’t get overwhelmed. If you are feeling pessimistic about the next 4-8 years, there are probably a combination of issues and factors making you feel that way.
You can’t solve them all. You’ll burn out trying.
Instead, pick the issue you care most about, and become a warrior for your cause. Do anything and everything possible to accomplish your goal , whatever it may be: higher wages, better health care, better food, climate change, education, and so on.
Pace yourself. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Find like minded people. Share what you learn with others. Support organizations doing the work you want to see done. Plan to go the DC, call representatives, and so on.
2. Support others doing the same.
Other people will be working on the other issues that matter to you. Support them any way you can.
You can sign their petitions, attend their rallies, go to their protests, or donate to their causes.
Their success is your success and vice-versa. Celebrate their victories with them, and share your outrage over injustice thrown in their path.
…
If everyone takes on something they care about, and supports others doing the same, we’ll see successes.
A few other thoughts:
– Hey hippies, remember when you wanted to make the world a better place in the 1960’s, but the old folks were conservative and blocked you? Don’t be those old folks! Young people are fighting the good fight today and you can support their efforts.
Politicians listen to old people. Young people have ideas but don’t get listened to. Work together this time and the numbers will be there.
– Bad things will come along. That’s when the art of sabotage comes into play, and some of you may be best suited for this work.
Simple sabotage can be accomplished in many ways. The goal is simple – make it as difficult for the other team as possible.
In government, one common form of sabotage is delay. Ask for a study to be done. Ask for a panel, with large membership, to do a review. Slow down work. Do work incorrectly. Misunderstand. Get hung up on a detail.
…
There is an episode of Cheers in which Sam, the owner of the bar, is doing battle with the owner of the upstairs restaurant. Mr. Hill. Hill claims ownership of Sam’s backroom and walls it off.
Sam sees this and goes ballistic. “He is sooo…. EVIL,” and exhausted Sam says after trying to knock down the wall. “I can’t fight the evil.”
But you can… : )
Young people are fighting the good fight today?
Since all people are a mix of pessimism/optimism, positivism/negativism it reminds me that I have never met a negative or pessimistic person. Each of us experiences a mix that gets weighted one way or the other, depending circumstances, beliefs, philosophies, as they change.
There aren’t any hippies anymore, and as I was from that era, I wonder if we were really all that different. The single biggest unifier wasn’t social causes like civil rights or earth days, it was a genuine fear of dying in Vietnam. The draft and then the induction lottery instilled a dread in young that is not present today. Not even climate change has instilled that dread.
Trump and the three branches of republicans is the first time “imminent” dread has surfaced in a long time. But nothing comes close to the era of 500 soldiers coming home in a box each “week.” Hypothetically speaking, start killing your young people at 500 weekly and you’ll see some real action.
Bernie’s “splendid little” youth revolution began with high hopes and motives, but it fizzled out and we can’t wait another four years for another to come along. Charismatics are usually short-lived.
I don’t know if we can fight the evil, as nebulous as that is, but back in the Sixties and Seventies were fighting for our lives.
So if you feel that “Young people are fighting the good fight today” I personally, as an activist/protester since the age of eighteen, would like to see some examples beyond the flash in the pan Bern.
Some examples
I see youth everywhere, participating in a wide range of campaigns:
Black Lives Matter and campaigns for social justice
Fight For 15 and campaigns for living wages
Transgender issues
Migrant Labor campaigns
The Give One Project
Slutwalk and feminism issues
Energy, sustainability and food issues
350.org and climate issues
etc.
It’s not too hard to search and find lots of lists of young activists worth supporting.
Young people are afraid of dying, too. Not so much in a war but in an unsustainable world destroying the environment.
I guess my point is to search out those doing similar things and support them. What if 18 year olds had the support of the older generation when they wanted to not die in Vietnam? There is strength in numbers (I always say when joining a group of pedestrians boldly walking across traffic). : )
“..boldly walking across traffic”
Thank you for searching the list of youth activities. I think it helps to make your point.
I’d like to add, though, that there is still lacking a “single issue” unifier. Your list of youth activists, however, is as divisive as they are together. I am sorry to say, no one group captures the imagination and determination of all young folks coming together.
Is unity essential?
Gotcha, and my question is: do we all need to agree on any one big issue or platform of issues to be able go work together on the issues that we do agree on? I don’t think so, meself. We could work on some things with some people and/or groups and other people on others,
Do I feel like fighting the evil?
There are days when I can fight the evil, and days when I can’t. I tend to be a pessimist at heart, but because I find life to be too depressing without at least pretending, to myself, that good people can make a difference, I tend to speechify more on the optimistic side. Besides, back during the Bush years, when I wore my pessimism on my sleeve, people said I was too negative, so I stopped.
But yeah, on fighting the evil, I agree with Vidda that this term ‘evil,’ while funny to say, is too nebulous. Do we mean fight a person, for which the likely choice would be Donald Trump, or do we mean fight against his agenda, i.e., policy decisions. In this case, I prefer the latter although I practiced both under Bush. But what about fighting for something, like any of the dozens of policies that have been suggested by Bernie Sanders and others. This is my favorite option, and I hope it happens that we will make positive efforts toward goals rather than just defensive efforts against various things. Although in the end, both will probably be necessary.
One thing that’s kind of breathtaking about the new political era (with Trump in the fore) is how fast everything seems to be happening. It’s hard to keep up. Maybe right now would be a good time to observe and reflect rather than actively do a whole lot. Hard to be strategic when you don’t know what’s going on.
“breathtaking… how fast everything seems to be happening”
Lise has identified a core problem. Too much going on, too hard to keep up. A period of observing and reflecting before strategizing is a good idea.