Way Past Policy

There is doing something and there is doing nothing. The thought of doing something, anything can be daunting. The thought of doing something when you are in the midst of nonstop ideological assault is much more difficult to process. During covid a lot of people became politically active, many for the first times in their lives. Quite a few more became commenters; people who sit on the sidelines content to give opinion and comment through social media or otherwise, risking nothing. I’m not going to attack these people but it does seem that during the last few years many people have began to moralize political action in a way that makes me uneasy. Rather than focusing on direct or social action, they concentrate on the right kind of consumption. Using the right social media, watching the correct movies or the right streamer, reading the correct books. This kind of orthopraxy will kill us. The functions of democracy are in building a government that provides services. The roots of democracy are planted in community action. Even if you don’t believe this, think about the ostensibly democratic institutions we have. Think of public schools, protected land set aside for recreational use (problematic I know but just roll with me), institutions of art, community building, the ability to travel freely. These are all things we can take for granted. Democratic freedom means the power to change circumstances and this is a thing we’ve done time and time again to better the places we live.

There are real consequences for people participating in politics both positive and negative. We are firmly in the era of politics as identity as much as politics as a set of coherent thoughts we use to dictate how society is built and functions. In recent years we’ve seen innumerable attacks on civil liberties, marginalized identities, and institutions we once thought were impermeable. The guardrails are eroding. They are screaming at us to begin good guardianship of their status. You can cite the example of the traditional housewife who fears her husband may leave her for deviating from his political ideology. Transgender people, who for decades have been marginalized to the very far edges of society are now facing outright legal erasure from public life. For them, self exposure can lead to sanctions that other people would never experience. The punishment for being different now is specific and tailored to the desired level of cruelty. As we witness at the time of this writing a genocide in a far away country, we see the youth of this nation demanding a free Palestine or for maybe we don’t drop bombs on children and hospitals. Those youth are thrown in jails, silenced. Their schools sued by the federal government. The conversation around something that used to be a democratic ideal, the freedom and liberation of all people, becomes incredibly murky and difficult to wade through.

This is what it is like to live in a time of faux-tyrants. Men who desire power and utilize that power to obtain more power. In order to obtain it they turn the institutions that oppose them inward on themselves while keeping them intact. Because, if they completely destroyed those institutions where would their power go?

Democracy functions because of civic participation. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it until you believe me: the greatest fear a powerful man has is two people disagreeing with him. Civic participation is disagreement. If you dislike the current conditions or direction we are going in there are things you can do but the problem is the people with all this knowledge either expect you to know what to do already and therefore become condescending, or, they are poor teachers. We firmly must believe that when people are confronted with an issue that affects either their friends or neighbors that they want to do something they just don’t know what to do.

Donate to Political and Social Groups.

Politicians ask for money because it’s their job. They need the money to do campaigns and they need to do campaigns to get elected. If they want to keep their job they need money to run for more campaign and on and on. Getting those texts about how much democracy needs us every day is annoying and actually far less likely to get an actual donation.

I’m not talking about donating to individual politicians here even though that’s a fine thing to do. Hell, the Supreme Court has historically protected the right for money in politics to equate to speech. What I’m talking about are political groups as in groups of people who organize to effect political activities which may or may not include running for office. Generally, if there is something social going on in your neighborhood some political NGO will have a hand in it. Mutual Aid after a disaster? probably organized by your local chapter of progressive or socialist whatevers.

Many people conflate political action with “being political”, a snarl phrase that translates to annoying. Unfortunately, more things than we like are actually political actions that we perform on a conscious or unconscious level. Joining a political advocacy group is doing politics. Donating to one is a political action. However, membership in a political group is not “doing politics”. Your local neighborhood council probably wants to do a feasibility survey for the creation of a public garden on your block. A group of teachers probably organizes book drives two times a year. A friend of yours probably organizes clothing drives to promote a circular low cost economy. You can give and support to all of these without being deemed a “political” person.

Cleaning up a beach after an oil spill? Probably a climate activism group or ocean/coastline protection group. After school programs? Your local neighborhood council most likely manages it on behalf of the school district. If there is some kind of service being offered to the public, usually for free, some kind of public service organization is doing it. And they need money. They need it so they can fund their efforts, pay staff, coordinate volunteers. A majority of public assistance work in the United States is done by religiously affiliated organizations but the secular world has plenty of organizations doing great work and willing to accept donations.

Organize in Useful Ways.

You do not need to be a community organizer or some other kind of community leader in order to organize. You simply need friends and access to like-minded people. Organization is a matter of directly impacting a socially oriented goal. A helpful way to think of it is performing actions that directly counter a social ailment. I think when people think organization they think of the most common (as in attractive to the media) forms of organizing. They think of marching, protests, unionizing their workplace. They do not think of the food drives, the clothing drives, the beach cleanups. Those activities have small footprints but they are direct involvement in a community. Believe me, they have a positive political effect. As an example, participating in a food drive for your local public food bank contributes to mitigating the effects of one of America’s most devastating social ills: poverty.

You are probably wrong about how many people you believe are food insecure in your county. In mine, the number of people who do not get enough food is estimated by the California Food Bank to be around 31%. Among the highest in California. Taking a few cans of beans to a food bank will not solve this problem but it does counter a conservative-led campaign of constructed poverty. How easy would it be to ask your book club or that run club you hang out with to bring canned or dry goods at your next meet?

Support socially led institutions.

At the time of this writing marginalized communities are under legitimate political attack. In addition to real living people being attacked for their gender identity, sexual orientation, skin color, or immigration status we also are experiencing a long term complex raid on institutional social knowledge. Book bans, museum closures, and the careful stripping away of programs meant to encourage or establish diversity, equity, inclusion, or whatever else. There is also an inexplicable attack on the concept of public schools so as to replace them with private indoctrination for profit charter schools.

We must do everything in our power to ensure that the institutions we built to house our identities and our knowledge are not removed due to some perceived threat.

Create Spaces.

Somewhere along the later quarter of the 20th century, the concept of third spaces emerged. Ray Oldenburg states that a third space is a space that anchors community and facilitates social interaction; a place that is not home or work. For remainder of the history between then and now third spaces have been systematically getting eliminated from daily life. Cities are investing less in public parks and youth sports. The likelihood of an evening out costing hundreds of dollars because free options are no longer widespread is increasingly likely. There is some hope on the horizon though, Los Angeles is performing its first city park needs assessment since 2009 after years of public groups begging them to do so (spurred by neighborhood councils).

Third spaces can’t exist in a society that is increasingly becoming individualistic. But, we must remember that individualism is a learned behavior. If you think of every public activity you might come across some that are tied to economic activity and are therefore disappearing. Malls have been dying around the country for decades as trends in consumerism have changed. Movie theatres are under constant threat. Sports are increasingly marginalized from youth participation. Museums and cultural institutions are threatened.

By creating spaces you create opportunities for community engagement. Start a club. organize an event at a cultural space. Lead discussions in a public place. Teach a class somewhere.

This is obviously not an all inclusive list of engagement actions that a person can partake in, just the ones I believe to be the most prescient. Too much focus on National level politics tends to decrease our ability to engage with what we have on our block were we live. I’d like to believe that if our parents had done a little bit more engagement however many years ago, we would not have to do as much but that’s not true. We have to work constantly because there is no endpoint. Nor will there ever be a best time to start any of these things.

Better get to work.