NTodd, who’s been joining CodePink actions lately, tries to jolt me out of my stuck place:
The point is not to win over the unwinnable people, nor is it even to convince the alleged fence-sitters who would’ve come over to our side if only we’d not worn fucking pink spandex and tiaras. The point is to use one or more of the 198 different goddamned methods of resistance, some of which are mere protest and others that escalate to interventions meant to disrupt the status quo and operations of government, economic and financial systems, etc. If you don’t like what Code Pink is doing, fine: do your own thing. Just do it and stop bitching about people who are stepping it up.
And yeah, lots of people have been doing things, but clearly we collectively have not done enough. So I’ve been asking, repetitively, annoyingly–to the point that people call me condescending, self-righteous, boring–what’s something else you can try? Go beyond the usual writing letters every once in a while or “lighting up the switchboard” at the Senate or whatever. Those are still rather passive actions that don’t have much psychological or physical impact on our elected employees or the citizenry at large. Go beyond your comfort zone a little just once, do one new thing, then something else, and another thing, then again, and again and again and again…it will get easier and you’ll find you have more courage and power than you thought before.
Not all of this stuff will work all the time. What ever does? What’s necessary now is we get out of our chairs, out of our homes and into the streets, trying new things instead of reliving college bull sessions, intellectualizing and agonizing about the perfect solution and refusing to engage until we find it.
Leave a Reply