For Activists — Normal Person Actions You Can Radicalize
Here’s my proposal:
There are things we do, every day, week, month, year, hour, and few minutes, that we are going to continue doing forever and for always.
The cast of characters and actual things themselves will change over time, as we move and switch careers and make friends, but we will do things, repeatedly, forever.
These things include:
Doing things — Eating, drinking, sleeping, walking/riding/rolling/moving, going to parks, visiting our favorite places, starting projects, sometimes finishing projects, and other things that constitute this beautiful mystery of living
Consuming things — Reading books, social media, clicking links, what newspapers/websites/blogs we visit online or read, going to see movies, watching Netflix, scrolling through network tv, binge-watching Game of Thrones or Chopped, watching YouTube videos, listening to music
Spending Money$$ — Utilities, housing, groceries, education, transportation, taxes, fees. Buying gifts for ourselves or our people. Going on dates or trips with friends. Traveling, whether to go home or to satiate wanderlust. Some goods & services we buy for emotional reasons — to feel better, to be bold, to be a part of a community, to fill an ache. Some goods & services are politically charged — reproductive care, body art or piercings, feminist media, books by black authors, music from Tidal, boycotting Chik-Fil-A or Papa John’s or Planned Parenthood or Hamilton the Musical. But unfortunately, capitalism is the lay of the land, so much of our repetitive things have to do with money. Our decisions revolve mostly around the money we have, don’t have, will earn, and are stressed about coming up with.
Communicating — Emails, Texts, Phone calls, Conversations, brief hellos as you walk by someone, short but friendly chats with checkout staff and bus drivers and strangers
So my question is — how do we use these actions to resist?
How do we make our everyday lives sites of resistance?
Knowing that they will continue to happen forever, potentially on mass scales if we can organize well, how can we make it easy to do these things we’d do every day anyway bUT with greater intent for the Common Good?? How will we harness the power of these actions? How will we -forgive the dirty language- capitalize on these actions?
There is great potential here. The organizing is unprecedented. The people showing up in the streets and at local government meetings and town halls and people writing and calling their representatives is unprecedented. We’ve never seen anything like this.
So how do we use this energy?
I’m gonna think about it for a couple days, then I’ll write another post in response to this one.
In the meantime, feel free to leave your responses in the comments, I look forward to the conversation.
In peace and in power — Hannah
Looking to do your part? One way to get involved is to read the Indivisible Guide, which is written by former congressional staffers and is loaded with best practices for making Congress listen. Or follow this publication, connect with us on Twitter, join us on Facebook, or check out our shop on Threadless.
