Civic Diary – Page 11 – Steven Savage

Civic Diary 5/20/2016

May 20, 2016 by Steven Savage

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

Hello everyone, welcome to my weekly look at my attempts to be more civicly engaged.

And . . . not a lot has happened.

One job ended last week, a new job began this week, and I’ve got some vacation coming up. I’ve had a lot on my mind obviously.

Which is probably a good lesson in this entire quest to be more civicly engaged – it’s not a simple, linear process. You will get interrupted. You will need to take a break. You will have Other Stuff To Do.

I confess to some pangs of guilt as I’m busy working on this, and it’s opened up a whole new world to me – but also I realize that’s the way it is. The desire to do this is real, and it won’t go away just because I’m spending a week getting a new job. Or anything else.

I think that’s one of the most important things of being civcly engaged is that it has to come from a “real” place. A desire for change. A desire to connect. A desire to find out what you should and can do. But you can’t fake it or do it out of guilt, it’ll be false and exhausting.

A lot of really civicly active people I see are passionate. They’re for real. This is part of what they live and breathe – and when you try to do this as well that’s what you’re evolving towards.

However I do have a few findings.

Still planning to attend a local political meeting in June to understand how I can get involved in GOTV. That’s gonna be a big step for me.
I like the place I live, and I figure next year I’ll give a look at being on a city board. I’m being realistic here as I have a lot on my plate – three books and then some. I also want to learn more about it, but the idea calls to me.
By following the news more I’m realizing how much does not get said. Did you realize the guy’s behind Ben and Jerry’s have been involved in protests supporting better voting rights? They’re part of Democracy Awakening. That they got a arrested at a protest? That they’re releasing an ice cream in celebration of it? Exactly, you didn’t hear about it. The news is not always what you think.
I’ve become far more aware of how ideas, often insane ones, spread throughout political consciousness. If you told me a few months ago people would be freaking out about transsexuals in bathrooms, I’d figure it’d be confined to some religious group or a single state.
That guide to activism I’m reading, The Little Book of Revolution, is very helpful, and I thoroughly recommend it – even as I’m still finishing it. I’m going to have to reread it a second time to develop more of a plan, but it’s fantastic.
By now my reviews of political news and activism ideas is pretty regular. That always keeps “tweaking” me to move forward – it’s building structure on top of the passion.
As people continue to rail against the political establishment – mostly Trump supporters but also some Sanders supporters – it’s clear a lot of people don’t get that an establishment gets things done. Organization is how things happen, and if you don’t like the establishment your choices are to influence, take over, or replace.
As much as I support protest, that’s only part of it. Protest can inspire, it can disrupt, it can influence, it can get people to organize. But it seems people value protest for protest’s sake (mostly angry screaming) and that’s even counterproductive.

I suspect I’m not going to be having a lot of deep civil insights the next week or two. But I’m going to keep posting these.

I think I like this as I’m doing this publicly to hold myself accountable. If I screw up, I screw up in front of the world (well, on a blog and anywhere from 30-150 readers). It’s nicely sobering.

Besides, the choices I make do affect the world.

– Steve

Civic Diary 5/13/2016

May 13, 2016 by Steven Savage

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

And welcome to my weekly examination of how I’m doing in being a better citizen.

For those of you just joining, I was inspired by Anil Dash to find a way to be more regularly civicly engaged. This is the result – a weekly diary to keep myself accountable and inspire people.

My big focus initially had been A) Following my assorted representatives, B) Following and joining relevant organizations, and C) Making efforts to at least write my representatives on issues, and of course D) Voting. That was a start.

I’ve been thinking over how there’s two kinds of civic engagement – Strong (highly organized, vertical organizations like political parties, PACs, and political orgs), and Weak (more local, distributed, casual efforts that, like the power of weak links in networking, having profound effects by accumulation). I did a lot more Weak work but not enough Strong work.

The simple fact of the matter is if you want to be civicly engaged, really make a difference, you have to get involved in some of the organizations out there. So now I’m wrestling with what’s appropriate for me. I’m waiting until June or so before I really try to answer this – but i’m leaning towards voter registration drives.

Now my latest findings:

First people are awful at talking about politics, and our media doesn’t help – we argue, we snipe, but we don’t engage. I’d heard about The Little Book of Revolution by David Akadjian and Maiez Mehdi, a guide to talking to people about politics. I’m reading it now and it’s really thought provoking – I’ll share more later. Short form is it’s got great advice on engaging people and getting them involved – and it’s very goal-oriented.
I’ve started following my local political party (Democrats, natch) and plan to attend a local meeting to get a feel for getting involved politically. Again just following a group on Twitter reveals a wealth of information. My default interest, as you may guess, is GOTV.
Your local political parties provide a ton of ways to get involved. Ever sat on a board? Raised funds? There’s a lot you can do – though how local (or national) you want to get may affect your options.
My local Democratic club had contact info for both Clinton and Sanders supporters, which was pretty cool.
I’m seeing the importance of “Weak Links” as well. Just running events for a club really makes a difference for people. Organizing people matters perhaps as much as anything else.

So that’s it for now. Any insights on your end?

Started your civic diary yet?

– Steve

Civic Diary 5/6/2016

May 6, 2016 by Steven Savage

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

So what a week, huh? Donald Trump is almost inevitably the Republican Nominee, and . . . well, Jesus, that’s about all we can focus on right now. Well that and we won’t have Ted Cruz Zodiac Killer jokes until 2020.

As of last week I’d realized I A) Wanted to become more engaged in organized politics or organizations with goals, and B) I didn’t understand as much as I thought. Where am I now?

First, despite that urge to “go out and get involved with some organization” I am holding off. Why? Changing jobs, busy as all get out, and I tend to overcommit. I’m actually going to take time to think this over, though right now “Voter Registration” sounds good.
I confess I’ve wondered if my future career should take me into the arena of political organizations as an IT manager. THAT is what I mean by overcommitting – my skillset tends to mean my commitments are mild or “all in.”
I’m going to look more into what to do in June. Setting a time to strategically ask what more I can do helps.
I’ve come to realized that our civic engagement has two parts to it – strong links and weak links Strong links are where we do specific things in specific organizations for specific goal – helping out a political party or group, etc. Weak links are the weak links of networking – things we don’t do intensely or all the time or in one way, but that have a lot of effects – like helping people look for work or promoting a club. Weak links are weak but numerous, tiny threads of spider silk that hold us together as a civilization.
Civic engagement is really a mix of Strong And Weak Links. If you focus only on the Strong you’re narrowed (and perhaps almost cultishly involved or part of the System in the bad way). If you focus only on the Weak you miss chances to do big things.
Strong And Weak involvements play into each other, and neither is better than the other. Both are needed. I could probably go into this deeper.
I am pretty good at Weak links. I do networking instinctively. I actually think everyone should do that – look for opportunities to connect people to each other.
Keeping myself mindful of civic engagement helps me follow news better – and I thought I was a news junkie beforehand. Being more concious of it just helps me be more aware.
I still debate how much blogging and social media helps. I did chime in on issues of sexism in tech on my blog and promoted some good causes on Twitter that got some attention. I just don’t know if this can do more, or if I should do something else when I do it. I guess part of it is finding what it can do and do it, if that makes sense.
My current big focus of awareness, besides Trump, is how fast the Trans-people-stalking-bathrooms idiocy has spread. In very short time I got to see it go from dumb bills to weirdos trying to protect our bathrooms from innocent trans people in person. Paying attention to news helps you see how fast this dumb-but-evil crap spreads – and let’s face it, this is just a-holes finding a new population to to target to keep the hate motivating their followers.
I like the idea of Civic engagement being constant, regular, predictable. To be part of my life.
I think a big part of Civic engagement is how its part of your identity. Probably going to write more on that.

– Steve