civic diary

Civic Diary 9/14/2017

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

Yes, it’s time for my latest Civic Diary.  So where am I in my efforts to be a better citizen?

More or less holding the course still, but with a few changes:

First  of all if you have trouble bugging/talking to/seeing your representatives, do not forget email.  It’s not as good as the phone call, but it’s something you can timeshift and probably do cut-and-paste.  Also some local reps (like city and county) are much harder to call, so the email may be easier.

Secondly, I’m starting to track my efforts in a google doc.  This way I can check off what I do on my phone – much easier to keep track of, update, and more!  I take my various mailing lists and dump them in there.

Third, definitely keep track of news.  This tells you what others are doing, what you forgot, and maybe in a few cases when you don’t need to call/bug a representative if they do something you’re planning to annoy them on.  The latter helps so you can change a prod to a compliment.

And now some psychology and social callings.

Right now we’re more and more aware all the time of how people seek to divide us – not as if we weren’t aware there was assorted news playing on racial resentment and political divisions.  Remember you’ll always want to be aware of just what’s going on in efforts to divide the country and work to bridge gaps when possible.  You can’t always make peace with people who want to hate you, but you can build your community stronger to survive and prosper.

Secondly, though everything is political to an extent, some parts of our lives and communities are less political than others.  These “not-as-political” things like book clubs, conventions, and so on are important.  Work to cultivate these communities and your friendships to keep them strong and provide stability.  I also find it helps prevent divisions like above.

 

– Steve

Civic Geek: Whew, here we are!

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

Man I haven’t done one of these in awhile!  I’ve scheduled myself to do one a month though.  If you fell off this series, this is where I blog on civic geekery.

Let’s make this more of a catch up.

What am I doing?

  1. I am helping with a country political group.  I’ve been doing this for awhile, running social media.  Most of it is posting links and events, but it does keep people informed – and when elections are around they promise I’ll get busy.  A bit boring, but it keeps me in the midst of events and hard politics.
  2. I print a list weekly of what I want to call my reps on (boy are they gonna get an earful on the California Health Care bill).  Then I kinda do it.  That’s federal, state, AND local.  Bug them all people.
  3. As part of #1 and #2 I also keep on the news, having alerts for all my representatives.
  4. As part of #1 and #2 I follow the news through various forms – Twitter and a newsfeed – as well.
  5. I go to a regular monthly activism meetup that also has regular advice what to do.

I’ve not done as well as I wanted in late May and June, bluntly, as I’ve gotten real busy.  But the regular reminders I set up help and help me stay active.

The only thing I don’t feel is as connected as I’d like.  It’s probably as I’m comparing political involvement to, say, daily work or my professional associations.  So I’m always on the lookout for what more I can do.

A very, very important thing to do here is have that regular weekly plan.  I print it out and check it off every week.

Also don’t knock the power of the various sites that tell you what activism you can do like 5calls.  As you get active you learn ways to be a more engaged citizen.

And now a few findings

  1. When you call representatives, politeness goes a long way.  If they’ve disappointed you, feel free to be civil but with an edge.  I find representatives that are “gone rogue” respond to that.
  2. It really, really helps to meet with people.  I find the less I meet with people the less involved I feel.
  3. You have to keep trying out other groups and organizations to really know what’s going on.
  4. A lot of people do NOT know how government works – probably including you.
  5. I know a lot of people who were in military service, and as I talk to reps I see how many people just keep the country running.  When you see how many people are in the serivce, the government, security, etc. it can kind of make you feel inadequate.

(Oh and if you need some other creative boosts, check out my book on Creative Paths!)

– Steve

Civic Diary 3/8/2017

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

Hello everyone, time for another civic update!

What am I up to?  Well less than I’d like due to some craziness (friends in assorted crises).

Helping with a political group’s social media: Still at that, and that one is getting challenging as noted, since there’s so many ways to take it – and ways to do it wrong.  What are the right news sites?  Right groups to post?  It’s quite a lot to learn and I’ve got a meeting on it coming up.

This taught me to be a lot more careful of information sources and to better understand more subtle political landscapes.  Some activist groups are at odds with each other.  People debate over the value of news aggregators.

A big thing I’m finding is social media has truly changed politics – there’s many ways to interacts and it vastly speeds how things move.  It’s also more multiordinal than expected – spread across many media.  Which is important in this charged political environment and our reliance on certain communications.

Lesson: Admit you have a lot to learn as you get civicly involved, and really learn to dig into the news and groups you follow, there’s probably some things you’re missing.

Getting Involved In New/Informal Groups: A lot have sprung up lately and I’m finding there’s something for everyone.  These seem to act as a kind of social nexus for getting people involved, and I think there’s something to that.  People involved in one of these more informal groups are also involved in other social groups – so this acts as a kind of connecting ground.

A lot of this is people taking a stab and doing it – and it seems to work.

Lesson: I think the new informal groups springing up are going to be really important as people are looking for new ways to get involved.  Also some politicians are really underestimating the organizing going on out there.

Getting Into District Flipping: This has gotten really big lately, and it’s important to find districts to flip, districts to maintain – and who you want to primary as they kinda suck at their jobs.  I think we’re going to see a lot of this in 2018.

Lesson: 2018 will be interesting.

Continuing Economic Activism: Calling companies about who they support, etc.  This one I’ve been intermittent on, but I think it’s important to keep at this.  Not boycotts per se (though I’m fine with those) but letting companies know their actions matter.  Believe me, some people listen.

Lesson: Not sure if there’s a lesson, yet, except this has been kinda ramped up to 11.

Regular Representative Contacts: Calling my reps all the time on issues.  They do listen, believe me (and one office has people who know me).  This also means follow your reps on issues – because you may be surprised.  Without naming names, one of my congresspeople had disappointed me – then pulled off an amazing town hall where it seems I’d sort of misunderstood their strategy.

What I do as noted is set up a Google alert to see who to call my state or federal reps on.  If you’re not sure what to annoy them on, let me recommend https://5calls.org/ – plus I find the more informal groups often have great advice.

Lesson: Keep doing this.  Daily.

I admit I’ve not done as much as I’d like.  I’ve got a civic guide I’ve worked on I need to return to, I’ve not been able to make my city council meetings that I wanted, I want to do more with CivicGeek.com.  But if you stay active you’ll do something.

One thing I find myself thinking over is that those everyday things we do to keep society running matter a lot.  Help a friend out with their needs.  Give someone a ride.  That stuff is more valuable than we realize.  I’ve had friends go through some awful crises and the fact people helped them, even a bit, made a difference.

– Steve