civic diary – Page 6 – Steven Savage

Civic Diary 7/2/2016

July 2, 2016 by Steven Savage

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

Brexit:

Still watching the fallout from the Brexit. It seems to have been a sadly obvious con, and one where opportunistic a-holes manipulated and scared people. It’s a hideous synergy of crap news and awful people who got people to vote for destroying their economy and their country’s reputation. Honestly, even if the UK doesn’t leave the EU (and I’m leaning to it won’t now) this makes people trust the country less.

It’s also a reminder that something may be imperfect, but may be a hell of a lot better than the alternative. Which, politically, is what we should consider “good” to “excellent.”

So my big civic lesson from the Brexit is to keep up more on news. I did anyway, but I sort of went back to my “news rituals” in force as I’d slipped on them. That involves:

Checking my newsfeeds at least once a day in an app.
Reading long-form articles from reliable sources (I use the AP and Quartz) from said feeds.
I added Politifact to my news scan since it’s useful.
Doing my usual Twitter news scan. Remember I have one list just for government, politics, and activism that helps me stay up to date.

You can’t know everything; you can work to stay informed.

Political Engagement:

Now that I’ve got some leads on political orgs fitting my interests, I’m slowly gearing up. That takes time as people are busy, but I’ve got an actual (almost sure not to be cancelled) political meeting coming up and am in contact with other volunteering options.

As noted my interest is voter registration right now, but as also noted I’m asking what my long-term interests are in political engagement. I’m thinking beyond that education and communication. It’s sort of exciting to think I can apply my hobbies and my career experiences to something.

Political engagement doesn’t have to be and shouldn’t be boring. Look for what fits you.

– Steve

Civic Diary 6/25/2016

June 25, 2016 by Steven Savage

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

Another crazy week. 2016 is filled with a lot of unpleasantness. This time the Brexit.

The Brexit is pretty much a great example of how people do not do well in being civicly engaged when you see how many people didn’t get what the Brexit vote was about. With the UK economy hit (and the world economy taking a blow) and people seeing surprised at the same time, it’s a grand example of BS politics, propaganda, and ill-informed voting producing real problems.

Needless to say I’m 1) keeping an eye on the economy, and 2) even more focused on staying civicly engaged. I certainly appreciate my newsfeed more.

Remember my attempts to hook up with a local political party? Well that kept getting changed due to rescheduled meetings – I think some of that was the group wanting to keep some control over attendees since in-person political meetings can at times attract some pronounced personalities. So I basically did two things:

I went to the first meeting I could find without being selective, informed people there of my goal of getting more civicly and politically involved, and got some ideas and flyers. Fortunately my pick was a group who’s interests aligned with my own, so I may have found the right organization through luck.
Dropped by the office of the local political group and got a card for the person running it. I’ll be writing them soon.

So the big lessons here is:

In-person contact seems effective.
Some – probably a lot – of political groups have issues with recruiting. In fact, one I had trouble getting in touch with asks people singing up for contact want to help with recruiting. It reminds me a lot of the issues conventions have had in recruiting.

I’m wondering if a lot of political organizations are bad at recruiter, only recruit among limited populations, etc. It might go a long-way to explaining lack of civic engagement . . . and points to something I may want to do.

So next up is checking out these groups, attending some meetings (that I don’t expect to be cancelled) and seeing how I can get involved. But I’m one step closer.

Here’s a big lesson for civic engagement – keep trying to find the right group or groups for you. At least in my case it was hard.

– Steve

Civic Diary 6/18/2016

June 18, 2016 by Steven Savage

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

Pretty ugly week, so let’s jump into my civic diary here.

The shooting at Pulse is horrible and heartwrenching. It’s also an example of why you have to follow not just issues, but how people react to issues- the assumptions, the erroneous reporting, the political grandstanding from previously LGBT-hostile politicians, etc. Horribly, the blood wasn’t dry before the bullshit started.

At the same time, you have to stand back and see what really happened – a troubled man (I will not call him insane, he clearly was sane enough) that got his hands onto powerful weaponry and committed a massacre. Seeing everything from family homophobia, to access to guns, to how we seem to seriously miss the potential for violence.

Needless to say, I do support gun regulation, and know what I’m calling my representatives on. However I also want more studies of gun violence and other violence, and plan to support that. Violence is a health issue and one we should be studied.

It kind of feels weird to talk about anything after that. But that’s the point.

I have a political meeting next Sunday, which should be interesting – and I hope it’s not cancelled. I don’t suspect it will be. This is where I take a look into getting involved in GOTV efforts, which seems to be a good starter focus for being more civicly engaged.

I’m finishing up that book on political engagement and dialogue, “The Little Book Of Revolution.” It’s still something I’ll have to reread, but it is giving me ideas – and it does remind me that dialogue is important as a big part of the book is engagement and discussion. Note the discussion part – most political “discussion” is yelling at people. The author of this book talks respect and engagement.

So that’s about it for me so far. May next week allow me to share more pithy advice and so forth, and may we have less to mourn.

– Steve