Start Small II

One of the fundamental problems with activism – and protests and riots – is that effecting real change, positive change, takes time and effort.  The would-be activist needs to convince a majority of the population that the changes they propose, and want, will be either beneficial or neutral to them.  This requires a degree of hard work, ranging from organising an activist organisation that is capable of working towards change without being corrupted by violent hardliners or subverted by the establishment to actually listening to the people the activist needs on their side.  This can be immensely frustrating work and the urge to take shortcuts is overwhelmingly powerful, but it cannot be avoided.  Reformers who fail to do the ground work rarely accomplish anything positive.  The results are almost always negative.

I’m writing from the other side of a giant ocean, so I may be completely wrong about this, but I don’t believe the protests and riots currently sweeping over America will achieve anything positive, either for the protestors themselves or anyone else.  This is because of three factors:

First, the riots will do a great deal of damage to areas that were already badly hit by the virus and lockdown.  Destroyed businesses may not be reopened.  Those that do will face higher insurance costs, forcing them to raise prices, cut wages and slash their workforces; investment will be cut back to the bone because the district will look like a poor risk.  Unemployment will rise sharply, putting ever-greater strains on the social network; anyone with any money or sense will head for the nearest exit as quickly as possible.  In short, things will get a great deal worse for the inhabitants.

Second, the riots will confirm every negative stereotype about people who live in such districts.  Sympathy from outsiders will vanish.  People who try to leave the area will find themselves very unwelcome, as they’ll be seen – unfairly – as having very bad habits.  There will be strong opposition to federal funding for relief programs, etc, etc.

Third, the political establishment has no incentive to change.   Why should it?

Now, obviously, I don’t live in those areas, but if I did – and I wanted things to change – I’d start looking at ways to do it.  The trick, it seems to me, is to bring pressure to bear on the political establishment, the sort of pressure – the risk of being voted out of office – that politicians take very seriously.  A lone voter is statistically insignificant.  A voters movement that has a clear idea of what it wants – and is ready to vote for candidates or even nominate its own politicians – is a serious player. 

The key to running a campaign is to bear in mind that you can group people into three categories.  You have people who will support you as long as you work to give them what they want (Supporters).  You have people who will be largely indifferent to you, as long as you don’t interfere with them (Neutrals).  And you have people who will oppose you because they feel you’re either wrong or likely to interfere with them (Opponents).  DO NOT fall into the trap of dismissing your Opponents as bigots (or whatever).  This will both impinge upon your ability to reach out to them and make you look bad to the Neutrals. 

I’d actually start by recommending you read Take Back Your Government, by Heinlein.  It’s somewhat outdated now – tech and politics have moved on – but it’s still a pretty good primer for the aspiring politician.  However, if you haven’t read it or don’t have time to read it, here’s a rough outline of what you can do.

First, know what the rules of the game are before you start to play.  Sit down and do some basic research.  Who runs your state?  Who runs your county?  Who runs your city?  Who’s in charge?  How do they get elected?  You can find most of these details online, if you look; put together a rough outline of how power ebbs and flows around the state.  Find out the local political offices, see who works there and what they do.  If you’re not registered to vote, get registered; encourage others to register.

Second, work out what you actually want.  Make a list of things your community wants and needs.   Speak to your neighbours, ask them what they want; don’t – don’t – belittle them if they don’t want what you want.  Listen to them!  Half of good politics is listening to what people want.  Learn to compromise, learn to work towards something you can live with instead of trying to take the whole pie. 

Once you have your list, start working out how you want them done.  Stick to plain English.  Ill-defined buzzwords weaken your case (at best, they’ll be vague; at worst, they’ll turn people against you.)  Again, listen to people.  If there are reasons things cannot be done, take them seriously and work out how to compensate for them.  And stay local.  You do not want to start taking on impossible challenges (like fixing the entire world). Keep outside politics – particularly international politics – out.

Third, start organising a group of voters.  Register voters to vote (if you haven’t already).  Put together a list of voters who’re pledged to vote for your list.   You want solid numbers.  If you experience pushback, if you discover there are items on your list the majority doesn’t like, modify or drop them.

Fourth, you can start visiting local politicians.  Give them the list.  Inform them that they can either push for the measures you demand or your voters will vote against them.  (When?  Find out.)  Make it clear you expect effective movement quickly or else. If they drag their feet – remember, a lot of national-politicians don’t like grassroots movements, right or left – remind them you’ll be booting them out in the next election.  That should get them moving.  If it doesn’t, vote them out.

You’ll probably start drawing national attention at this point.  Expect attempts to subvert or co-opt your movement, to make you care about greater issues or pressure you into falling in line.  Stay small.  Greater issues aren’t unimportant, but you’re working for your community.  Make it clear you won’t be dislodged, even when you start getting some very negative media attention.  Put together more lists, work out simple ways to fix problems – and, if your ideas fail, learn from your failures.  It’s hard.  But it can be done.

The point is that you have to master two separate skills to get anywhere.  First, you have to learn to work the system before you try to reform it. You have to understand why things are the way they are, before they can be changed.  Second, you have to learn the fine art of compromise, of balancing dreams with practical reality.  You have to reach out to people, to convince them that supporting you will help them – or, at the very least, won’t hurt them.

There’s little hope of fixing things on a national, let alone a global scale.  Trying to do too much too quickly is asking for failure and/or irrelevance.  Losing your focus on local problems means you’ll probably do more damage than harm.  Tacking ill-defined problems makes it impossible to set any kind of victory conditions – how will you even know if you’ve won?  That’s the sort of problem that leads to a movement failing or being co-opted by people who don’t care about anything, but power … people who cannot be removed easily because it’s hard to gauge their performance. 

But on a small scale?  Things can change.  And change can spread.  And the more things get better, the better they will get.  Seriously – you tackle the root causes of a problem, the problem will go away. 

I know it’s not easy.  But it has to be done.

I’ll let Mike Williamson have the last word:

“Not every problem has to be solved right this moment, nor even within a given book or series, or in forty-two minutes plus commercials on the idiot box. Some issues are too large for an individual, and it really isn’t kind to whip up that kind of hope in a fragile youth, only to toss them into the depths or jadedness or despair too soon, when they realize it’s just not that easy in the real world. The first thing any juvenile has to do is grow up. That of itself is a massive undertaking in any society. One can’t conquer the world until one has conquered oneself. Nuclear wars and oil crises and ice ages and global warming and pollution and overfishing and creeping socialism and growing oligarchic capitalism and fluoridated water can wait. First, just become the type of person you should be. That’s what the world needs most of all.

That message is timeless. It’s also important. And most of all, it’s a message that young people of every age really want, and need, to hear.”