Participation is never useless. If you’re looking at this through the lens of “will this fix everything,” well of course it won’t. That’s because small efforts by themselves are not impactful.
But lots of small efforts, cumulative, over time, can be, and you have to start somewhere. Everyone who resists does so by taking on some amount of personal risk. Yes, this boycott is a very small personal risk. That’s fine. It will get people involved who were previously not involved. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
We need those people. We need their support, in whatever ways they are able to offer it. If your message is “don’t bother, it won’t work,” you are telling people not to be involved. If your aims are, for example, “armed revolution,” and you’re only considering the people who have the weapons and use them, you are completely ignoring all other aspects of conflict. In war, the people who pull the triggers are a minority of the opposing forces.
You have to produce equipment, food, clothing, shelter. You have to deliver those things where they are needed. You have to know where those things are needed. You need to plan and organize and communicate. You need to provide medical services.
And you have to do all those things not only for the “front line troops,” but for everyone.
Today’s boycotter can become tomorrow’s marcher, next week’s smuggler, next month’s partisan. Or medic. Or kitchen. Or driver.
The same people who complain about this will come back tomorrow and say “someone needs to do something about XYZ”. They never planned to do anything, they just like complaining.
I’m not trying to “Pooh pooh” anything, but I do wonder if the old way of doing things is really effective in today’s political arena?
Politicians these days only seem to care about re-election and since people now vote party over individual, I’m having a hard time seeing the effectiveness of such demonstrations. Other then letting like minded people know that other like minded people exist. Something that I think social media has been doing for a long time. But I don’t think politicians really fear this kind of thing anymore. I think they know that people are entrenched in their parties and once it comes down to filling out the ballot, they wont care who the person is as much as they do that they are voting for “their side”.
But maybe I’m wrong, which is why I’m participating today regardless of my ignorance.
And I’m not saying “don’t bother”. Try everything you can. I’m just saying that maybe it’s time we figure out new ways to do things?
Ideas come from people. The larger the pool of people who are engaged, the greater the likelihood that a “new way” will be invented. And that new way will need support in all kinds of ways from all kinds of directions, by all kinds of people. At some point, it’s a numbers game.
As long as we’re all pulling in generally the same direction, that’s a good thing. I don’t 100% agree with everyone who’s pulling generally in the direction away from fascism, and I know that some of those same people have various disagreements with me. That’s okay.
We don’t have to be in perfect lockstep to be pulling on the same rope.
oh man I have this in a lot of comments but businesses keep track of metrics down to the second. If it works there would be a severe drop in the graph today for businesses. Think in terms of how people react to the stock market diving three thousand points in one day. There is also a knock on effect in that lean pretty much won over six sigma for most bussinesses and they are highly reliant on historical metrics to do their ordering and supplying their spots from the supply chain. The leaner and more efficient the operation the larger the effect of an unusual drop in activity for a day. That is secondary again. Mostly its about making the graphs drop for the daily, weekly, monthly c-suite meetings.
I think the reality is no one knows what will work, and that’s why it’s important to try things.
It’s good to suggest new things too, but who are you addressing when you say maybe it’s time we figure out new things? I’m frustrated with the old ways too, but to do new things requires organizing and community building around a new idea. I don’t think it’s very constructive to hand wave at the internet and say “we should do something new” without any suggestion or effort to plan something.
Organizing isn’t my skill set either, so I think it’s important to support what does come along even if it isn’t the ideal thing we’d like to see. Nitpicking every effort for not being perfect will drain energy out of the participants, and it’s good people are trying things. Just my 2 cents.
There’s like two kinds of proposals, and either one you make you get criticized. You make a big proposal, people say “Well yeah, but how does that work on the ground?” You make an on-the-ground proposal, people say “How does that scale to the whole thing?” Alright, fine, then let’s just die.
Open letter to everyone who pooh-poohs this:
Participation is never useless. If you’re looking at this through the lens of “will this fix everything,” well of course it won’t. That’s because small efforts by themselves are not impactful.
But lots of small efforts, cumulative, over time, can be, and you have to start somewhere. Everyone who resists does so by taking on some amount of personal risk. Yes, this boycott is a very small personal risk. That’s fine. It will get people involved who were previously not involved. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
We need those people. We need their support, in whatever ways they are able to offer it. If your message is “don’t bother, it won’t work,” you are telling people not to be involved. If your aims are, for example, “armed revolution,” and you’re only considering the people who have the weapons and use them, you are completely ignoring all other aspects of conflict. In war, the people who pull the triggers are a minority of the opposing forces.
You have to produce equipment, food, clothing, shelter. You have to deliver those things where they are needed. You have to know where those things are needed. You need to plan and organize and communicate. You need to provide medical services.
And you have to do all those things not only for the “front line troops,” but for everyone.
Today’s boycotter can become tomorrow’s marcher, next week’s smuggler, next month’s partisan. Or medic. Or kitchen. Or driver.
All efforts, great and small. [email protected]
The same people who complain about this will come back tomorrow and say “someone needs to do something about XYZ”. They never planned to do anything, they just like complaining.
I’m not trying to “Pooh pooh” anything, but I do wonder if the old way of doing things is really effective in today’s political arena?
Politicians these days only seem to care about re-election and since people now vote party over individual, I’m having a hard time seeing the effectiveness of such demonstrations. Other then letting like minded people know that other like minded people exist. Something that I think social media has been doing for a long time. But I don’t think politicians really fear this kind of thing anymore. I think they know that people are entrenched in their parties and once it comes down to filling out the ballot, they wont care who the person is as much as they do that they are voting for “their side”.
But maybe I’m wrong, which is why I’m participating today regardless of my ignorance.
And I’m not saying “don’t bother”. Try everything you can. I’m just saying that maybe it’s time we figure out new ways to do things?
Ideas come from people. The larger the pool of people who are engaged, the greater the likelihood that a “new way” will be invented. And that new way will need support in all kinds of ways from all kinds of directions, by all kinds of people. At some point, it’s a numbers game.
As long as we’re all pulling in generally the same direction, that’s a good thing. I don’t 100% agree with everyone who’s pulling generally in the direction away from fascism, and I know that some of those same people have various disagreements with me. That’s okay.
We don’t have to be in perfect lockstep to be pulling on the same rope.
oh man I have this in a lot of comments but businesses keep track of metrics down to the second. If it works there would be a severe drop in the graph today for businesses. Think in terms of how people react to the stock market diving three thousand points in one day. There is also a knock on effect in that lean pretty much won over six sigma for most bussinesses and they are highly reliant on historical metrics to do their ordering and supplying their spots from the supply chain. The leaner and more efficient the operation the larger the effect of an unusual drop in activity for a day. That is secondary again. Mostly its about making the graphs drop for the daily, weekly, monthly c-suite meetings.
I think the reality is no one knows what will work, and that’s why it’s important to try things.
It’s good to suggest new things too, but who are you addressing when you say maybe it’s time we figure out new things? I’m frustrated with the old ways too, but to do new things requires organizing and community building around a new idea. I don’t think it’s very constructive to hand wave at the internet and say “we should do something new” without any suggestion or effort to plan something.
Organizing isn’t my skill set either, so I think it’s important to support what does come along even if it isn’t the ideal thing we’d like to see. Nitpicking every effort for not being perfect will drain energy out of the participants, and it’s good people are trying things. Just my 2 cents.
I like how Douglas Rushkoff put it at Bretton Woods: