What can one person do? What can you do?
Social change comes when many individuals act together. But before a movement develops, individuals need to take action—even if it means acting alone.
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Our methods range from writing letters and handing out leaflets to resisting military service and blocking recruiting centers to strikes and noncooperation.Change does not come swiftly. It takes time. Changing a society takes layer upon layer of efforts.
One of the most important things about nonviolence is that you do not have to be a hero to use it. There never was a great movement made up entirely of heroes. In order for a movement to grow, there must be room for those of us who are timid, shy, and, from time to time, afraid. Most of us are uncertain about many things, most of us find it hard to take risks, but we are in a movement to see what each of us can contribute and to rejoice that—together—we can change things.
I retired Operation Nancygram earlier this month because it was a limited campaign about impeachment started totally spur of the moment. Quite frankly, I'm amazed it provoked any response at all. It was intended to get some attention and maybe, if enough people were engaged, bollocks up administrative systems a bit. Oddly enough, it was a deluge of e-mail after the FISA vote that achieved that goal! That shows just what could be possible if we build on that foundation and step things up.
Now on to the next modest campaign beginning tomorrow! August 26th is a great day for revolution, it seems, and what I'm planning to do is similar to Operation Nancygram but adjusted and in some ways expanded, to wit:
- The usual variety of missives to Nancy Pelosi.
- Also send letters to Harry Reid.
- Occasional additional physical messages, such as peaches and books to both Leaders (My first one this week will be War Is A Racket by Major General Smedley Butler, The Fighting Quaker, thanks to Polishifter).
- E-mail "updates" to Nancy and Harry as well as my entire Congressional Delegation: Peter, Pat and Bernie.
- Demands now include not only impeachment, but ending the war in Iraq, resisting war with Iran, restoring civil liberties (wrt to FISA, habeas, security theater, etc) and directing war monies to necessary services at home (e.g., universal healthcare, infrastructure maintenance).
DC mailing addresses for the Dem Leadership are in the sidebar--you can find the contact information for your own Senators and Reps.
Will this end the war by Tuesday? Nah, of course not. Again, it's an escalation point. Next up for me and a lot of other people is Take A Stand Day on the 28th. Then it's the march in DC on September 15th. After that?
So who's in?
ntodd



I'm in and I'll pimp this over at my blog.
Posted by: hecatedemetersdatter@hotmail.com | August 25, 2007 at 02:13 PM
Thanks NTodd.
I am deffinately in and will link this post up immediately.
Posted by: PoliShifter | August 25, 2007 at 04:24 PM
As an individual, I will do my part wrt emails re: all these matters. Thanks, as usual, for the leadership.
Best, SD
Posted by: Sarah Deere | August 25, 2007 at 11:50 PM