-Caveat Lector-
The major thing in Activism is to think of the future. What will happen? When we go
to the stars and colonize other planets it will be a low maintenance, agricultural
society. Think of some of Robert A. Heinlein's books example "Farmer In The Sky". I
suspect that by having a two part
diet that we are able to assimilate new plant DNA. Farmers, animal breeders, animal
keepers are people that are interested in having the best and healthiest animals - and
breed enough generations that they see genetic mutations faster than many other
people. Animal cruelty or animal athletes? Fur, cruelty or like in the time from
1950 and before when even dog and cat skins were used for fur. I still have a
handicraft book for groups as high as the Boy Scouts that refers to dog and cat hides
being suitable for fur and skins. Recycling. Hunting with the hounds, the horses
called Hunters, are they overworked or Animal Athletes. Human athletes have had
injuries too, yet like (the ice skatter) Mark Hammel enjoy their work. So you would
say that animals can not enjoy something?
Why go against eating animals and learning about animals? If you know how intelligent
an animal is, and that they can learn as much as a human that does not have hands or
ways to manipulate. So how do you justify "The Powers That Be" by Anne McCaffrey and
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough has some ideas!
Who has kept it that S. America who is so rich in DNA and diversity in resorting to
raising Cattle?
They have a type of animal like a lama that is one of the best wool animals in the
world, yet the animal is being killed for meat and has had a hard time getting
started. They have natural resources
yet those resources are being supplanted by artificial plants and animals.
Still and all our major problem (for now) is the monopolies and off shore banking,
that allow this to happen.
Kris Millegan wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject: Fwd: 13 Lucky Tips for Activists
> Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 22:55:47 EST
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> In a message dated 99-03-02 16:33:50 EST, J1mS1 writes:
>
> << Lifestyle fascism sucks.
>
> A major problem with many activists is instead of
> personalizing the political, they politicize the personal.
> Finding flaws in other people's lifestyles becomes something
> of a hobby for many progressive-types, instead of
> identifying and deconstructing the institutions that are the
> source of violence against humans, animals and the
> environment. It is an easy way out of making real change
> happen by just attacking this or that consumption pattern.
>
> What we need to remember is that by identifying certain
> aspects of Western lifestyle, such as meat-eating, smoking,
> or not boycotting the latest trendy issue, we are forgetting
> that it is the whole damn system that is wrong. Our power is
> more than our pocketbooks alone. To make real change we need
> to organize and find things that more of us have in common,
> not alienate others because they don't conform to some
> lifestyle guidelines. Why recapitulate the authoritarian
> tactics of the Christian Right or corporate America? Let
> people decide for themselves what they can or cannot boycott
> and get off the moral soapbox. >>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject: Fwd: 13 Lucky Tips for Activists
> Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 16:33:50 EST
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Rather enlightening (for middle-agers, i.e.), this list!
>
> ------- Fwd: Message: -------
> Subj: [anarchopunk] 13 Lucky Tips for Activists
> Date: 99-03-02 10:47:13 EST
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Chris Carrara)
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> I love it from number one, HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOUR!!!!!!!
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> 13 Lucky Tips for Activists
> by Errol Schweitzer 10/98
> [ reproduce at will ]
>
> Inevitable Disclaimer:
>
> This column is not meant to offend hard-working activists who are
> devoting much of their time and energy to social and environmental
> issues. It is meant as a critique of those qualities that may keep us
> from building an actual Movement. I know of many activists that are
> guilty of the things listed below, including myself. So please don't feel
> offended (which brings us to our first point...)
>
> I
>
> Have a sense of humor.
>
> The world is not going to change overnight, no matter how
> hard you work. Take time out to laugh at how messed up
> things really are. Take time out to laugh at yourself and
> the incremental changes that you and others are striving so
> hard for. A good chuckle now and then keeps things in
> perspective and may actually make you feel better about the
> work you have accomplished. Making fun of yourself and other
> activists may be a form of critique, and we all know that...
>
> II
>
> Critique is necessary and vital for activism.
>
> Analyzing what went wrong and what went right about an
> action or a campaign may help you to not repeat the same
> mistakes twice. Listen to what others outside your group
> have to say, especially the opposition, which may be the
> perfect foil for your cause. Many great activists and
> revolutionaries engaged in rigorous self-criticism to
> realize what they did right or wrong. Luckily, unlike Che or
> Durruti, we don't have to do it under a hail of bullets (at
> least not yet).
>
> III
>
> Treat everyone as individuals.
>
> It irks me when Marxists and anarchists refer to "the
> masses" or when anti-corporate activists refer to their
> peers as "MTV kids." By lumping people into faceless
> categories we forget that we are dealing with people who
> have reasons for believing the things they do, whether it is
> family upbringing, the influence of religion or state
> propaganda, or just growing up in this damn culture. When
> you approach people as individuals, you remember that once
> upon a time you, too may not have had the beliefs you do now
> and may have been alienated by how some activists can come
> off when trying to spread their message. And so, the most
> important aspect of reaching out to people may not be what
> you have to say but actually to...
>
> IV
>
> Listen to what others have to say and know your audience.
>
> Sometimes people's responses to what you have to say may be
> the best guide for learning what you shouldn't do next time.
> When you know who you are speaking to, you can craft your
> message it appeals to them. This is something the Christian
> Right learned long ago in their direct mail campaigns. For
> example:
>
> By knowing your audience you can personalize the issue so
> that is not some abstract cause that they cannot relate to
> their everyday experience. If you are talking about
> immigrants' rights to some middle class white people, you
> can preface your point by mentioning "Imagine if this had
> happened to your grandparents when they were trying to
> escape the (famines, wars, genocide, intolerance) that
> brought them here." If you are talking to some kids on the
> street about how McDonalds is fucked up, don't just dwell on
> the facts that they kill millions of animals every year and
> use beef grown on former rainforest land. Many of the kids
> in my neighborhood can relate to the fact that McD's pays
> bad wages and makes you work long, grueling hours.
>
> 4a. And oh yeah... ditch the highfalutin lingo! If you
> insist on "subsuming the other" and "deconstructing the
> privileged hegemonies of socioeconomic systems" then don't
> expect much of a response. If you know your audience then
> you can talk to them at their level, not Foucault's.
> Besides, those big words are a privilege of those lucky
> enough to have been college educated and can set up an
> uncomfortable power dynamic. What's the use of promoting
> social change when you convey it in an elitist fashion?
>
> V
>
> And stop screaming all the time!
>
> Yeah, we're pissed off but if we are always screaming AT
> people instead of talking to them, then they won't listen.
> So before you go to a protest, go work out or jog or
> something. You'd be surprised how people respond when you
> talk politely to them. There IS a time for anger, and then
> there is a time for discussion. So think before you scream.
>
> VI
>
> Single-issue activism can be problematic.
>
> While we all have certain issues that are closest to our
> hearts, we shouldn't close our minds to the possible
> interconnections between these issues or stop from examining
> how they may have similar historic roots. Sometimes
> single-issue activism can be very detrimental, such as how
> some environmentalists echo right-wing propaganda about
> immigration or how some anti-racist activists are just as
> homophobic as the KKK.
>
> VII
>
> Having progressive politics does not exempt you from being an asshole.
>
> There are more than a few "progressive" people who are
> sexist pigs or hold some pretty questionable ideas about
> race and class. And activists can be just as cliquey and
> backstabbing as frat-people. The redeeming thing is that at
> least by getting involved the door is open for talking about
> these issues, right???
>
> VIII
>
> You can't save the world via e-mail.
>
> Your computer is a product of the techno-capitalist system
> and whatever good you do with it does not equal the power it
> has given Corporate America. No matter how efficient,
> technology can never replace the power and intimacy of human
> communication and contact. The internet itself was designed
> by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
> as a way to decentralize communications in the advent of
> nuclear war. And over 98% of the internet's usefulness has
> been in speeding up commerce for speculative investment by
> very wealthy people all over the world. Admittedly, the
> internet has increased our communications and has helped to
> make progressive movements more globally linked; the
> Zapatistas may have been crushed if not for the e-mail
> updates they sent out during their uprising. But we can't
> rely on techno-activism all the time. And one other thing: Y2K.
>
> IX
>
> Leave the "ism's" at home.
>
> "So that's nice. You are a (insert typical social change
> label here)." To most people who don't share these beliefs,
> these labels are loaded with media stereotypes and corporate
> propaganda that demean the positive aspects that these
> labels carry for you and me. For example, after saying to
> someone "I am a multiculturalist," he responded with "So you
> hate white people?" Instead, I should have said, "I believe
> in seeing race as a historical construct; it is not real in
> any physical or biological sense, but people are manipulated
> into believing that it is and treating it so." And maybe
> that would have spurred some lively discussion.
>
> So before you announce yourself as some left-wing "ism-ist",
> consider what may be going on in someone else's head about
> what you label yourself. Just think of what you considered a
> "communist" or "anarchist" before you became so enlightened;
> what do most people hear about these terms from the media?
> Let your actions define you, not your "ism's"
>
> X
>
> Lifestyle fascism sucks.
>
> A major problem with many activists is instead of
> personalizing the political, they politicize the personal.
> Finding flaws in other people's lifestyles becomes something
> of a hobby for many progressive-types, instead of
> identifying and deconstructing the institutions that are the
> source of violence against humans, animals and the
> environment. It is an easy way out of making real change
> happen by just attacking this or that consumption pattern.
>
> What we need to remember is that by identifying certain
> aspects of Western lifestyle, such as meat-eating, smoking,
> or not boycotting the latest trendy issue, we are forgetting
> that it is the whole damn system that is wrong. Our power is
> more than our pocketbooks alone. To make real change we need
> to organize and find things that more of us have in common,
> not alienate others because they don't conform to some
> lifestyle guidelines. Why recapitulate the authoritarian
> tactics of the Christian Right or corporate America? Let
> people decide for themselves what they can or cannot boycott
> and get off the moral soapbox.
>
> XI
>
> Ha! Ha! Ha! You're gonna burnout!
>
> Few things hurt our causes as much as exhaustion and the
> implosion of those who have just "had enough." You make bad
> decisions, you alienate friends and family, your personal
> hygiene takes a nosedive. You know what? You need a break!
> Take a nap, paint a picture, do something to relax your mind
> and body. Let your energy and zeal come back. Activism is
> tough and victories can be few and far between, so learn and
> take it easy. Even Assata Shakur says that the most
> important thing is to grow personally, to maintain
> relationships and hobbies. The revolution doesn't need
> zombies or robots. It needs people.
>
> XII
>
> Stop the sectarianism!
>
> Of course, this is like asking for tropical weather in
> Binghamton, but hey, might as well. From petty internecine
> squabbles at the local Food Coop to writers of "The Nation"
> insisting there are two (or more) "Left's", the movement has
> fractured and fragmented into so many little cliques and
> ideologies that you wonder what we have in common anymore
> other than our dislike for each other. While some of the
> bitterness is left over from past counterinsurgency
> operations, such as the FBI's Cointelpro and the CIA's MH
> Chaos, a good deal of it is just because of activists who
> have split due to personal disagreements and arguments over
> ideology and strategy. Wherever I have been, it always seems
> like this one doesn't like that one, that group betrayed the
> cause, this one is a sellout, that one is too extreme, etc.
> As dismaying as this is, there are still so many people
> working for change that I must ask: can't we agree on
> certain vital things? Do we have at least a common enemy?
> Can we forget our differences and actually work towards some
> sort of consensus so that we stop shooting ourselves in the
> feet? If you are new to activism, stay above the pettiness
> and concentrate on the issues at hand. If you are from the
> old school, then us young folks need your experience, not
> your gripes and grudges.
>
> XIII
>
> Redefine activism.
>
> Activism is an accepted cultural niche in our society.
> C'mon, we all know the stereotypes: bad dresser,
> self-righteous about this or that issue, screaming and
> chanting, holding up signs, getting dragged away by cops,
> etc. But by becoming part of this "activist" culture we
> alienate many whose side we are supposedly on. How many
> people can relate when they see media-bites of these
> "wackos?" How often do we feed these stereotypes?
>
> But look what is happening. More and more people fighting
> for social change are just "regular" people: a one-day
> general strike by NYC cabbies in May virtually shut down the
> city; thousands gathered to demonstrate against anti-gay
> violence in NY this October; recent general strikes in
> Puerto Rico and Colombia had hundreds of thousands of
> participants; 40,000 construction workers in NYC protesting
> non-union contracts, etc. And then there are the selfless
> acts we will never hear about: people forming support groups
> and discussion groups; people identifying who they are and
> where they fit into this society; people choosing to boycott
> some product or lifestyle, when and if they can. These are
> just people responding to the basic stimulus that their
> lives are being fucked with and they are not going to sit
> back and take it. These are activists as well. This is how
> revolutions come about. People who consider themselves
> "activists" have to break out the preconceived molds and
> listen to what people are really talking about. Anarchism,
> multiculturalism, feminism, communism, veganism are all just
> words until our actions give them real meaning and we define
> for ourselves what our activism really is. Until then,
> activism is going to be this small, accepted, ineffectual
> cultural niche that alienates the people who it is supposed
> to be reaching out to.
>
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