Wholesome 8===D

Srsly.

bravenationfilm

Crossposted to wholesomedick and syn_promo

I'm wholesomedick and I approve of the Flobots.

I've always said: "if you're not controversial then you don't matter." After reading Richard Martin's post, Dawn of the Rockycrats (from new_west), I'm starting to question it. Martin's point is that politicans like Bill Ritter get to where they are (in office) largely by avoiding controversy. He calls the the people who this appeals to (people like Coloradans) the "Rockycrats."

If that's right, it's profound. It means that all of us on the left who said that Democrats were losing because we didn't have a message were wrong -- Democrats were losing because they were too controversial.

I don't think you can boil down running a successful campaign into one single strategy. But, there is one theory that you can use as a compass to help think of some good ones: Darwinism. Most people think Darwin said "only the strongest survive." That's a misunderstanding. Darwin said only those who adapt survive. The nice thing about being human is that we can adapt to a lot of different things, and fairly quickly.

In elections, and in life, you have to consider the context. If you're an politician your job is to adapt to the context, and if you plan on changing it you have to do it in such a way that you continue to survive (stay in office). If you're an activist, you're job is to change the context, but ideally not so dramatically that you can't sustain yourself (unless you want to be a martyr). Whatever you do, it's important to disentangle the two roles.

Activists are flawed people. Not that all people aren't flawed, activists are just more flawed than average -- much more. I don't have any scientific evidence to back it up. For now, lets call it an empirical observation. To that extent, I'm talking more about liberal activists that conservative activists, because I've had more experience with liberals -- though I'd imagine it applies to both.

These flaws not only hurt activists and make their lives less fulfilling, they also have a way of hurting movements activists are a part of. Michael Albert (zmag_albert) has called the latter symptom The Stickiness Problem -- where the general "uncongenialness" of people in leftist movements eventually burns-out many of them and they leave the cause.

Unfortunately, I don't know if a single institution focused on making activists better (or even just more congenial) people. Which is where Activists Anonymous (Act-Anon, for short -- AA is already taken :) would come in. It would be based on the principles (and general model) of all ready established by 12-Step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous (which has been a grassroots organizing success, whether you like it or not), but would also conceptually use ideas from Liberating Theory (what used to be called "holism"), and other psychological/sociological research about specific pathologies of activists (off the top of my head, I'm thinking of stuff like The Open and Closed Mind, by Milton Rokeach).

Think about it: Republicans are kind of the Alcoholic-Addicts who violently destory the world and the Democrats are kind of the Republican's co-dependent enablers.

xxjro1986xx


That is all.

ProgressNow.org, formerly the Rocky Mountain Progressive Network (rmpn.org), is just doing well for how sweet it is. They have this whole new policy section. I've been impressed with them since the olden days. I want to work for them. Then, I want to have their children by having a uterus and ovum implanted in my body and their website synthesized in to semen for impregnation and garnishing purposes.