Small scale permaculture nursery in Maine, education enthusiast, and usually verbose.
I believe that it’s vanishingly rare for it to be “too late” for anyone to change their behavior, on an individual level. If we can recognize the challenge, we can amend our approach and work to bring others into the fold. I’m still grieving as well, but defeatism will only strengthen their position by weakening ours.
I appreciate the self reflection in this comment, and hope others follow your example
I agree, but if we let this sentiment bleed over and begin infighting with our allies and accomplices we weaken the coalition we need to fix this. Don’t let them blunt your ability to organize. Fascism thrives when we self-isolate and drive ourselves and each other apart
One hundred percent. We weren’t acquainted on reddit but conversations with it here and on the Beehaw discord have truly made a positive impact on me.
Everyone should read Gaywallet’s post from yesterday before commenting. Remember the human on the other screen and be(e) kind
You’re not wrong. But this is Beehaw, where we yeet them with prejudice
First and foremost, thank you all for being a part of this wonderful place. You’re all part of my extended chosen family - family that doesn’t always see eye to eye on everything but knows that we’ll have each other’s backs instead of putting them to the wall.
Secondly, step away from the chats and the doom to do something positive for yourself in your space, or do something to re-orient yourself. Despair and gloom blunt your efficacy communicating and organizing, and mutual care and aid like we have here on Beehaw are going to be more important than ever.
That is my recollection as well
Adding context to context, there was a movement to change the constitution to allow him to run for president around then too
That’s what I’ve used them for as well =D
Happy planning / planting!
You can check out the toolkit over at Permapeople.org, though I’m unsure exactly how open the codebase is. I do know they’re hoping to make it community run in the future, and that the devs share pretty much whatever is asked of them.
Less in the spirit of your question, but something I’ve used relatively extensively is the mymaps.google tool. Here’s hoping someone with some better answers than me comes along (and I remember to check back) to give additional alternatives
Tbh I’m fine missing out on it if it’s as dismissive as the reply to @alyaza’s direct firsthand experiences working with a local politician who faced issues campaigning which are completely germane to this conversation.
They’ve had the power several times over the last 16 years to make life better for the working class and the poor, and they seem to always elect to protect and promote the lives of the billionaire class.
Someone took the time to politely correct this misconception a few days ago, their reply from then is pasted below:
In the past you have stated that the Democrats had control of Congress and the presidency under Biden and Obama, yet they were unable to do things like get a public option in the ACA or codify roe v Wade. However this continues to be a misunderstanding of the situation.
While I can agree I am disappointed in the inability to get these things done, and Obama saying it was no longer a priority, I don’t see how you can pin this all on the Democrats as some kind of monolithic entity.
The fact of the matter is during Obama’s terms, there were anti abortion Democrats. These Democrats were enough to keep abortion access out of the ACA and prevent roe being codified.
Fast forward to Bidens terms, and we now have a filibuster rule that requires 60 senators in order to pass stuff in the Senate. There were not 60 senators who supported roe codification when the Democrats “controlled” the Senate.
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The fact that there are still anti choice democrats in our legislatures is a failing on the part of all the left-leaning voters in their districts and states (myself included) to organize and replace them with people who will advocate and vote for our policy goals. Alternative parties could capitalize on those races by representing the wants of those left leaning voters in off election years but choose not to.
I, and many others, do not blame other parties when the dems shoot themselves in the foot, we blame the dems for their poor decisions. Likewise, we blame the green party for running a quadrennial grift on the disaffected leftists who know enough to be upset but who wrongly believe the extent of their voting power is only this one race.
Most local candidates have to work to live, and making outlandish statements to these effects weaken a person’s rhetorical standing. From the article you posted:
While they have little infrastructure in the county, within the last decade, Madison has nevertheless elected 10 Green candidates to different sorts of local office, more than almost any other city of its size in the nation.
Across the country, the Green Party barely has a footprint. It has little money or political organization, no members of Congress or statewide officeholders and just a few local ones. Every four years, though, the Greens run a candidate for president
In fact, they’ve [the Greens] pursued the opposite tack — they’ve directed efforts toward close battleground states where the party is sure to get more attention.
The Green party could clean house in Maine where we’ve actually got Ranked Choice Voting and they could win seats, but we’re not a swing state and the greens don’t act like they’re interested. Neither does the Socialist party, or SocDems for that matter. But I do see their campaigning in battleground states, promising things out of their presidential candidates that are squarely the purview of congress, in which they’re clearly not interested in having representation.
Being frank, the Green Party and Socialist Party do so little organizing when it’s not a presidential election year that it ought to be a joke among all leftists. They aren’t doing the outreach or work necessary to implement any of their grand promises made every four years, because they’re not getting local party members elected in downballot races. I’ve been on both party’s mailing lists for 22 years and in three different states and have almost never seen anything come of it. Well… besides fundraising emails every four years.
Push for it in your state, first. We’re still in the first few cycles using RCV in Maine (I like STAR better) where folks are learning to love it, but there’s no time like now to get that ball rolling. More people need to experience it to shift the national conversation of “whether we should” to “which should we use”
Just don’t compare mine to Marth’s …
Something I like to do is to take their call scripts and mail them as signed letters. Phone calls can be useful, sure (when they’re answered or the answering machine isn’t full or disabled), but my understanding is that written letters are taken more seriously in those offices. The order of significance, as it was explained to me, goes email -> phone call -> letter.