[FRIAM] Up and Out vs Down and in

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Glen, Marcus, 

Thank you for your always surprising suggestions, for your thoughts outside the box.  

I confess to being attracted to the pristine hypocrisy of HireAThug.com.   

Speaking of Thuggs, I wonder how many of you know about the Wide Awakes.  These were a paramilitary organization that paraded in the streets of Northern Cities for Lincoln during the 1860 election.  Black capes and torches and staves.  Wikipedia has a lovely entry, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Awakes

Here is their banner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Awakes#/media/File:Wide_Awakes_Banner.tif  FRIAM mentalists should go for the slogan, "mind, eye" and the animal behaviorists amongst should endorse the rampant ferrets.  

It seems like a bad idea whose time has come 

I wonder if the New Wide Awakes could become the youth organization of the Lincoln Project (https://lincolnproject.us/, that organization of centrist republicans that has dedicated itself to electing an anti-trump senate and president, even though, they concede, that requires them to vigorously support democrats in the current cycle. 

Nick




Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2020 9:04 AM
To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Up and Out vs Down and in

You've hidden the most important part of your question at the very bottom: "in the next year". As always, the system contains feedback loops. And each loop has its own speed. There are lots of things you can do in the next year that won't show any impact *within* the year, but may show impact beyond the year. If you're worried about the next president, or the next, etc., then those are viable answers to your question. There are *some* things you can do during the year that *might* show impact within the year. But just as there's a temporal scope to any action, there's also a *spatial* scope to any action. I'd argue that the actions you might take this year that might show impact within the year, will have limited spatial scope.

So, I'll treat you like one of my clients and answer your question with a question. 8^) What do you *want* to see happen within the year? And your stated objective can't be vague like "reverse the authoritarian pandemic". What does that even mean? No, you have to state a particular and specific objective in order to answer my question.

For example, one action *I* can take this year, that may show some impact this year, but more likely in the coming decades, is to support https://fairvotewa.org/, which I'll be doing this evening. You already have that option in Santa Fe, I think. Ideally, RCV should help protect against either your worry of right-wing authoritarians or Dave's worry of left-wing authoritarians.

Another example from left field might be to help start/run an After School Satan club <https://afterschoolsatan.com/> near you. The elevation of the Adversary is critical to fighting group-think of all kinds. If your particular and specific objective is to make those around you deeper thinkers, then that sort of action will have immediate *and* long-term impact.

Yet another answer is to join Antifa. Put on some body armor and protect the [counter]protesters from the (actual) fascists roaming our streets with guns, chains, and bats. (Contrary to Dave's conjecture that left-wing fascism is more likely, we have self-described right-wing fascists *actually* roaming our streets as we speak.) It doesn't matter if you're old or fat. What matters is to put some active MEAT between the fascists and the [couter]protesters. Or at least buy an Iron Front bumper sticker. 8^)

There are sooooo many possible actions. But without a particular and specific objective, you're relegated to hand-wringing.

On 2/8/20 9:04 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
> I have a friend who reads a lot of history and thinks HARD about what 
> he reads.  For months he has been reassuring me about the state of American democracy because, as he said, Trump wasn’t a well focused dictator like Hitler.  But I saw him last Monday and he asked me, with an air of genuine panic, “What do I do?”  The reason for his new panic was his realization that Hitler had not always been a focused dictator, but had been entrained, over his career, to play just those themes that would rouse the German people to War.  The impeachment process had convinced him that Trump was gradually developing the focus of a proper Hitler.
> 
>  
> 
> So I passed the question he asked me onto the group on Friday.  “What 
> do we do?”  What struck me was that many of us took the question to be, “where do we best escape to?”  Options included New Zealand, Costa Rica, Bermuda, Canada, Italy, etc.  These answers startled me, because, of course, the question I meant to be asking was, how do we use our considerable talent, skill, knowledge, resources, and technical knowhow to do everything in our power to reverse the authoritarian pandemic that is sweeping the world.
> 
>  
> 
> Now some of you, perhaps many, that we in any kind of an emergency, or even if we are, that there is anything we might do about it, or even that there is any particular reason to save American democracy.  I am happy to have that discussion, too.  However, from those of you who share my panic, I would love to hear suggestions about what I (and others) might do in the next year .
> 

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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