If you are feeling like one person can't make a difference...

I know it's easy to feel overwhelmed. You are one person, or a small organization fighting the machine, and it seems like you have very little influence on the greater scheme of things. We come here to find like minded souls, to post our grievances, because we are frustrated and have no real power. I know alot of us feel pretty helpless.

I have a theory and a suggestion.

My theory is that we are trying to fight the whole thing, a monster that is far too big in size to comprehend or make a dent in. But PEOPLE are the only ones who CAN make a difference. You, me, the neighbors. But one person cannot fight the entire army...

My suggestion, don't try to fight the entire system. Oh yea, keep on going to those anti war demonstrations, and keep on signing those petitions, it's all good. But to really feel as if you are having an impact, downscale. Act locally. Get personal. Find others who will help. Encourage others to do the same.
Find others in your area who are also acting locally and link up.

It's like trying to move a mountain of sludge with a spoon. Grab your spoon and start working on a much smaller pile. In this way you will actually be able to SEE some results, your frustration will lessen. It's great therepy for making you feel more optomistic.

Here is an example of what some folks are trying to accomplish locally. This is actually working! Individuals fighting the system with their own weapons.

http://calhoununderground.wordpress.com

This site is only a week old and is FAR from finished. It will eventually include interviews and stories from many local people who have had very bad experiences within the legal system. But check out some of the links...

"Crooked County Crooks", "Lone Meth Ranger", "Clay Communicator", and "Calhoun Underground" are all based in neighboring counties. Individuals forming groups to fight the system. Bringing corruption to light. Individuals actually accomplishing something. A glimmer of hope, working to beat them at their own game using their own tactics. It's good for the soul and it works!

I would encourage ANYONE and everyone who wishes to really DO SOMETHING about the state of the world to create their own similar "truth" blogs or website, find others in your communitys who are doing the same and link up. This is grassroots-- people taking back some control, regaining some power in an out of control world.

Peace

 

Earthmother, the act locally thing has been a mainstay for me in life. Drafted into the Army in '67 I returned to the university in '69 very much outraged by the war that was killing off kids like myself on both sides of the conflict. At one antiwar ralley I went to, one of the English Profs stated the same premise as you are talking about. He said, "Protest here about the war over there is good but within a mile of where we stand there is an old person or a kid who needs your presence, your care and concern." "you want to make the world a better place...Go find that person and start helping" My buddy and I went to Children & Family service the next day and began volunteering. At 23 I ended up adopting 3 brothers who were headed for an orphanage. I also became involved as a foster parent and have continued that through the present. After having raised sons 4 & 5, the last of my American sons, I took a break to live in the Amazon Rainforest for a year...Only to come back with son # 6, a beautiful, brilliant youngster now in his 3rd year of University. For desert in my old age I went back to the jungle and son # 7 is in the 8th grade here and is well on his way to becoming a delightful wildman with a rich, warm soul. This has proven to be the best get poor quick and stay that way scheme anyone could imagine, if you measured life by financial standards. The rainforest has become "local" for me and that connection has helped fulfill my "think globally, act locally" needs. Most of my sons are living close by and grandkids are swarming the hillsides. Some might not understand this but I could not imagine a richer more fulfilling life.

 

Every individual has a voice, it's only when they are made to feel impotent by those that wish to benefit, and become silent, that the minority (wealthy fucks) win. Make your voice heard continue to ask questions and demand answers. We closed our eyes and mouths after 9/11...that was a mistake. Put down your flags for now and ask the important questions.

 

Thanks for this thread. The problem I can see, as a young person myself is that people in my age range suffer on all fronts. We are the least inspired...there are almost no rolemodels to look up to except for those that represent materialism and greed. We are offered no direction by those who are wiser and more experienced. Teachers in school and therapists in general suffer from many of the same psychic ailments. We are fed garbage day in and day our on TV and pop-culture...and we are BUYING!! We take the nastiest aspects of society and engrave them in gold. We are selfish. We do only for ourselves to make it in this decaying culture, and we scoff at those who try to show us another way. Even when we do "agree" or "understand", we are too hopeless and isolated to act. We fear reprisal from the growing cancer that is U.S. imperialism if we ARE aware. We are laughed at as "conspiracy kooks" when we point to a probable conspiracy. Even the phrase "conspiracy theory" ends potentially productive conversations. We are provided with no outlet. The rare gems who appear on these forums are too powerless themselves to effect noticable change. Youth are committing suicide in legions nowadays. I don't have enough money to hone my artistic abilities. I was accepted at a trade school based on my portfolio alone. Guess what. I couldn't go because financial aid turned me down.
Hope? Is there a reason to? WE ARE EXPENDABLE.

When the last of the great Boomers are gone, that's when my fear will really take shape. Our last beacons...gone forever and we weren't handed the baton of progress. The Dream of the 1960s and early 70s is reading as a flat-line. I resent your generation to an extent for letting this happen. You sold us out. You scum. I'm angry. I want to love you. I feel doom just beyond the horizon. Where do I run? The Natives are on the verge of collapse.

Thank you for taking the time to read this,
A representative of today's youth...this is our 'big picture' tho many of us don't know what a 'big picture' is, or a little one. They weren't given a turn...to learn.

 

So who were the role model of the hippie generation...John Wayne? Eisenhower? Leave It To Beaver? Kennedy and King were assassinated before our eyes. We rose against all that had been "given" to us as the way to live or life. Scared the living shit out of the status quo who responded by successfully buying out many of us...but not all. Are you personally willing to settle for a econonically uncertain future. Are you willing to catch shit from peers by doing what your heart tells you is right. Are you willing to seperate from the herd and go into uncharted territory? No one is going to hand you a baton to carry on, you're gonna have to search for a leader to follow or else make up your own dream. What do you mean "you weren't given a turn...to learn" ? Do you think the schools taught us to think outside the box, mom and dad said grow your hair, smoke dope and create a revolution? No. It was part magic and part necessity. I'm not sure what magic may be left but the necessity is sure as hell present. Bush and his ilk represent the scareiest thing that could happen to a people since hitler and his 'bots. Perhaps the greatest obstacle for the current young are all the diversions and toys present today. I'm not puttin anybody down and not asking for anybody's "love". Just don't cop out with the attitude that someone else blew so ,poor you, what can you do. Do you read? Do you think independently? Do you search for worthwhile rolemodels? Are you willing to suffer, take chances, get hurt? To be the kind of people the world needs is not going to be a wonderful and rewarding experience...there will be doubt and fear and multitudes who will tell you what fools you are. I wish you luck and vision and strong will. It will take all of that and more to help a troubled world.

 

To answer your inevitable question, yes. I have done my own thing to make this world a safer place. Last summer I went to the Navajo reservation to help out a few struggling families. I've gone to many demonstrations, including sit-ins and other direct actions. I've posted flyers and stickers at bus-stops and on mail boxes to hopefully wake some people up.
And guess what, I've done it all by myself. Nobody has helped me, thanks.


Unfortunately for my generation, the boomers wound up becoming the most irresponsible demographic in modern history. They, including my own parents, refuse to accept responsibility that they themselves would have protested against in their youth. You guys, with some exceptions of course, are pitiful. We weren't given a baton and yet many of us are STILL trying to make a difference. Almost always without the help of former 60s radicals. And I mean moral support as well. It's absent. Your generation FAILED.

Hypocrites.

 

Aaahhh well, so we failed in your opinion, thats OK then. Gives you a standard to work against. Be better than us...noble standard...good luck, God knows its a helluva mess out there and something needs to change quickly. If, by chance, your generation fails, it'll be easy enough to say you would've succeeded had it not been for the FAILED hippies.

 

That's true my generation got fat and complacent in their middle age. There are still a few of us old relics around like Ben Cohen, but on the whole we became more interested in what we each personally owned, and less interested in the welfare of the world and people around us. We fall for the promise of lowered insurance rates and allow our civil liberties to be eroded. We bought into the false promises of security and allowed our rights to privacy to be sold out. We are sending our children to die for no good reason.

 

We became a marketing segment. Corporations could market to the promise of protecting our investments if we voted a certain way. And we all did it, even though I am sure many of my generation knew there were trade offs. We became more concerned with our bottomline, than our humanity. I hope you youngsters can turn things around.

My generation was probably better off when we wanted to jail everyone over 35. I never agreed with that, but looking back it's about that time that your interests become more self centered. You are more interested in securing a home, bank account and a family. You sacrifice ideals for security.

Balls in your court to protect the rights that were originally granted citizens of the US in our constitution. My generation failed you, we allowed drug and credit testing for employment. We choose to legislate safety instead of relying on person responsibility. We wave our flags when in the back of our minds we know there is something deeply wrong with the way the US government and their protected corporations are operating in the rest of the world.

 

There are role models out there for youth (kids not a 28 year old man) There are kids who have made impacts in thier areas infact one was actually on TV (odd eh!)


Yup the press that is pretty much a Turner owned media base system likes to hide the little guy impacts on the world and show that Walmart is the real helper ect there are stories of the little guy.

Alot can be done by just not letting your mind soak up the televised opinions that you have to have this and that to be human such as certain name brand foods, clothes, shoes, electronics ect. Hard to bitch when your crying to your mommy for the latest ipod, laptop, clothes ect.

Go out and help, donate your time to people. Make impacts within your home, decrease electrical usage, water, ect. Spend less time with the TV and more out in your yard. GArage sales, ect to stop the sales of new slave labor sold products. Cut backs, ect in your little mind will make impacts.

I bought an acre instead of several, my new home will have a very small 24x24 2 story design. I have elected to fill the land with fruit trees and the fence line nothing but berry bushes. I will let a few small animals like maybe some rabbits and chickens have the run of the place and a worm bed so I can fish (selfish of me I guess) and the rest of the worms let em into my soil. I bought an array of solar panels and a few wind turbines to assist denting the light bill along with some solar lighting.

 

Gardener, it's people like you who keep me hoping. I appreciate the rare gem that is you. It's folks like yara who cause further despondence (or at least don't care to lessen it...according to his chosen tone here on this forum), but as he'd say...it's our responsibility to right what's been wronged. Meanwhile our mostly-empty pockets will go toward caring for him in his old-age home when it's time for him to register to one. (that is, if we're not nuked before that time comes)

So Yank, are you saying that because of my age, I'm not entitled to having a role model? I believe that people of any age (yet young in spirit) are worthy of having role models...so, uh hem, please don't judge me by my age, thank you. I respect your lifestyle choices, however I also understand that 1 person can't do it alone.

And by the way, I need to re-emphasize (as I knew I would) that there are some exceptions to the rule: some baby-boomers DID hold onto their idealism and they are most loved and respected for it.

 

I am not a gem I am just one little person that never gave up on my ideals. I got flack for it a lot, during the years after hippy became a bad word. And for the record I was never in my mind a hippy. I was an artist in my youth and always an individual later on...and it got me into trouble, but guess what I could always face myself in the mirror every morning, so for me it was worth it.

I think that's the key...be true to yourself! How can you ever go wrong if you subscribe to that? You may have to scrape, and you may die poor, but that face you look at in the mirror will always smile back at you.

 

Ah, well, maybe those of us who have never really STOPPED being victimised by the system are the lucky ones, because we have not had the opportunity to get apathetic. It's a fact that if life gets too easy, people forget to work at it so hard. Taking things for granted. That's what it's all about. So be glad if the ride is bumpy, 'cause it'll keep you awake...