[prox]

Getting involved, grass roots style. The feeling of powerlessness is exactly the way you become inert to do anything. “What can I do.”

Politics work from the local to the national, so getting involved locally is a good thing, or organizations that work to promote the ideals you want to see in the world.

[jzb]

Getting involved locally is a very non-specific guidance. Part of the problem with “local involvement” is that a lot of folks are in very very gerrymandered areas. Either you’re hopelessly outvoted or preaching to the choir when trying to affect local politics.

But also, I think we are well past affecting change through voting and so forth. Not that you shouldn’t vote. But if we want to see actual change in the United States, we need to start taking some cues from the French and other countries where they go on strike aggressively until they get what they want.

As long as we keep getting fucked and showing up for work anyway the powers that be are just going to keep fucking us.

[vinyl7]

Even if you do get involved, you're going to get tackled by the quarterback trying to enact the changes that you see are needed. What has been happening in politics over the last several years? Bickering about non-issues that don't really effect people.

What did the senate do this week? Interview the TikTok CEO. Meanwhile our economy is in shambles, inflation is out of control, housing and rent is unaffordable, the middle class is dying.

Why are they over there arguing about wokeness, screaming about communists and facists being on the precipice of taking over the country, and interviewing the tiktok CEO? Because that doesn't require any action. It distracts the public from real problems. The partisan inflammatory and meaningless screeching is enough to get them re-elected, so why do any hard work fixing problems?

And so people who do try to get involved in order to fix real issues like the economy or housing, end up getting blocked by pointless debates. It's system-wide filibustering.

[dogcomplex]

Economic/systemic change has been off the table for quite a while. These poor politicians are just playing the only cards they have available - social tribal chanting - while filling their personal coffers as much as possible while the getting's good.