Research. Read the news. Vote. Have discussions based on facts. Teach. Constant evaluation and re-evaluation of what determines what is best, what best is or should be, and how to get there.
I do my best to be as consistent with my values as possible... it is something that a lot of people don't like me for (draw your own conclusions).
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My feeling is that if you put all your effort into creating a better situation for friends, for your family, affecting changes in their livelihoods and your own, you accomplish much more than the protestor with a ski-mask in the picket line.
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I understand this is likely just a random example, but I think it illustrates something. There are reasons that people turn to activism - seeing radical injustice or having personal injury are two major reasons. Truthfully, the world has too many problems for any one person to tackle. We have to pick and choose our battles, and often that means family and friends have to come first (because they are what keeps us going).
The current atmosphere in America is full of tension over many things... I wouldn't be surprised if we see even more protests and social action soon (will it be covered in the media), esp. if a draft is reinstated.
For whatever reason, people often find it too difficult to relate how what happens in Washington affects us personally in our day-to-day lives. When these decisions get brought into the fore
and many see these decisions as having a serious negative impact in their lives then we will see more action.
Perhaps it is a matter of scale or creating a critical mass. I always look back to Martin Luther King Jr.'s words "Time is neutral" when I consider how people think that problems will just go away with time... we would be so lucky.
I don't have any answers to all of this, but I think that starting with self-education and then educating others will get a lot farther than most. The challenge is the mode of education. Protestors often think that the only way to gain attention to education people is through these highly visible actions. And then there are the questions of violence and property destruction... certainly individuals need to do a lot of thinking and evaluation of their morals to decide how to cope with the world that we live in.