On this show, hosts Albert, Phoenix, Savannah and Barbara began with a definition of activism–putting passion about a cause into action to makechange; not simply action, not Political or individual opportunism. And we defined apathy as–indifference, not inaction.
We made a case (at least we hope we did) that effective action is cause-driven; goal oriented; multitactical; nonviolent but includes at least the threat if not the reality of violence; has substance behind the slogans; is with, not for people; and presents positives, like working for peace not only against war.
If we can agree that activism should address root causes of problems, what happens when we discover that the root cause of problems is the system. Shouldn’t our activism be directed at taking the system down, not just reforming it. For example–putting a band-aid on a crack in the dam may stop the leak, but it doesn’t fix the crack. In fact, it makes it worse because the band-aid hides the crack, convincing people that the crack is gone and the system is not broken.
We asked you to do homework before next week’s show:
First, think about the following two sentences
- To change anything, start somewhere
- To change everything, don’t cling to the old world
Then answer the following question: To change everything, what would you do?
