So some people asked me yesterday what they can do. I feel bad cuz I know how to write an essay and the last paragraph is supposed to be a call for action and I totally skipped that part. So today I will run down some resources for things that everyone can do, without changing their lives or anything like that. Hell you can do most of this stuff while you're surfing people profiles and mindlessly rating and friending people you don't know, lol.
First a quick plug, anyone in Kansas should check this guy out,
here here is a link to his comic,
All right now on to the good stuff, first thing is educate yourself. You should take everything spoon fed to you, even by the news. Check the facts, check what people said, sometimes people over simplify things, sometimes people only present the facts that support their argument, sometimes (though rare in standard media) people straight up lie.
google and
wikipedia are your friends here, though if you read it on Wikipedia I would verify it with a second source, but it is usually more than 90% truthful.
When I say educate yourself I mean on more than just fact checking, if you don't know how things work, then how can you evaluate solutions and come up with new ones. How can you vote without knowing how that vote is counting? Do you know how
Superdelegates are chosen? or why they are around? Do you know how the
presidential elections work? Do you know how
oil prices are set? Do you know how the Supreme Court works? What about how a countries
currency value is set? These are things everyone should have learned in school, but then common people would be empowered and who wants that.
What else can you do? Well there is probably an action group for every problem out there. What are you passionate about? What do you care about? Some people might be interested in who is taking money from whom, and why. For you I would suggest
checking these guys out. Some people want to work on solving the energy crisis we have in this country. For you a good place to start would be
here. Want to talk about, and research the idea of national healthcare? Maybe you want to start
over there.
For those of you who do not like any of these groups, or have something else that you are interested in try checking out indexes for these groups. In 30 second I found a great list of this stuff on
yahoo.There is also the other option, and this isn't for most people, Make one yourself. All you need is a place you can steal office supplies from and a website. Or perhaps bring back the classic style of grass roots groups and travel around your hood inviting people.
The key is awareness is the first step but it isn't going to change anything. From awareness we must take action.
