Take Action
The multiple converging emergencies that threaten to overwhelm our world are not your fault or mine. But if we don’t take responsibility, who will?
Thankfully, more and more people around the world are waking from the trance of “business as usual” and finding ways to speak out and work for change. It turns out that regardless of success or failure, working together in a worthy cause is inspiring, invigorating, and deeply fulfilling. And there are literally millions of ways to plug in, from small groups to large organizations.
In this space I will offer a sampling of options for contributing your time and energy where it is needed most – or at least dipping your toe into the current of change. I concentrate my own efforts on three particular areas (listed below), but I contribute to many others by signing a petition, showing up at a rally, making a donation . . .
Every issue is vitally important, and for each, one or more citizen groups has formed to work for fairness and sanity. Pick the one that calls to you and give what you can. Time, money, energy, creativity – it all counts.
To learn more, read my essay “The Community of Hope” here.
To plunge right in without further ado, check out the suggestions on the right-hand side of this page. Below you’ll find links to my own particular issues of priority concern.
HOW YOU CAN HELP:
LAME DUCK TO-DO LIST. Joe Biden has stepped aside, but not down. Sign a petition from Daily Kos here encouraging him to step up instead! As a “lame duck” president, he is now free to pursue his (and our) agenda of freedom and responsibility without worrying about alienating big-money donors. And thanks to the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, he can do it with impunity! The Daily Kos checklist includes declaring a climate emergency, denying permits for fossil fuel projects, protecting abortion access, raising the minimum wage, forgiving student loans, decriminalizing marijuana and pardoning past offenders, firing postmaster Louis DeJoy, and more.
DEFEND GOVERNMENT REGULATION. The Supreme Court recently knocked the legs out from under government regulation of greedy corporations by eliminating the “Chevron doctrine,” which for 40 years has permitted regulators to use the training and education they were hired for to interpret ad apply the laws passed by Congress. Every decision they make can now be challenged in court, where judges with no expertise in finance, workplace safety, environmental science (etc., etc.) will call the shots. Sign here to be a grassroots sponsor of Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s Stop Corporate Capture Act, which codifies Chevron, requires transparency in federal rulemaking, limits judicial interference with public-interest rules, establishes an “Office of the Public Advocate,” and empowers citizens to sue both corporations that violate the rules and agencies that fail to enforce them.
(And remember, signing petitions is not enough!)
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington)
Take Action and Learn More
Our political, social, and environmental concerns are all connected at the root. I have concentrated my own efforts on the three areas listed below, Every issue is vitally important, and for each, one or more citizen groups has formed to work for fairness and sanity. Pick the one that calls to you and give what you can. Time, money, energy, creativity – it all counts.
Stephen Wing
Poet, activist and author Stephen Wing lives in Atlanta with his wife Dawn Aura and assorted pets. Read more about him here.