Thinking about how to process the Colorado shooting, and whether politics can play a part without poisoning it.
Ill Doctrine is a video blog on music, politics and culture, launched in 2007 by Jay Smooth. We will be premiering two episodes a week on ANIMAL. Older episodes can be found at IllDoctrine.com and you can follow Jay on Twitter here.
There is a lot communities can do to better support others in the community who may need some help, but at some point policy and "politics" will also come into play, just because we can only do so much as individuals. I do a lot of work getting citizens and organizations to be more engaged with local and state politics as advocates and what I hear sometimes is "we (org) can't be involved because it is too political",even though the work is non-partisan (but, yeah, progressive). But "politics" has become this dirty word b/c of our association with negative ad campaigns, all the grandstanding, divisivness, blah, blah. But those politics are what makes policy that affects an org's services it can offer to clients, so ignoring it doesn't really mean it won't affect you. I sometimes wonder if there has been a concerted effort to poison the well of politics, so people will just say "well, you can't fight city hall" instead of challenging what goes on in city hall when needed. We need "politics" (meaning, a way to represent individuals' voices in our policies) if want to make meaningful changes in society.
I agree that negativity and consumerism are used as tools for disempowerment. Most television is designed to be depressing rather than cathartic and inspiring and artistic because channels are sponsored by advertisers who sell food and anti-depressants. The sadder you are, the more likely you are to turn outward rather than inward for a solution. So like you said, if you poison politics, you poison citizen activism.
I wish I could have said all that! I’ve been trying to say those things for so long. Well done!