Hi there. Remember me? I've been busy. I've been doing the usual mom/wife/employee stuff, CodePink SD has been active, and I started a class. Whew. I get tired just writing it down here. This morning I've been working in the yard, but it's hot so I'm taking a break.
Last weekend the CPer's passed out flyers about the Downing Street minutes in downtown, and on Sunday they walked down the boardwalk at the beach doing the same. I didn't join them Sunday. I wanted a day off. But I posted messages about it at afterdowningstreet.org and at Activist SD, and we had several new people show up. The downtown crowd was not particularly friendly, but the beach people were more mixed. I've been thinking alot about where we should hold our events and actions, and have pretty much decided that we really need to focus on areas where people will be more aligned with either our ideas or respect our right to be out in public expressing them. It does no one any good if we're just spending our time being confronted by angry people. We're not going to change their minds, they're not going to change ours, and it's not a productive use of time and energy. We need to be where we can garner support from people who lean toward or agree with our goals. I'd rather approach this a little differently than we have been doing the last couple months.
Personally, I think we need to become a visible and active community oriented peace/social justice organization. I think if we work within those communities and support other like-minded organizations, they will in turn support us. Then we can take our projects and our flyers and our petitions (etc) into those communities and hopefully they can support our goals in return.
Which was small part of the reason for my idea for us to join the LGBT pride parade yesterday. We asked the Coalition for Peace and Justice if we could join them, and they said the more the merrier (gayer?), so we marched with them. We aren't a large group, but we're very pink so people remember us. It was a lot of fun. Interesting dynamics in these coalitions though. There's a whole bunch of smart people with strong opinions, and it's made me do a lot of thinking about how diverse groups can work together effectively. More on that another day.
Last weekend the CPer's passed out flyers about the Downing Street minutes in downtown, and on Sunday they walked down the boardwalk at the beach doing the same. I didn't join them Sunday. I wanted a day off. But I posted messages about it at afterdowningstreet.org and at Activist SD, and we had several new people show up. The downtown crowd was not particularly friendly, but the beach people were more mixed. I've been thinking alot about where we should hold our events and actions, and have pretty much decided that we really need to focus on areas where people will be more aligned with either our ideas or respect our right to be out in public expressing them. It does no one any good if we're just spending our time being confronted by angry people. We're not going to change their minds, they're not going to change ours, and it's not a productive use of time and energy. We need to be where we can garner support from people who lean toward or agree with our goals. I'd rather approach this a little differently than we have been doing the last couple months.
Personally, I think we need to become a visible and active community oriented peace/social justice organization. I think if we work within those communities and support other like-minded organizations, they will in turn support us. Then we can take our projects and our flyers and our petitions (etc) into those communities and hopefully they can support our goals in return.
Which was small part of the reason for my idea for us to join the LGBT pride parade yesterday. We asked the Coalition for Peace and Justice if we could join them, and they said the more the merrier (gayer?), so we marched with them. We aren't a large group, but we're very pink so people remember us. It was a lot of fun. Interesting dynamics in these coalitions though. There's a whole bunch of smart people with strong opinions, and it's made me do a lot of thinking about how diverse groups can work together effectively. More on that another day.
posted by Terry at 11:23 AM
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