People active in politics talk a good game about accountability, but usually we're talking about what someone else needs to do - not how we live our lives. When asked what needs to be done, we discuss at length all the changes we want someone else to make, all the problems someone else is causing, all the strategic blunders made by others on our side of a controversy, and so on. But the most important subject is usually the one we give the least attention: The decisions we make on a daily basis; the priorities of our personal budgets; the things each of us could do that we have not yet done. This, therefore, is my personal report to my fellow citizens on what I'm doing, what I intend to do, and what more I could do for them and for the world.
A citizen is a public servant: There is no other meaningful definition of the word to distinguish it from "consumer" or "resident." To be a citizen is to be an active participant in shaping and advancing the goals and ideas of a country, not merely being someone who uses its privileges in exchange for being subject to its laws. This is the utmost fundamental basis of democracy, beneath even constitutionalism and elections - the recognition that we each create our country by our actions and decisions, and do not merely inherit and react to it.
I. Creating America
These are activities I'm undertaking through my own initiative, using my own ideas, to help shape our future as a nation. They are not as direct or grandiose as government program, but I feel they maximally leverage my talents and resources as an individual.
- Writing the definitive history of the Bush regime.
This is a long-term research and writing project I've discussed in some of my diaries here, and have periodically posted updates about the various research sub-projects involved in the early stages. My goal is to clarify and firmly establish a comprehensive record of who these people are and what they did. I intend it to become a standard reference, but also a readable narrative, encompassing events that even most activist liberals only saw fragments of in passing. I am designing the research program behind it to be maximally useful and beneficial to other scholars and activists who may pick up parts of the information and dig even deeper.
In a few weeks (at the outside, months), this project will yield its first fruits: A list of all George W. Bush appointees with their titles and years of appointment - a resource that I've not found anywhere else in nearly half a year of sporadic work on the project. The list is vast, and I know some people will appreciate it - several have expressed interest. Unfortunately, I am discovering the reality of Hofstadter's Law - "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
- Writing a satiric novel about free market cultism.
This is a project that just sprang up on me unawares, and is now dominating my attention. Its basic structure is fully formed in my mind, and most of the work will be in fleshing it out. I have no clue how long it will take, but I know exactly what I'm doing and how I plan to proceed. So far, I'm quite pleased with the brainstorm ideas and narrative fragments I've gotten down. It is, unfortunately, distracting me from the research work described above, but this project is already in a much more advanced stage than that, and probably has a wider audience, so I'm content to focus on this for the time being.
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II. Maintaining America
These are activities I'm undertaking in concert with others, as part of organizations, or through the auspices of established programs.
- Political contributions.
In the past election, I contributed something on the order of half my monthly income for October to a variety of Democratic candidates through ActBlue. In retrospect, I could also have done so in preceding months, but the urgency of the situation had not occurred to me until October. I may have also given a little bit of to MoveOn, although I'm not exactly sure - I was sort of in berserker-giving mode.
- Phone-banking.
I tried my hand at phonebanking through OFA, but discovered that I'm very ill-suited to it and found it tremendously stressful. Instead, I donated $40 to OFA.
- Voted.
Kind of embarrassing that it's worth bragging about something so obviously in one's self-interest, not to mention being a civic duty. But given that so many people have to be dragged kicking and screaming to exercise freedoms millions of people died to give them, it's still important to note that someone keeps the fire burning.
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III. Plans
- General contributing.
At the moment I'm looking into a variety of philanthropic options to spread around some money from my microscopic income - money that I would otherwise just spend on Thai food and lesbian spanking porn (you know, typical American pastimes).
Presently I'm looking into microlending through Kiva.org, and will very likely do something through there. It's kind of ironic, actually - some of the people getting the loans probably have more money than I do, but if they can do something more with it than I can, I'm happy to help. Which isn't to say I have no great ideas of my own, it's just they would all cost billions of dollars - on the scale of my income, I yield the floor to other minds.
I'll probably also do something related to space - which is actually my highest priority, but doesn't lend itself very well to small-scale participation. There are a number of orgs who might get some money, though of course not much.
And, of course, there's the vast list of general humanitarian and science advocacy groups that can always use some funding, but I haven't looked too deeply into that sector yet.
- Iraq War memorial.
This is a very vague, tenuous idea that I call a "plan" only because I intend to do something like this in the indefinite future when I have the resources. Basically, it would memorialize not only the American troops killed in Iraq, but also the dead Iraqi civilians, and the plaque would say something like "To the murdered people of Iraq, killed by George Walker Bush and Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney in the savage conquest of their country, and to the brave members of the US Armed Forces murdered by their leaders in a war of treason." Something like that, although definitely worded more eloquently. I do, however, intend to put it in Austin, Texas - in Bush's backyard (Crawford is way too rural) - and have it be as big as possible where it will piss off a maximum number of wingnuts, while still having the Austin art crowd to support it. But this is many years away.
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IV. Possibilities
Anything is possible, of course. But I would like to think the following have a significant chance of happening at some point.
- Volunteer work.
I'm kind of awkward with people (Asperger's and whatnot), so I haven't yet actually volunteered apart from my abortive attempt at phonebanking, but I like to think I'll become directly involved at some point. Not just for political causes, either - but for all the issues and projects that I consider important. Unfortunately, most volunteer work seems to concern things that aren't really part of my skillset - fundraising, canvassing, "community organizing," and other vague activities that translate as interacting with people and acting as a nonprofit salesman. But I'll figure it out. Maybe I can find volunteer programs with subsidized travel - that might be interesting.
- Art patronage.
I really like innovative architecture and civic art (when they don't suck or look like they're trying too hard to be arty). These things are way, way, way beyond my ability to fund individually, but maybe I can help get smaller projects started.
- Education programs / grants / foundations
If I were rich, I'd go so batshit funding education. If I had a billion dollars, I'd found a university. But alas, I'm a multi-hundredaire. But I'll see what I can do.
- Take public transportation.
I could do this right now if I didn't hate waiting with an inhuman passion. There's also the fact that buses around here are dogshit, still run on gasoline, cost more than they should, have very limited routes and schedules, and the only people who use them are little old ladies who don't speak English and preteens. Most of the benches aren't covered either, and the area is a desert, so that's one more reason.
For longer distances, there's Metrolink, which seems unbelievably overpriced, and whose stations mainly seem to be in empty industrial or civic areas of the cities it passes through, out of range of most reasons to go there - unless, of course, one feels like walking eight blocks through downtown, not knowing where the gang zones are.
I could walk, but to say that my "community" (a corporate-owned planned suburb) is unwalkable would be an understatement - it's about a 45-minute roundtrip walking from where I live to the nearest commercial area, and about a two-hour trip to the next nearest, and this is a fully-developed area. Sometimes I do make the trip anyway, but the weather is often uncooperative - like the 112-degree days we had in October. Another option would be a bicycle, but it's not really a practical option for carrying things.
If I bought into the worst-case climate scenarios, I would swallow all these complaints and just do what needed to be done, but the fact is I don't - and the mere awareness of how precarious our situation is isn't sufficient to drive a specific course of action on my part. I will support all initiatives to expand and improve public transit, to incentivize green technology and electric vehicles, and to make systems more efficient, but for the moment the personal cost exceeds the motivation for individual lifestyle change. It isn't really that big of a deal in my case anyway - I rarely drive far.
- Become a philanthropist
Technically giving at all makes one a "philanthropist," but I might enjoy doing it as a career. I haven't looked too deeply at it, but it seems like an appealing possibility. Nothing gives me greater satisfaction that to see things built, places and institutions improved, opportunities created, and new possibilities born. I'm keeping it in mind for future reference.
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So this is my Citizen Report - less broadly relevant than a government agency's 2000-page reports, but surely more readable. Now you know what I'm doing for you and what I might do in the future. Feel free to offer suggestions. I am at your service, fellow Americans and members of Humanity.