071208 DC March

So I made a trip this weekend to Washington DC for the "Ron Paul Revolution March". I've never been to DC so it was interesting to see some place new. The rally started with a march down Constitution Ave. and ended up on the lawn of the capitol building. I would say that there were about 10,000 people there, give or take. The crowd was fairly well represented with all kinds of peeps, but I would say that there may have been a higher concentration of peeps that are slightly rougher around the edges. Not too many 3 piece suits, although I did see one guy in a suit with some radios tucked inside the back of his pants. This didn't really suprise me because change always starts on the fringes of society and makes its way inward. (You can tell when something is finally embraced by the late adopters when you can buy a POS knock off of the real thing at Walmart for unsustainably cheap prices.) I felt like I was in good company as a person who dances on the fringe of society as well.

There were a lot of speakers, some of which I have either read or heard about. The content was familiar although some was new or updated since previous events. The thing I enjoyed the most though, is that all of these people who essentially didn't know each other happened to find their way to DC on this day. The info regarding the time, place, content, etc... was not widely publicized by any major media outlet, (actually probably ignored) yet 10,000 peeps found their way to DC. Of course this was mostly due to the interweb, but never the less peeps made their way. If you'd have asked me 10 years ago do I think that I'm an activist, I would have definitely said no. I thought then and would still say that society in general looks down on activists in an unspoken way. Like somehow they are F'd up nut job wackos because they are willing to act upon that which they believe. Which is complete irony because the most "successful" or "effective" peeps are the ones that act on things. In fact it is Stephen Covey's first habit of highly effective people. Be proactive. So there were 10,000 people being proactive for the cause of freedom and liberty in America. I would say that I still don't think of myself as an activist. I simply think of myself as someone that acts upon that which they believe.

The thing I don't get is how people continually enjoy complaining about things rather than actually doing something about it. It is like it's part of their identity. If they didn't have anything to complain about, they wouldn't know what to say. Like the concept of being happy is unattainable. No matter what happens, something will be bad about it. Almost everyone I know, has at least some grievance with the way that this country is run, yet most do nothing about changing it or fixing it. Maybe the whole proactive thing scares people to death. We waste so much time doing BS that totally doesn't matter and yet we still somehow can't find the time to really make a difference. We can find time to forward a stupid email from whoever to 5 people in the next 10 minutes and your dreams will come true (which you know is BS), but we can't send a 5 minute email to our elected officials who actually run the country stating our deep dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq, the economy, civil liberties, etc.... Maybe peeps just don't realize how easy it is these days to contact their elected officials. You can email or call and the email addresses and phone numbers are right on the web. In fact, most people don't even pay for long distance anymore so that is a moot point.

I know you care about something, anything. It might be the whales, the manatees, the economy, Real ID, the NAU, the environment, nuclear power, .... whatever. Here is your personal invitation; find your representatives email addresses and email them about the thing that you care about. Ask them what they are doing about it and what they plan to do about it in the future. That is the warm up. Now you will have their email addresses in your address book so when you hear some really crazy shit that is going down, you get on the ole interweb and you email them about that too. It's their job to represent you. Make them work for it. You would want to find your:

US Representative
US Senator
State Representative
State Senator
City Mayor
City Council Members

Now really do it. Go ahead, I triple dog dare you.