one day

They're marching tomorrow.  It's about damn time.

After Monsanto has almost succeeded in getting Congress to subsidize its crimes against humanity and the earth, after their leadership roster has provided the perfect retirement or second career for ex-government officials, after they've almost prohibited us from knowing what is in the food we buy...after the farmer lawsuits and the health crises and the colony collapses and the suicides in India...people are finally starting to look up and pay a little attention to what they're doing to this planet where we all live.

Some people.  Not nearly enough.  Maybe not soon enough.  I try to be optimistic, or at least to withhold comment when I'm not, to leave room for others to be.  But this is a hard one.  The infection of greed and corruption is too pervasive; the plan of attack too insidious.  I need to scroll through that list again of cities that have organized "March Against Monsanto" demonstrations tomorrow.  It's worldwide.  And it's pretty a impressive list.  Even the part that represents this country.  (http://occupy-monsanto.com/march-against-monsanto-may-25-2013/).  But tomorrow's actions hinge on turnout.  And ever so much more on what comes after that.

What would it take?  To move more of us into the action this world urgently needs from us?  What would involve enough of the workers, the families, the middle-ground ones whose collective voice would -- possibly -- shift the balance?

I put this question to friends on the social site.  It was a practical query, not an ideological one.  What tangible factors, I asked, might give us all the time/space/comfort/will to consider, and possibly to act, on the heavy issues?  A day off work?  A few stiff drinks on the house?  Free childcare?  A cash incentive?

And I got a nice collection of responses.  Surprising, since not many people take me up on my sleepless-idealist inquiries.  Childcare got the most votes.  That's cool:  I've said for years that as soon as protest organizers advertise free childcare, they'll get the turnout from the workers they're trying to represent.  Second most popular answer was time.  I won't get philosophical about that one here.  For whatever reasons, yes, we all feel short on time.  More knowledge (definitely).  "Financial plausibility".  Better community networks.  Knowing your neighbors -- which I took to be about remembering that we can, in fact, reach outside the walls of our own houses and other constructs.  To ask for help, to empower ourselves, and then to pass it on once we're able.

But there were some nice surprises in their answers, too.  Comfort.  A commodity we in this country might have both in too great and too short supply.  We don't act for the greater good, however we may perceive such a thing, because we are individually so chronically uncomfortable.  From our poor health habits.  From the exhausting schedules the capitalist economy imposes on us, and from the unending list of wants and needs we impose on ourselves when we buy into it. From the fact that we (as a nation) consume so much altered, processed, chemical-tainted, unnatural food.  From the toxic binges of threat and drama and shadow and judgment that we let mainstream news force-feed us, and from all the real news looming just outside the peripheral vision, that we're afraid to look in the face.   After surviving all the above, where is there possibly room for more bad news?  More comfort is what we look for.  And (for many, though not of course for all) it's easy enough to come by enough comfort to make action seem unnecessary.  Or at least, to leave the threats far enough removed to be only some sort of bad dream.  To be forgotten quickly by consuming more comfort.

We don't act because we're uncomfortable, and we don't act because we're too comfortable.  Is there a way into this?   How do we find a balance between "comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable"? Is there a way to meet both our very human tendency toward complacency and avoidance (or, let me be a little less critical and say, inertia), and the perfectly valid dread and anxiety which confronting our world's current realities produces?  How do we convey the intensity of the need, in a way that incites real action from an authentic source in each person?  How is it possible to salute the inherent worth and value of each person as well as engaging them with their responsibility to the whole?

Here's one thing I'm envisioning, lately:  a world in which just one day, once in a while, is given to getting outside the comfort zone and working together for something bigger.  Just one day.  We have so many holidays on the calendar, for so many diverse actions and observances.  We've agreed on consistent occasions to celebrate, to gather with family, eat, drink, relax, be comfortable.  But we talk so much on the "regular" days -- some of us, anyway -- about the need for better.  Why don't we have a holiday devoted to collective social change?  Just one day a year:  is that asking too much?   We don't even use half the holidays we have now for their stated purpose.  Memorial Day isn't, unless you're actually a war veteran or close to one, for remembering.  Labor Day, for most, is neither about laboring nor being mindful of labor conditions.  On Presidents' Day we don't honor, petition or protest any president.  We just have all these miniature vacations with nice names on them.  And that on top of the weekend all those people with "normal" jobs get.  Couldn't there be room in the year for a day for building the new in the shell of the old?  Construction Day.  Reconstruction Day.

I'm as frustrated with my own inaction here as with anybody's.  I don't have the answers to all these questions.  Except this:  only together, yes?  Marches and demonstrations seem such a scratch on the surface...but, we've got to start acting any and everywhere that we each see that we can.  For the life of us.
See you downtown at noon tomorrow.