And I’ll add a semi-related fable.
There were a group of 5 monkeys that all lived on a tropical island; they survived by climbing trees to get bananas.
One day, the monkeys are taken to a lab and placed in an enclosure that somewhat captured the original environment. The only difference was that if any monkey climbed the tree, they’d all get soaked with freezing cold water from a sprinkler system. The monkeys were forced to eat simulated banana paste from a stainless steel bowl on the ground.
Every day for the first few months, at least one monkey would try to climb the tree - either to forage or just for fun, it’s irrelevant - and all the monkeys would end up soaking wet and freezing. It got to the point where if any monkey even went towards the tree, the rest would attack it. Eventually, the monkeys left the tree alone.
So the scientists removed 2 of the monkeys, and added 3 more that were freshly captured. These monkeys had no idea about the cold water, so would inevitably try to climb the tree - resulting in them being savagely attacked by the remaining original 3 monkeys.
Eventually, without even knowing why, the new monkeys left the tree alone.
The scientists then removed the 3 original monkeys, and replaced them with 3 more fresh monkeys, who were of course attacked when they tried to climb the tree.
Soon, though no monkey had ever been wet or cold in its entire existence (within this enclosure), they’d all avoid the tree that they’d depended on their entire life “because that’s how it goes.”
It’s time to stop attacking our fellow monkeys, and break out of this lab. I want some god-damn bananas.
The problem is that I’m trying to build community - I’ve been trying to build community; nobody wants to act. Everyone agrees we’re fucked, and yet nobody wants to do ANYTHING.
My town wasn’t affected by Ferguson. My town wasn’t affected by masks, unless you wore one. My town’s mayor is named Billy Bob. We have an annual Catfish Festival.
If I wasn’t sentimental, I’d sell the place and move to Luxembourg, or New Zealand. Somewhere far away with a nice view for when you (not you personally, mind you) mother fuckers ruin it all.
I totally understand. Really. I live in the same kind of town. (Unfortunately, the local town festival is large enough–despite the size of the town—that describing it would dox me.) It’s super disheartening. I wore a P100 repirator in public through most of the pandemic. I think that there’s maybe five black families in the whole town, and people were really hostile to the BLM protests. …Despite also being very aware of how corrupt the local sheriff is. (And still voting for the same fucker every year because he’s Republican!)
But you can’t get a progressive–or leftist–candidate elected without having a very strong local organization first. And that means, yes, years of feeling like you’re beating your head against a wall. And maybe it never works in your town, but maybe it does in the next town over.
Here’s something else to mull over - if it’s not working in your town, what makes you think that they’re going to go along with that kind of thing when it’s top-down? This is the problem of politics; you need to build enough of a consensus that you have a majority, or super majority, in order to get shit done. Simply being factually correct (e.g., climate collapse, pandemic, etc.) isn’t enough, unless what you want is a totalitarian, authoritarian gov’t.
I don’t think they will, hence the depression.