Get Active.

Okay, so clearly a daily goal of blogging was not a realistic achievement to start with...

I've been thinking lately of a great multitude of things, from activism, my personal hero(ine)s, my music, and (probably due to PMDD hormones) the insanity and angst of failed relationships.

I'm not sure really what the catalyst was for my recent and fervent obsession with getting involved in activist groups, but it probably had something to do with the realization that I've not really made any positive contribution toward the movements that mean something to me. I suppose there are even more reasons that I have not thought much consciously about getting involved. I, being a liberal-minded person (for the sake of context), feel there are many issues that speak to me personally, from feminism, women's rights, civil rights, animal rights, and so on and so forth.

I read a comment on Facebook yesterday that best summed up how I personally feel about the impending change in the Army's DADT (Don't Ask, Don't Tell) policy. It said, (hoping not to misquote) "The last two institutions I want telling me about morals are the government and the Church." I liked that because these two concepts have been so bastardized beyond original intent, that in our current society likens both to corruption and greed.

I also joined PETA, as I posted previously, because in addition to the obvious ideas of animal rights, it is far more environmentally friendly. Removing animals and their products from our diets is far healthier for my body and the environment. (As I may or may not have stated in this issue, it's just a matter of personal preference for me. I am not the arbiter of anyone else's affairs, nor would I hope to impose my feelings on this matter on anyone!)

As far as feminism is concerned, I believe that most of our society does not even know what it means. Women should have the same rights and privileges as men, PERIOD. I, naively, assumed that in our modern American society, we had somehow attained this. I was so rudely awakened to the great realization that I had either been delusional or, and I believe more likely, I was misinformed. TODAY, yes in 2010, a woman still receives less pay than a man for the same job with the same experience and credentials.

Alice Paul would be rolling in her grave if she knew. This is appalling. We've sent humans to the moon, cloned live organisms, and found ways to medically resuscitate someone from near death, but women are still not "worth" as much as men.

We also, as I have alluded to earlier, have established laws governing what specifically, women can or can not do with their bodies, who we can and cannot marry and have recognized rights, and yet we are sending flocks of troops to other nations professing emphatically, "Democracy is the way!"

In a Poly Sci class I had, we discovered that two things are errant with this. One, what we have is not really a democracy. Two, if the principle way our government works is by representing proportionately the views of the citizens to law making and enforcing agencies, and the majority has expressed a view on some issue, and the elected person doesn't defend that view, then clearly our "system is broken."

Well coming up with the problem was fairly simple. The solution, however, is not all too complicated, though. Less than a quarter of American citizens vote (they have elections for other than just the President). Probably, I have found, due to complete apathy and complacency of the citizen. Women's Suffrage took decades to achieve. Abolishment of slavery took decades. Doesn't one of our great early "national treasures" start out saying that "all men are created equal?" Now we have herds of people complaining about immigration and even helping other countries, such as Haiti.

This almost makes me nauseated and smile at the same time, because it always reminds me of one of my favorite bands, The Talking Heads. Why talk if you have nothing to say?

I have something to say: if you are uninformed, get informed before you try to cram your oppressive views down other people's throats. I have some "friends" who are vehemently opposed to helping the Haiti earthquake victims because "we need to take care of ourselves first." They, not surprisingly, are the same folks preaching to "send the immigrants back from where they came here from." Uninformed is a gross understatement. I am the descendant of immigrants. I'm not petitioning for DAR status, but I know for a fact that my German/Irish family had at some point IMMIGRATED to this continent for some reason. I've never seen a deed to the planet, but I've never heard or read anywhere that human beings own this planet. There were living things before humans, and will surely be some living organism long after our extinction. What right do we have saying that we can or cannot travel to some place on this planet?

I am getting anemic wasting my energy thinking instead of doing. What makes all Americans, but not humans, equal? We're all human beings! We have far greater things in common than differences, and if we, as a global society, could stop to acknowledge this for a while, perhaps it wouldn't matter so much what language we spoke, what kind of god you believed or didn't believe in, or who can have the most money. We all succumb to illnesses, most of which have cures or treatments. We, as humans, have the capacity to communicate, feel, think, create, empathize, encourage, and love. Why then, do we keep focusing on our ability to find minute differences, dominate, oppress, torture, and kill? Instead of investing so extravagantly in the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, why not invest in eradicating diseases in underdeveloped nations, where water is poison? Why not help end genocide in Darfur? Men, women, and children are dying at an unspeakable rate. Perhaps that's the heart of the problem; it's unspeakable.

So I'm getting involved. I'm not quite ready or able to host another LiveAid, but in any way possible, I'd like to do something to contribute positively to the betterment of the human experience, especially for those persons who have no voice.

I can think of no more admirable footsteps to follow than those of Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Anne Frank, Nelson Mandella, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Alice Paul. Those, are big footprints to follow, indeed, but for the future of humanity, they must have been, as we still have so very far to go. I believe that I have learned a great deal from the teachers I've had over the years, both in formal education, and outside. I have a friend who first showed me, at thirteen, that one person CAN in fact make a difference. I got an A in Civics in high school, but it seems irrelevant if I don't do anything with it.

I suppose I'm going into more of a Mr. Smith-esque filibuster on this, but as I go out from here into this day, my new earnest resolution is to, in some capacity, try to do good each day, whatever and however that might happen.
-Shayna