How do I escape "activism fatigue"?

[hsher]

I'm considering giving up the fight. I've been trying for months to put together an American Freedom/Peace festival and just can't get it done. I am running out of steam because I'm surrounded by people who ignore me. Even on this site I get ignored! Nobody seems to care about what we're losing in this country. I'm so exhausted by the people who steal my ideas and energy and never help out. I don't want people to send money, I want them to put sweat equity in some things! I keep meeting people who lie and say they're interested, then do nothing! How do you keep from giving in to apathy and activism fatigue? But then again... why do I even try, even here at DU?

Nevermind, nobody ever answers my posts anyway. :(
Go ahead, ignore this one, too.

[Monkeyman]

1. Go to Veterans For Peace .org I don;t ignore you

Set something up with them

[hsher]

5. Thank you MM

I will.

[IndyOp]

2. Hsher - I hesitate to respond, but...

I don't know you and I don't know your background - whether you've working professionally in non-profits for 30 years or whether you an idealist who has great ideas, but has not lead team efforts in the past.

I suggest that you join in on something that others around you are doing for peace & freedom. You contribute sweat equity to their projects and they will be more likely to reciprocate.

I don't think most people are lying when they say they are interested - they may not realize the size of the task they have taken on or they (like you?) may not have experience going from 'great idea' to 'making it happen'.

Just a thought... :shrug:

I disagree with you that no one here cares - disagree strongly.

[hsher]

4. Thank you for answering, gives me SOME hope I guess

I'm the idealist who has great ideas. I have led team efforts before, but I only started becoming active in the past three years. Before that, young silly me, I had to devote my time to my mother's recovery from cancer. I started as a Child For Consumer Justice in the Seventies, back when I was a preteen and Ralph Nader was a consumer advocate, not a politician. I also met many activist friends of my father's between 1971-1976 when he was doing that sort of thing, and as much as a child could, I helped with putting out signs, distributing leaflets, et cetera. There is nothing wrong with great ideas. Some of us, fortunately or unfortunately, know that's our greatest strength. Not everybody is an idea person, just like not everyone is a goer and doer, and like not every tool is a hammer or screwdriver. Sometimes the blueprint is just as important as the toolbox. Where would one be without the other...? But, not to defend my blueprintyness.

I *have* contributed sweat equity in the past. It exposed me to the stuff that really drains me and makes me want to give up: internal power struggles, women backstabbing other activist women because of a guy, women backstabbing etc because of a woman, guys going ego mad and power mad and taking over the whole thing, people squabbling, ideas being stolen, folks not being credited, money being misappropriated and misused -- and that king of all revolution killers, "too much groupthink". These are the things that make me feel tired and just want to throw up my hands and say forget it, hand the country over to the conservatives, they're organized; we can't even decide where to get the coffee from without the groupkillers and energysuckers ruining it for everybody.

We're all too independent over here on the left. Nobody wants to listen to anybody. We think it's "giving in" or "giving away our power" or "obeying authority". Ever try to corral a group of cats? Dogs can be herded and focused to one purpose. Neocons have pack mentality. We libs act like a bunch of cats: obeying none and all stalking separate game on a me me me mission. I love cats, but cat think is very destructive to any organization trying to organize and get anything constructive done... sigh... well, there's my explanation of it anyway. :(

[Brian Stevens]

16. It is ok to be nihlistic

Nihlism is good, history has proven that. The problem is, you thought backwards to things that never worked. The problem we had with you is your ideas went to a time of america southern bigotry, for which you were trying to push against Fox News Employees instead of blacks. Your heart is in the right place, but you want the "whites only" signs of the 60's changed to "Non Fox News Employees Only"

[capaylib]

3. Where is your event?

As a child of revolutionaries, I am very accustomed to the disappointment of people not getting it. I think you are strenghty for trying to do something and you will just have to keep beating the horse until something gives. Join in other events to build up a stronger base of support and don't give up. The charge that you will get when something you are organizing works....can pull you through many a dark, bleak and apathetic day/month/year.

Keep your chin up!

[hsher]

6. It was going to be in Vermont

It looks like I may have to make it Berkeley or someplace else West Coast.

I really see this happening. But it's so hard. I called a festival organizer and he hasn't returned any of my phone calls, even though I am willing to pay him, and it will be MY MONEY backing this entire thing. There aren't a lot of festival organizers in NM. I need someone good at logistics. It just can't be found here. And in other states, I just don't know where to start.

I started calling different rock bands' managers and comedians' managers, but that turned into a nightmare. I'm just not cut out for that at all. I mean, I'm good at it -- I got the interest of Stewart and Colbert for a minute -- I definitely know "who to call" and "how to find them" -- but the meanness of the entertainment industry is too much for me, which is why I've kind of left it and am hiding from it right now. You have to be a certain tough kind of person to wrangle with managers, and have to be sometimes rude to them, and I'm a Libra, I just can't do that for long or I get physically sick a la Kurt Cobain... bad stomach... ulcers, pain...

Here is my problem:

PRO:

A rock and political comedy American Freedom festival the size of Woodstock would be a good idea. It would accomplish SO MUCH. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert actually wanted to headline it! If I put it together, they'd probably play it, their schedules permitting. But:

CONS:

1. There's just too much to do.
2. I need to decide on a venue and don't know what city.
3. Until I know what city, I don't know what venue.
4. I can't decide on a date. All I know is summer 2007.
5. I don't know what bands people will want to see there.
6. I do know what comics, but their managers are jerks. Esp Stewart & Colbert's = a NASTY dude.
7. I need logistics people to calculate costs for me, how many portapotties, etc.
8. Food. Water. Beverages. People will need these.

Nobody can do all this stuff alone. When I talk to people about it, they get excited and want me to do all the work then invite them and their representatives to it. Dot Maven over at the Dept of Peace comes to mind. She and Kucinich and their folks LOVED the idea, but when push came to shove they expected me to do all the work, and wouldn't so much as suggest a logistics person. Vermont's tourist association did, I must admit - but that person never called me back. By the time I finally reached him, I had done so much work alone on 1 thru 8, I was burned out, exhausted and bitter, and in pessimist anger I canceled out on Stewart and Colbert. They'll probably hate me forever. They communicated through their management they were "extremely disappointed" I canceled them.

But I burned out. I'm only human and I am only one person. This is why I can't create change in the world. I tried - I reached out to people for help - and they lazily ignored me until I burnt to a crisp. In the end, it's sadder but easier to just say "fuck it", "fuck them all", "let the country die", and sit at home eating chips and watching stuff on YouTube. I feel I'm letting myself down, but I did what I could... I really did. :(

[hsher]

7. Nevermind. I'm done with it. People here attack you.

I'm done with this forum and signing off. You bring people ideas to try to help the country, and they attack you. Nothing can help America out of this, I'm convinced of it. When you have people like Vive La Revolution and others accusing you of "hate" for calling for a non-violent boycott against right-wingers and a right-wing network like FOX, how can you effect any change? It's sad and pathetic how passive we've become in this country. The Founding Fathers must be rolling in their graves witnessing this, if that were possible. I'm glad unto G-d that it's not. The shame, the ignominy, would be too much to bear.

So far as I am concerned, the right has conquered this nation. We are too busy arguing and eagerly "shooting out all the lights" among each other to do anything to stop them. Those of us who had fire in our bellies and in the old days would have been rallied to form the frontlines now get name-called and jeered at by lazy slowthinkers online who would rather bitch about what the Republicans are doing than do anything constructive that might actually stop it. I posted this stuff as kind of a litmus test to see if I should do anything, a single thing, to try to help my country.

I won't.
I see it's a good way to be undermined and attacked.

Good luck, DU, and good luck, Americans of conscience. From now on you're on your own.

[OldSiouxWarrior]

8. Stupid ideas tend to be ignored.

You haven't thought your ideas through.

First, your ideas that I have seen are NOT progressive, they are Stalinist. Progressives are not interested in setting you up as dictator. You want to shut down freedom of speech except for those that agree with you. Ultimately that would mean that only you would get to speak.

Second, your ideas are ineffective. So you refuse to serve a FOX employee. Result, FOX guy complains to management, management asks what the problem is, you explain, you are fired and a different server takes care of the FOX guy. The ONLY one who gets injured in that scenario is you, not the FOX guy. Most progressive are not interested in shooting themselves in the foot.

Or your idea of a cab driver not picking up any rides withing three miles of FOX HQ. Result, another cabbie happily take the customer, and you have to stay out of Manhattan to maintain your "purity".

Most people have lives outside of politics and are fairly happy with those lives and don't wish to sacrifice them over a protest that would accomplish nothing, except harm to the protester.

[hsher]

9. Following people from post to post is a DU violation

Shall I? Or would you like to resume our discussion at the OP?

[OldSiouxWarrior]

10. You started two threads. I responded to those threads.

I haven't searched to find you in any other threads. So you want to distort the rules to mean that if you start one thread and I respond, then I can't say anything in another thread. I don't think it works quite that way.

In the other thread I am staying to the topic of the specific suggestions you made.

In this thread, the topic is more general. You feel ignored, and I am saying that you are being ignored because your suggestions don't have merit. They are stupid.

[hsher]

11. Well then can I ignore *you*?

According to your logic, stupidity should be ignored.
Well... then I guess that means...

[hsher]

12. See? Case in point above and below. "Your idea is stupid!"

Disagreeing with someone is one thing. Calling them names and calling their idea "stupid" is quite another. Now I have some old guy I've never seen before in my life following me around like a street wino, lecturing me about the definition of... wait for it... stalking. :eyes:

Nuff said, I think.
Exit, stage left, and leaving you lot to the neocons.
GOOD LUCK! :hi:

[OldSiouxWarrior]

14. You have certainly done much more name calling.

Nor is it an attack upon you to call your ideas "Stupid". There is a distinction between a person, and the ideas they espouse. I freely attack your ideas. I don't think I have made an attack against you as a person.

Nor is participating in two threads, both started by yourself and next to each other, but of different topics, to be considered stalking.

Now if I were to find response posts in multiple other threads, that indeed would be stalking.

[OldSiouxWarrior]

13. Your choice, if you want to. NT

[seriousstan]

15. Before you accuse me of stalking also.......

You shouldn't give up. Take the advice of other posters here and join someone else's event. Make connections, earn favors. Pick your events carefully and listen when it seems like everyone is giving you negative feedback, sometimes they are trying to be helpful.

[rhett o rick]

17. Pace yourself. Most of us want a quick solution and sometimes

get carried away with our enthusiasm. Persistence is our only hope. I appreciate your frustration but don't pick fights with those on your side. If you are a true activist, you'll be back.