anaxamaxan’s Recent Comments

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  Public vs Non-public

  There aren't many enviro activists who are non-visible, "out of the public's eye."  Canvassers, protesters, etc are good examples already cited by others above.  Are enviro groups going to attempt dissociate themselves from those people who don't look close enough to television news anchors or at least like office workers...?  Foolishness.  Sure, you can push for a certain level of cleanliness, but this "Queer Eye" thing is ridiculous.  Need an activist look like s/he a Seattle Young Urban Professional in order to be taken seriously?  You want a uniform, go ahead and emulate Oprah.  You want social change, make your words and deeds your style, act with respect and diligence.  Make your style attractive by making yourself attractive.  It doesn't work the other way around.On Yes, clothes really do make the activist posted 4 years, 8 months ago 24 Responses

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  Whatever

  So many bold, frank statements of "truth" here. They seem all seem to be saying "come on, if we're going to get any respect, we need to be like everybody else."  This sounds a lot like the "New" Democrats' whining that their party is seen as too fringy.  Embrace corporate power!  Redress social injustice by allowing free market economic radicalism to become the norm!  Yeah, that tactic has sure served the Dems well.  In general, the DLC Democrats are just a poor copy of what they're supposedly against.  And now I'm reading left and right that Environmentalists should in effect be doing the same thing on both the organizational and the personal level.  What do you hope to accomplish?

  The caricatures being tossed about here - dreadlocks, long hair, "pre-Raphaelite", hippies, etc - are more about youth vs. age than anything else.  30- and 40-somethings can babble that we need to conform to make a difference, but that's going to fail to inspire teens and young adults who are very keen to "be" something, in a physical as well as intellectual way.  These same younger members of our society are also the foot soldiers (please excuse the term), the get-in-the-mud workers, the rising surge of environmentalism. To insist that environmentalism requires "office casual attire" is suicidal!  Can you imagine Greenpeace telling a group of 20 potential canvassers that they cannot work for $7.50 an hour unless they look like IBM office workers?  A few may conform - many more well say "fuck it" and head somewhere else - perhaps to the anti-nuclear group just starting up, or to the nearest Rainbow Gathering.

  Does environmentalism need more social conformity?  Would it be better to let those Rainbow hippies, pierced anti-WTO punks, bike-riding Critical Massers, dreadlocked anarchists and nature freaks just... go?  Allow them to be marginalized, so that the Serious Environmentalists can get down to the business at hand?  "Go home, Tree sitters!  You're hurting Environmentalism, making us look bad!  Come back with haircuts and oxfords!  We're more effective without your stinkiness!"  Um, general, you just dismissed the entire infantry, and those loggers look pleased.

  Environmentalism, and liberalism generally, isn't going to achieve anything this way.  Environmentalism needs more inspiration, more eloquence, more cooperation, and more inclusion, more personal involvement and more love.  This internal move to make environmentalism an intellectual ideal, one that is independent of lifestyle and social choices, accomplishes none of those things.  We, or rather You, since I'm not doing this, should not be looking to dissociate from those images.  You should be embracing them, making them mainstream.  You leaders of enviro groups, you should not attempt to look like politicians on vacation.  You should look like environmentalists.  When you environmental lawyers walk in to courtroom, let there be no doubt which side you are on - give everyone the visual cues to be sure.  Let them frame you!  Take the sterotypes and embody them, improve on them.  Walk proudly!  Anyhow, do you honestly think you'll escape "framing" if you use enough hair products to blend in well with a crowd?

  Or, go ahead, blame the "failure" of [your] environmentalism on the way you used to (or still do) dress, or blame those dirty dreadlock hippies, blame Condeleeza Rice's sexy new modern fascist attire.  Blame your frumpy clothes for the increased levels of airborne mercury.  Blame your long hair for the desertification of the rainforest.  Or maybe it has more to do with the fact that you have given more money to the US Government and Big Oil, more working time to earning money, than to effecting environmental change.  Who hasn't?

  Count me as one who is unafraid of being framed.  I'll make sure that they know I'm pro-nature by dressing accordingly.  I'll speak and act in such a way as to inspire others to be like me.  I'm in this for the long haul, for my children's children's children.  Let them say I am irrelevant.  Let them say my long hair belongs on a horse, that my face should be bald, and that I ought to make myself look more like them.  Let them keep saying it.  I'm not here to win over swing voters in red states.  I and so many others are here to inspire love for this earth and all Life.  Get past this stupid argument and join us.On Yes, clothes really do make the activist posted 4 years, 8 months ago 24 Responses