E-Activism Is For Suckers

I couldn't take it anymore.  I've been getting so many e-mails, it's made me spend more time on my computer than I want to.  And I do a lot on my PC as it is, between this blog, another blog, reporting on local news for local Web sites, posting my pictures to Flickr, and more.  Most of the e-mails I'd been getting were from liberal activist groups urging me to write my congressman or senators to protect wildlife, stop anti-abortion laws, or save health care reform as well as getting e-mails urging me to ask the Republicans to denounce talk radio hosts or Allen West or some other Tea Party clown . . . and I'd been sending form e-letters with a click of my mouse as asked, knowing all the while that it would not have much of a detrimental effect on America's accelerated slide toward fascism. 

So I've been unsubscribing myself from the e-mail lists of these environmentalist, civil rights and feminist groups one by one as I've been getting what will be the last e-mails they ever send me.  I can't keep up with them.  And, truth be told, I've sent e-letters on a couple of issues with having only a rudimentary comprehension of  them.  I've done so with the basic understanding that if I don't "take action," America will be irrevocably ruined by the Koch brothers and Grover Norquist.      

News flash: I think it's too late for that.

Because this is not exactly the most effective example of the people's right to petition for redress, I've added e-activism to my growing list of other endeavors and objectives I've stopped pursuing - a master's degree, a girlfriend, traveling overseas, and, in light of an impending Supreme Court decision, getting health insurance.  The only issue I've ever seen that was affected by people taking action online involved the online censorship bill getting scuttled, and although I'll keep up the fight against that, its supporters are relentless.  Apart from groups committed to that issue, I'm only limiting myself to e-mail alerts from groups involved with better public transit and "smart growth," because those are issues I can certainly appreciate.  Although, truth be told, I'm probably fighting a losing cause there - congressional inquiries into California's high-speed passenger rail program, for example, may be the final nail in the high-speed-train coffin.

Don't get me wrong.  It's not that I don't care about any of these other issues (though there are a couple of issues I don't care about, but let that pass); it's just that I know it's not a fair fight when those who stand of the way of making America a country worth living in (I'll cite Messrs. Koch and Mr. Norquist again) hold all the cards. If I find other issues that actually motivates me to take action in a more meaningful way than clicking on my mouse, I'll do so.  But the progressive movement is mostly kidding itself if it thinks that getting 150,000 people or whatever to send e-mails to Congress is going to make a difference.  Especially when the only thing progressives have achieved in the past three decades is to have streets and schools renamed for civil rights leaders.

Do I have any regrets? Not many - not many e-mails, either.