Thinking, talking, and doing

One of my new blog categories is "the personal is political." I recently heard that concept explained as "the intersection of personal responsibility and collective movement; of individuality and of influencing many people. "

For the past several years, most of my information-gathering has been via the Internet. In my opinion, the mainstream mass media, notably TV but also most newspapers, is currently less than worthless for that purpose. All of the major media outlets are owned by a handful of giant multinational corporations -- GE, for example -- and their bottom line is making money: marketing and entertaining, rather than challenging their viewers and possibly upsetting them with real, hard facts that might not match what they want to see.

The reason I said "less than worthless" is because we've got a marketers' world of illusion that's being presented to us as reality, and that illusory view of the world is what most folks are using to make their decisions. That's dangerous and scary.

I've spent a lot of time online the past few years, reading, thinking, seeing what other people are saying, and sometimes adding my own voice to the mix. Talking is very important. It helps us sort out what we think, refine our ideas, and create community with others. However, thinking and talking can be a really good way for us to pretend that we're addressing a problem when we're actually avoiding it. There are times for philosophizing (and believe me, I love to do that) and there are times for doing.

I can tell you exactly when this became crystal clear to me.

On Day 5 after Hurricane Katrina, I was aware that my entire town on the Mississippi Gulf Coast had been destroyed, and I'd spent several terrifying days trying to get my elderly father out of New Orleans. I was intimately involved with what was happening in New Orleans. I also was worried about the friends who I knew had stayed in Bay St. Louis during the storm. Through Internet message boards -- the magnificent Katrina version of the signs posted in lower Manhattan in the days after 9/11, by people looking for their loved ones -- I'd been able to find out that some of them were still alive but had no food, water, shelter, or medical care; and some of them had been injured or gotten sick because of the toxic conditions.

After my father made his escape from New Orleans  -- he literally hitch-hiked out, after a Jefferson Parish sheriff's deputy refused to help him and left the 83-year-old man standing by the side of the road; the authorities in this upscale, conservative suburb of New Orleans were too busy trying to keep the people from Orleans Parish from using Jefferson Parish roads as an escape route out of town to help their own residents get to safety -- we went to visit some relatives in north Louisiana.

On Friday night, Day 5, we were watching TV at their house, viewing the scenes out of New Orleans, still flooded, with the misery at the Superdome ongoing. At the time we were watching this, the people in New Orleans and on the Mississippi Gulf Coast were suffering horribly. I knew what was happening; I was afraid for my friends, exhausted and in shock about what was happening to the place I'd lived in for my entire life. I could do absolutely nothing for them, and was trying to hold on to the hope that the people who could do something were doing so.

After showing scenes from New Orleans, the news switched to Washington, D.C. They showed U. S. Senators and Representatives, standing on the floor of the U.S. Congress, carrying on about how horrible this was, something's wrong with our government, blah blah blah. Now, I don't disagree with a lot of what they said, and if I hadn't been from Katrina land, I might have joined in the discussion about it on the Internet. But something clicked for me.

Human beings were suffering, beyond endurance, and in imminent danger of dying. They didn't need people pontificating and philosophizing. They needed actual, live, specific physical help from their fellow human beings.

Comments

[michael]

Amen. I don't quite know what else to say...

[Kitty]

Thanks, Michael.

[marlaine]

i guess this is how people start 'talking'...'doing'
you have personal stake in something
and vow to make someone hear
and then when you're able and strong enough...you do something to see that it does get better
we all need the strength, however...

[Kitty]

Strength, plus the wisdom to know what's importnt to do or say at the moment. I guess (no, I know) that I'm doing something important by writing this blog, although I don't know where exactly it's taking me.