• As citizens
  • voting (by age, race/ethnicity … many state legislatures are making voting more difficult, without evidence of a problem, framing it as a ‘security’ issue)
  • participating in public life (getting involved in the community, for instance, social activism/social movements, paying close attention to public officials, public policy decisions, powerful influences on government and public opinion)
    • Moral Monday movement
    • Use your writing skills (e.g., this article shows how people can support those doing mandatory minimums for non-violent crimes, as well as welfare bans for those convicted of a felony)
  • education
    • critical thinking (understanding, for instance, how propaganda and persuasion can shape the framing of social problems)
    • evaluation of information sources (and their credibility)
    • understanding the potential consequences to others of one’s consumption patterns
  • watchdog functions–who’s watching those making the decisions that affect our lives?
    • FREE PRESS–to hold politicians, leaders accountable to their words and actions
      • Requires an electorate that isn’t simply seeking confirmation bias
    • Public Citizen
    • Campaign Legal Center
    • Open Secrets (campaign finance)
    • Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)
    • Sourcewatch (propaganda, corporate ‘front groups’)
    • ALEC Exposed (you should be familiar with this one)
    • Amnesty International
    • Union of Concerned Scientists
    • Pew Research
    • Politifact (fact checking news and politicians)
    • Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (if you’re a policy wonk)
    • Urban Institute (more general policy information)
    • National Priorities Project (how does federal tax revenue get spent?)
    • Fivethirtyeight.com (polling and statistics, including on elections)
    • Bearing witness (e.g., smart phone videos have forced accountability on excessive force in law enforcement)
    • Social media
  • differences (age, ethnicity/race, gender, geographic region, education level), possible discrimination, awareness of ‘unearned’ or ‘invisible’ privileges
    • What groups have privilege and power, and how does this affect people’s willingness to work to address social problems?
• As consumers (purchases support a certain system of production, consumption, even politics, whether intentional or not)
  • Global vs local (e.g., the food industry)–global implies corporate organization, large carbon footprints; local implies greater sustainability, responsiveness (but often less choice)
  • ‘Free trade‘ vs ‘fair trade‘
    • of media–skepticism, awareness of non-commercial resources
    • Solutions journalism (example from public radio in New Orleans)
    • Yes! Magazine
    • Identity correction (The Yes Men)
  • The environment (what are the consequences of our consumption, in terms of natural resources used, and waste disposed?)
    • remember this term: externality
    • Upcycling and sustainable, humane design
    • Biomimicry–Nature has to solve problems and conserve energy and resources in the process
• As workers
  • Safety
  • Compensation (15 now movement; Relationship between social welfare programs and low-wage employment?)
  • McDonaldized employment, processes
  • Representation, workplace rights
  • Career choices (working on addressing vexing problems)
• As human beings
  • Food, safety, shelter, healthcare, education?

Government

• Policy (executive branch)
  • energy (DOE, EPA, etc.)
  • media (FCC)
  • Iran and population–cut population growth in half with three measures–educate girls (and delay marriage/childbirth), do public awareness campaigns, and make birth control available and unstigmatized to acquire.
  • Housing (‘Pathways to housing‘), Utah vs Los Angeles
  • Welfare (e.g., subsidize healthy food to compete with ‘cheap calories’)
• Regulation
  • finance (SEC)
  • carbon emissions (EPA)
  • corporate concentration (FTC)
  • media (FCC)
  • drugs, food and food safety (FDA)
• Money
  • budget, Congress, the legislative branch
  • taxing (e.g., to discourage ‘bad’ behavior and reward ‘good’ behavior)
  • spending decisions (budgetary policy–what do you know about any government’s budget?)
  • for instance, why do we tax people’s labor, but not their pollution?
• Laws
  • e.g., the cheeseburger bill (note the framing in the title) protects the food industry from potential lawsuits
  • campaign finance (though McCain-Finegold law limiting corporate financing was thrown out by the Supreme Court)
  • Sentencing
• Services
  • Social welfare (e.g., SNAP, Social Security, Medicare)
  • What to local governments do/provide?
  • State governments (education, public safety/corrections, social welfare)
• Voting–yes, government and representative democracy rely on elected officials working on behalf of the public interest.

Markets/private sector

• Markets can be, are used to influence behavior (remember externalities)
• undue influence (back to corporate concentration)–how to bring down health care costs? What would happen if we raised minimum wages, the price of gas?
• relationship between markets and government (can governments get in the way? Should they regulate bad behavior by businesses? Favor large businesses over small ones? Can governments mitigate the harms caused by for instance a gas tax, or decommissioning coal-fired power generation?)
• Organizations/bureaucracies (tendencies toward large corporations, bureaucracies … sound familiar?) and corporate concentration of ownership (and power)
• influence of advertising, especially versus public interest–check out the Supersize Me scene where individual food companies have billion dollar ad budgets, and the Five-a-Day Fruit and Vegetable Commission has about $200,000?
• Investment–or divestment (here’s an example from fossil fuels)
• Business and the environment

Communities/social capital

• Religious organizations
• non-profits
• volunteer organizations
• Public institutions (divestment, for instance, and other initiatives)
• The watchword? Organization.
  • People in authority pay more attention where there are numbers.
  • Organizing versus individual action can be like the difference between a bicycle and a Maserati (excepting, maybe, climate movements ; ).
  • Same with the #virtuallandscapeandsocialmedia …. right??
  • If you want to tie this to class, think of Sociologist Max Weber and rationalization (from week 6). 
  • Of course, keep in mind that one of the reasons that powerful entities and groups are so difficult to dislodge is precisely because their stakeholders understand the power of organization.

International/multilateral

• United Nations (e.g., UNDP, FAO)
• Regulatory agencies (WTO, IAEA)
• Treaties (e.g., Montreal Protocol in 1988 to limit CFC production, ozone destruction; Geneva Convention governing conduct during wartime, treatment of prisoners, etc.)

Regarding protest (adapted from Victoria Law, 2014)

Not everyone is young, spry, willing or able to get arrested for protesting publicly. Victoria Law suggests 8 ways to make a voice heard without being on the front lines (she is referring specifically to protests relating to criminal punishment):

1. Answering calls for legal help. Arrestees get a phone call. There is a need to make sure that everyone is accounted for, arrests are counted, and jail experiences well-documented. This provides the necessary scrutiny of law enforcement, and assurances for protesters that they won’t be forgotten.
2. On the phone again: There is a need to keep pressure on authorities, to make calls, insist that protesters be released without charge, essentially send a clear message that people are watching.
3. Support in the courtroom. Protesters are brought in for arraignment, and some moral support (or even food!) are welcome sights (and smells).
4. Helping people to secure bail (so they don’t stay in jail). Raising donations …
5. Inform yourself (for instance, the Ferguson syllabus)

Some principles

• Complexity–beware of seemingly well-meaning strangers bearing simple solutions
• Structure/agency–both play a part, help explain why things are the way they are, who has power (and why change can be difficult)–for instance, McDonaldization appeals to people’s sense of convenience, but avoids broader discussions about why people’s lives are so busy
  • Remember that difference between private problems and public issues
• Power–Why and how are republicans and democrats like Coke and Pepsi (two slight variations on the same theme)?
• Media–those basic news rules (don’t rely on one source; include non-commercial sources; avoid TV; get international perspective)
• Propaganda–who has the resources and expertise to attempt to influence or ‘frame’ public debates?
• Critical thinking–have to figure it out on your own, not generally included in your K-12 public education (why not, I wonder ….)
• Change–it happens, sometimes slowly, sometimes driven by crises
• Action–thinking globally, acting locally
• Effective altruism–investing in ‘doing the most good’
• Hope–in the words of Antonio Gramsci, pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will ….

Some videos

• William Barber (Moral Monday)
• Paul Farmer (Partners in Health, and a take on school)
• Chokwe Lumumba (Jackson, MS mayor)
• William MacAskill. What is effective altruism? TED.com.

Victoria Law. 2014. Eight ways to support protest against the criminal punishment system, if you can’t get out on the street. Dec 14, Truth-out.org.