The Truth Squad (and Democracy itself) Needs Us!
Thursday, May 14, 2009
image by SimonDoggett
Since reading Naomi Wolf’s most awesome book Give Me Liberty and attending the 350 Conference Saturday before last, I’ve been feeling the urge to get even more deeply involved with the climate change movement and researching different ways to do that. (More on some of the cool stuff I’ve found next week.)
Looking at my strengths and at what needs to be done, I’m pulled toward finding more opportunities and outlets to share ideas and inspiration via writing. Spirited exchange of ideas is a huge component of democracy, and Wolf spends several chapters of Give Me Liberty on the importance of debate in creating a well-informed and participatory citizenry. She suggests that we write Op-Ed pieces, Letters to the Editor, and blog posts to get the message out, and even explains how to go about it.
One of my favorite quotes comes from Antoine de St. Exupéry’s The Little Prince, “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” Communicating is what I do best; maybe I can help create a yearning for a clean and meaningful future.
All this on my mind, I saw a call for participation in the Truth Squad on It’s Getting Hot In Here (one of the best climate change activism blogs on the web), and I signed up right away. Here’s an excerpt from the call for volunteers:
We need YOU to join the Truth Squad and encourage other people - especially news geeks and people who like to write to help us get some TRUTH into this debate, locally and nationally.
Energy Action’s Truth Squad will claim a stake in the national debate by:
- Keeping up on local and national clean energy, green jobs, and climate issues. Easy. Most of you do this already, now you’ll be doing it with a mission.
- Writing at least 2 local and 1 national Letters to the Editors (LTE) over the summer. Again EASY. It takes about 15 minutes to write and email an LTE. No longer will you be silently joyous or outraged. You will be making your crucial voice heard in one of the most widely read pages of the paper. We will provide LTE ideas and opportunities, samples, and will help edit if needed.
- Write 1 Op Ed. Medium Easy. These take a little longer to write but have no fear. You have a unique and important perspective on this debate and your voice needs to be heard. Right now the op ed pages where political discourse still largely prevails is being dominated by polluters and liars. Local papers are desperate for local, young writers. We will help you draft, edit, and place your op ed. For real. Make your grandma proud.
- Write 3-4 blog posts. These can be adaptations of your LTEs or OpEds or original content. We will help find good, influential blogs for you to post on. All we need is the content.
It really is that simple. Winning a better, cleaner future is about winning hearts and minds and telling a winning story. We are particularly positioned to do this well and powerfully. It’s time to make some noise!
I’m excited to participate in this as a member of a group who can help with ideas, feedback, and support. If you’d like to be a part of this as well, click here and sign up by tomorrow, May 15th, 2009. Happy agitating!
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