Why this Website?
JB’s Personal Motivations
Well, I need company as I navigate activist culture in the belly of the beast.
Why this website?
What do I get out of it?
I am interested in activists as a people, a group, a tribe. I want to know what makes us tick and how we can do what we do better, stronger, safer. I want our lives to be good, even as we do good. I want things to be good for us not despite being activists, but because of it. I want people to know what we do and why, and what our lives are like, in all their diversity, excitement and challenges. I want people to appreciate us, for the right reasons. I want more people to support and defend us. And especially, I want more people to join us.
Why are activists important? Because we will save the world, if it can be saved. Not by ourselves, of course. But we are the ones who raise the alarm, who sound the call, who step up and take the risks to push for change. As things develop, and as we do our work, more and more people join us. Which makes a movement. Many more become activists when movements arise, and when the ebb comes a lot of them stop being so active, but the experience they have had is indelible.
It´s in our interest, and the interest of the planet, to make that experience as good as possible, so they´ll stay active. And have a good life for the long term.
But, what about me, personally, JB?
Well, I am a social justice activist sans phrase, by which I mean, with no qualifier such as “environmental” or “labor” or immigrant right” or “anti-war,” etc. My interest is in all of these, in sweeping systemic change, complete transformation of the core structure of our society so that instead of being based on domination, hierarchy, oppression, exploitation and violence it is based in equality, justice, compassion, and collection participation and decision-making. I support and am interested in all struggles where folks are fighting for and with these principles, regardless of the specific circumstances are in play.
But this particular angle of mine makes it hard for me to be in a particular place. I look at the whole picture of activists and activist culture. I have comrades in all areas, but as a single specific material person I can’t be in all places with all activists. Even though that’s what i’d love to do.
Anyway, this site is my way of reaching out to my peeps, the activists who work to change the world, and to folks who love and value us, to…
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share my ideas about the activist experience and culture
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connect with my people
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provide a place for my people to share and reflect on the experience of life in the belly of the beast we struggle to transform, and in the liberated zones we carve out to begin creating the new world now;
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encourage them to think more about it
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spread a little lightness and colorfulness among serious folk in a serious time
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play with colors, characters, words, design, graphics, ideas
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encourage folks to read and to create fiction featuring activists, accompanying my own efforts to do so;
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participate with me in FFA Writers Circle