You shouldn’t be able to smoke outside an ER anyway… People come through there with life threatening problems and need all the oxygen they can get

Dig Down by Muse

Totally agree it’s important to engage all levels of government. But only the US Senate has the authority over nominations

Awesome!

Trump doesn’t have that power, he’s pressuring the Senate to do so. Thus calling Senators to stand up to these shenanigans is important.

Have you tried calling their phones? Sure some don’t pick up, but enough do.

I’m in favor of larger structural changes, but I’m not about to roll over and allow fascists to get everything they want in the current system. How many people do you expect to join a revolution if they won’t even be bothered to pick up a phone?

The book does acknowledge and analyze the violent and nonviolent aspects of the resistance movements in the case studies, and how they impacted each other. Thanks for the suggestion on Setting Sites

It’s highly variable, and yes I absolutely agree money in politics is a big problem. I do have a direct experience where reaching out to my Senators led to them aggressively and successfully opposing a provision in a law that would have had a big impact on me. Don’t want to dox myself, but this real change to a bill made a huge difference to me and many others. So it is possible to make an impact.

I’m for larger structural changes, but I disagree that rolling over and allowing fascists to get their way in the current system is acceptable. Let’s do both

Why not use multiple tactics? It’s not all or nothing and yes I’m certain Senate offices care about hearing from constituents, far more effective than simply doom scrolling.

Done! https://lemmy.world/post/22021613

These tactics are not always a guarantee to have things go your way, but they increase the chances. For phone calling, numbers of people calling in matter the most, particularly at strategic times, including: right after big announcements, right before a committee vote, right before a floor vote. It’s also more effective before dominant narratives have arisen around a topic and there is uncertainty on how things could shake out.

Resistance to authoritarian regimes takes many forms, I found the book Why Civil Resistance Works to be a very helpful analysis of different resistance movements and their tactics

Because the appointments are the current issue that has some ability to be influenced. It helps to lean into issues that are making headlines, partly because reporters are reaching out to offices for their comments to get their stance on public record

A self-fulfilling prophecy if his constituents don’t try to make him care

Thought I’d add that mass phone calls are a tactic used by the NRA and other powerful lobby groups. Getting a lot of their group’s members to voice their opinion is the key to their success…perhaps to the point of making an office fearful of the backlash via phone calls for going against them.

Relevant John Oliver segment

They do not, Trump’s appointments are not yet in place. It’s never too late to fight for democracy.

Nazis rose to power in Germany and kept doing worse things because too many people had this defeatist attitude

I have a desk job. The combination of a rowing machine and sit-stand desk has been a game changer for my spine health

Focus on progress that has been made, solutions to the climate crisis have been growing exponentially over the past decade. And it’s not a binary issue of everything is sunshine and rainbows vs we’re all fucked. There’s more of a spectrum. Also remember the past environmental successes we’ve had with like acid rain, the ozone layer, leaded gas, mercury pollution. We’ve come a long way.

Making any progress, no matter how small makes the future just that much better than it otherwise would be. Yes, systemic changes out of the control of anyone on Lemmy are needed, but if say every person on Lemmy worked towards reducing their own environmental impacts that could have huge ripple effects in the economy of the green transition. Just plan out pragmatically/realistically how much time, mental energy, and resources are worth it to you.

A lot things that individuals can do to help with the climate crisis often also have personal benefits like long term financial savings, less pollution exposure, healthier plant-based diets, etc.