Is this what civic participation looks like?

I've been thinking a lot about how, back in 2003 (and admittedly I was younger then), when there was something going on (WTO, the Iraq & Afghanistan wars beginning, Mumia's continued incarceration, globalization, evictions, Care Not Cash), me and my friends would sit down and think about what we could do to contribute to whatever protests were planned in a way that felt meaningful and relevant (and creative and fun). Mostly, it involved dressing up in costumes and coming up with stupid puns (think: Bunnies Against War Money), but still, it was a kind of civic participation, however limited in its effectiveness.

Fast forward 8-10 years and I slog away doing meaningful, political, and sometimes incredibly frustrating public health work within The System 12 hours a day (including the commute), 5 days a week. At the end of the day watch Rachel Maddow on her eponymous show and Jon Stewart on The Daily Show to see what latest tragedy has struck this ridiculous, precious world. I then get severely depressed (the earthquake and its aftermath in Haiti, the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill) or agitated (the AZ racial profiling law) and then go to bed. As I lie thinking, I have some insight about what's missing from the discourse and think, I should blog about that. But by the time I can really think a matter through enough to have something worthwhile to say about it, the moment has passed and the new headline has taken my attention and that of everyone else.

It used to be, when I was 20 and wrote a zine, it would take me 6 months on average to take a piece of writing from its idea stage to fruition; sometimes it took longer - two years, five years. Now, if I let a few days or weeks pass while I formulate my ideas, the writing no longer feels fresh and I just let it go unposted. I know this comes up a lot in the incessant postmortems on journalism - how can you do a good job investigating a story when, in the twitter age, you're expected to break a story seconds before someone else? My similar question about civic engagement is, now that we get so much of our information online, is it enough that I come home and take the time to write down and share what I am thinking in this forum?

I thought about this the other day when one of my friends said she had spent the morning writing a rant about gentrification on Facebook. I didn't read it, but I can imagine what it probably said. It used to be we made stencils of our discontent and spray-painted them in restaurant doorways with messages like COLONIZER FOOD and YUCK. But now, even that feels hackneyed, as do all conversations about how quickly the [insert historically black/Latino] neighborhood (the Mission, Bed-Sty, Oakland, Hunter's Point) is changing, how it just isn't the same anymore since the yuppies came in, their entryway paved by us artists and queers.

In a weird way I feel like this complacency is as much a product of age as it is a combination of Bush winning a second election (I realize this was six years ago, but it was a breaking point after which I no longer had the energy to fight) and Obama's historic election. With a black man in office we are to believe that all is solved, or at least that we can breathe again -- and we can, to some degree. But it is not enough; voting is not enough. No amount of email petitions -- against the AZ law or any other issue du jour -- will replace actual civic engagement, where we get together and think about an issue and what we want to do about it. (Particularly since email petitions are more often a means of fundraising than they are a tool for affecting change. My experience has been that crying, white, soccer moms -- or anyone with a compelling personal story-- get more traction in a Congressional hearing than do a thousand signatures to a written or electronic petition.)

Since I no longer have the energy for protesting, maybe my role is to take care of my health and to take the six weeks or six months I need to think something through before I write about it here. Because if anything is important in this short-attention-span age, it is to learn our history (read: Howard Zinn's excellent illustrated comic book A People's History of American Empire) and dig deeply towards a place of better understanding our individual and collective truths.