Is Political Activism Dead?

“We’ve plenty to protest about in the US, but on the streets there is no dissent. Why is our liberal mood so paralytic?” Clancy Sigel blames a host of culprits, including the Internet. “The late, great Chicago community organiser Saul Alinsky liked saying that the only way to activate people is to appeal not to altruism but to their self-interest. For example, all across the country, ordinary, deeply conservative Catholic parishioners have recently been motivated to march, protest, sit-in and even barricade themselves when they felt threatened by local church closures. Rank-and-file parishioners didn’t organise by listservs or electronic communication but face to face, neighbour to neighbor.”