POLITICAL ACTION
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Political action is not necessarily what one may think it is. It does not require joining political action committees or political parties, going to meetings,
working phone banks, sending out mailers, working ballot signature measures.
It does not necessarily require voting in elections. Political action can be the
way one lives life. Political action can be a state of mind, having convictions
and living by them. Most people live their politics like they live their religion,
on Sundays and election days only. To be political means to have opinions,
to know and understand issues, and to speak and act based on convictions. Political Action only requires that one have conviction and live by it.
However people may be more political than they think. A great deal of political action may be unconscious, which means that people continually engage in politics without really knowing it. If political action is defined as making choices based upon criterion having to do with social philosophy, conditions and means to ends, then such things as choice of fashion, of music, entertainment, employment or types of friends, may be politically motivated and represent political statements. Group dynamics as the hierarchy of social positioning may involve various political maneuvering such as ingratiation or back-biting. Personal political philosophy may be based upon true circumstances of conditions, or it may be based upon personal objectives, loyalty to others, emotionally laden misconceptions, superficial or misguided understanding, class, conformity or selfishness. If political philosophy derives from subjectives such as personal ambition and desires, in complete opposition to true facts, then one chooses to believe whatever is most convenient. If political philosophy derives from true conditions, then one keeps an open mind until one obtains the facts. A great deal of understanding can be gained from a knowledge of history, which is for the most part the history of politics. If one believes the society they live in is just, when in reality is it not, then in their patriotism they support a fiction. Since recorded history is in theory not fiction, but what has really happened in the past, if one is to come to conclusions and convictions based on history, one should have a true account of it. |
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