Life As Performance Art 145

I am going to write down some thoughts about activism. Or, rather, about activists. Yesterday I mentioned a very high profile social activist and heroin addict who shall remain anonymous, for now, but to me this person represents some of the worst stereotypes of the social and political activist. These are, what I call, the limelight hogs, the rock stars, if you will. People whose identity has to include and be propped up by public notice, attention and adulation. They should almost have groupies. Or, maybe not, but maybe some of them do have groupies (please, let's unvisualize this little freak show, Gentle Reader!) This kind of activist is generally very charismatic, intelligent, sometimes but not always good-looking, and extremely savvy at manipulating others and the media. They are most often narcissists. I have no doubt at all about their sincerity, and I don't think they would give up the fight if something else came their way. They are genuine, they are not in it for money or fame or anything like that, and I don't think they are shallow, and often they can be very noble, generous and self-sacrificing. But there appears to be at their very core a certain hunger, a neediness for praise and adulation, when at their most innocent, or, worse, unresolved issues of self-hatred, or at their very worst, a Lucifer Satanic hunger for power, glory, immortality, and an undying sense of entitlement that they be publicly adored and worshipped. This, of course, is a danger that a lot of people can find themselves running when they get into the public forum, especially under the most altruistic auspices. I don't buy any of the cynical conservative hogswallop that activists are in it for themselves, that they are deluded, they are being paid to protest, they don't have jobs, or any of the other slanderous garbage that serves as a smokescreen that blurs and obscures the real issues from being contemplated. I myself have been involved in various forms of social activism throughout my adult life. But I am not really an activist, or at least not a professional activist. Some people are, and they do it rather well, and not from bad motives except perhaps from an adolescent sense of heroism, but for the most part, they are in it because they believe in what they are doing. And indeed, I have often found the whole process of political and social activism to be rather discouraging, as the people I am supposed to be working with often come out as being every bit as venal, wanting and as disappointing as the idiot politicians whose attention we are trying to get (since they otherwise tend to ignore us) I would also have to say that, on the whole, activism has not been a waste of time, and I have seen some of my own efforts born out in results, but not because of anything that I have said or done, but because of what we have said and done and expressed as concerned and compassionate collectives of persons. The media does seem to píck out its own stars and routinely and repeatedly select the same people over and over to be publicly interviewed, either because of their star power, or because they are particularly dedicated and hard workers or, in some cases, they are just loose cannons and narcissistic idiots who serve up rather nicely as entertainment value and an easy discredit to their cause. I have never been singled out for such attention, primarily because I have never been present enough and have always been careful to keep a low profile. I have also never been terribly good at sucking up to people just because they have seniority, and to do well in any activist community or collective, no matter how anarchist, one must always pay homage to the hierarchy de jour. I am also often not entirely comfortable with the people I am protesting with. For example, last year, I protested with a coalition of folks against the twinning of the Kinder Morgan pipeline, especially the Trudeau Junior government's decision to sell us out at almost 5 billion of our dollars of our money to buy the damn thing. But there was also such a strong bias against the prime minister himself (I never voted for him or his party, by the way, and never would), that hatred of Junior and the Liberal Party seemed to be eclipsing the real issue. Last May I ran into other headwaters at a protest against keeping cetaceans in the Vancouver Public Aquarium. The activists were dominated by militant self-righteous born-again vegans, and those people are simply so nasty that it is absolutely pointless to do anything with them, unless your virtue signalling is completely compatible with theirs. Then there was the conversation I had with a Mexican-Canadian. I told him about a protest I attended in Mexico City in 2009 in front of the president's home in sprawling Chapultepec Park, and commented on how odd and cowardly to send out all those riot-clad police in order to fight off a protest group made up primarily of young mothers with children and old men. The Mexican fellow tried to persuade me that the protesters had all been paid to be there, which is another popular conservative lie about people who protest. It was pretty clear to me that they were there of their own volition, and he didn't seem to like what I said. This Texican Canadian chap was also an engineer working for a mining corporation that does nasty things to the environment and indigenous people in Latin American countries, so, I am not at all surprised that he didn't appear to want to hear from me again.