15 Things You Can Do

15 Things You Can Do

THINGS YOU CAN DO TO HELP AMERICA’S DEMOCRACY

The military has millions for its public relations efforts; peace activists often have pennies.[i] Nonetheless, there are encouraging examples of overcoming insurmountable challenges.

Freedom of religion was won because of people such as Ann Hutchinson, who believed that conscience has a higher authority than law. Henry David Thoreau spent only one night in jail for refusing to pay taxes for the Mexican-American War, but his essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” is part of the common heritage of the human race – reaching Tolstoy in Russia, and Gandhi in India. A young pastor in Alabama, Martin Luther King, Jr., began the Civil Rights revolution with a few people defying racial barriers. Ordinary people, successfully protesting in the 1960s and 70s, brought an end to the illegal war in Vietnam. History confirms that we can overcome the challenges of our time.

15 Democracy Strengthening & Peace Promoting Actions

1. Make a real effort to be an informed citizen.

2. Promote non-violent democratic changes by voting.

3. Talk, with love in your heart, to your family, friends and other people.

4. Help the peace message get out by contacting newspapers and radio shows requesting they make time to interview peace speakers.

5. Ask a peace speaker to speak to your friends and local schools.

6. Join or start a peace organization and assist with a specific program to promote peace.

7. Organize and demonstrate (e.g., be present for peace marches).

8. Call talk shows to communicate your views.

9. Share literature (e.g., give American Hiroshima, Confessions of an Economic Hitman or Empire of Sorrows as holiday gifts).

10. Write to the editor to promote the peace and counter myths that support killing.

11. Contribute money to organizations promoting peace.

12. Lobby for peace (e.g., urging Congress to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq).

13. Invest and spend your money responsibly (e.g., don't invest in companies that make weapons and boycott consumer goods made by military contractors).

14. Wear a peace symbol or clothing with peace messages (and keep war toys away from your children).

15. Travel to obtain first-hand experiences.

Choose hope and make peace possible by accepting your share of the responsibility for a better world. Your daily acts of peace can inspire others and create a groundswell for peace too powerful to be set aside.

[i] ⁴⁵⁸Modified from the War Resistance League “Things You Can Do,” on the Internet at www.warresisters.org/mosquito.htm.

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