A Big Thank You for No Kings 3!!

For folks who might want to focus on numbers, let's look at a few more:

At a recent protest, a wise gentleman stopped to talk to the folks at Indivisible Chico's table. He reminded us that folks can spend 80% of their time and effort talking about the problems we are all very familiar with and spend only 20% of their time working towards a solution to a better future. Or we can reverse that and spend 20% of our time identifying the problems and 80% thinking, discussing, and implementing the solutions to the problems we face. 

That's what we're investing in with Indivisible Chico. We want to help our community spend time focusing on finding solutions and we can start with all working together. Wherever we are, whoever we are, and however we can manage it. There is no "requirement" for participation, other than starting from the solution mindset. We believe in working together, without downplaying anyone's efforts. 

When someone shows up sharing their presence and support for our shared community, they are taking a huge, helpful, progressive step in the right direction. More people taking any steps at all means more people move.

People won't move if they think they will move alone. Showing people the community stands shoulder to shoulder will help people get moving. Everyone who witnessed a mile long line of people in Chico on Saturday felt some way about the city and the surrounding area. The folks on the ridge who drove past 180 neighbors holding signs had to think about the fact that they aren't alone in their daily lives. Other people are seeing a lot of problems too and will not keep quiet about them.

More protests were held in more North State communities on No Kings 3 than in either No Kings 1 or No Kings 2. That's more protests and more people, and it's all building up, and it is more than just a single day of action. 

We all have voices. Because our founders experienced the tyranny of kings, they wrote our Bill of Rights as well as The Constitution so we would always have the right to voice our opinions to our elected government. 

Using our First Amendment right to speak up about the reality of the world we experience and how we want it changed is our right. We do not not want or need any would-be kings to demand their voice is more important than WE THE PEOPLE. 

We have spent, as a country, nearly 15 years becoming complacent, thinking we were the best and there was no room for improvement. With so many people thinking all the ills of our 200-odd years of existence as a country had been healed with the election of a Black president. Those cracks have revealed themselves, and are now being slowly understood by more people, because some folks are trying to “gold-wash” them with paint instead of fixing anything.

The 80% of time that has been spent complaining about problems, pretending they aren't there, getting mad at the people who pointed them out - with encouragement from those who prefer we fight culture wars with each other - must now be spent doing the work needed, together, to build a better structure to keep our democracy. 

The community is the point. People have to show up. People have to care. Take the initiative and share with your neighbors and friends whatever you feel capable of contributing now, it matters. 

Join a group! Start a group! Start regularly calling or emailing Members of Congress. Some people in Minnesota creatively use their sewing talents to say NO to ICE. And have fun doing so. What would you have fun contributing to our community efforts to say no to would-be authoritarians? 

Even the most productive activist had to start somewhere. They had to have something to engage with in order to be involved and active. They had to feel safe to do so and welcome to do so, otherwise the disruption of their own lives would only make their situation irrevocably worse and that's one less person involved going forward. Your involvement going forward is important, in whatever peaceful way, best suits you. 

Everyone who put together the event in Chico on Saturday is in some way differently-abled, multi-cultural minded, and had to overcome a lot of foundational challenges to make the event happen. Last minute shuffles in vendors and stage requests meant that the event was constantly moving, for two months of planning and right up until the end of the day on the 28th. The bands chose their own lineup and the volunteers scrambled together in the last week because of the delays presented by working on an event requiring a permit at a public park.

It was a lot of time, a lot of work, and a lot of responsibility. We were all stewards entrusted with community funds to create a space where neighbors could realize how VERY NOT ALONE WE ALL ARE as we see all the problems and dangers of our national political environment. 

Like the march itself, we encourage you to join our community efforts from where you are capable of contributing, to overcome these problems and dangers we all see need to end.

We don't believe in telling people they aren't doing enough because they couldn't march for a mile. That's counterproductive to the movement. Everyone's positive contributions are important. Spending 80% of our time complaining about things only leaves 20% of our valuable personal capital available to work towards solutions.

Doing nothing isn't a solution. Getting involved, contributing brain power and physical presence, as you can, are only a step towards the solution. We need all of us in this fight. One person at a time is still one more person. It's not fast, but it's gotten literally millions of people to start paying attention to things that, this time last year, only thousands seemed to notice was wrong. Last March, we gathered 70 people in the park for a meeting, and this March we gathered over 6,000 people in Downtown Chico. That's an engaged community. And it's a big shift over only a year. That may seem slow, but that's quite speedy considering this national backwards slide has been over a decade in the making.

Large scale protests in large numbers are catalysts for positive actions afterward. We want everyone to be able to spend 80% of their community engagement time on identifying possible solutions, thinking of ways to get more people involved, and only 20% of the time chronicling the things that make us mad. We already know we are mad, and have at least some shared ideas about what there is to be mad about, but we don't always see how many of us there are.

Now, there's over 8 million of us who are mad. Even with a ghost office reporting to D.C., over 6,000 of us here in Chico, CA, were able to peacefully show we do not agree with the current direction of our government. We hope to see more folks out at events as they pop up!

From all of us at Indivisible Chico, we want to say, thank you to our community!

Thank you to every organization who helped us put the Festival for Democracy together!

Thank you to everyone who donated their time!

Thank you to all the folks who were out there enjoying the music and especially to the bands, California Moonshine, The Electric Spaghetti Factory and Debajito! (They all volunteered to perform, all afternoon, on a Saturday.)

We were glad to see you all and meet you at Chico's Festival for Democracy!

Let's continue to work together in the future. 

Thank you for your support over the past year!