Author: Jim

Both young and old can speak out.

Our education system may not teach us how public involvement in government works, but we can learn it, model it, and encourage it in everyone to engage effectively.

This practice of public meeting engagement includes teaching and supporting youths to work together, write their stories, and speak to public officials. Youths are often more fearless than adults, and far more impactful.

Never give up trying!

The protests are fabulous, but PLEASE sustain the momentum by speaking out at every local government meeting. There are open mics where public officials must hear your anger, your frustration, and your stories.

Use these basic tools to prepare yourself, gather support, speak, and record your comments.

We have a right and the power to speak up.

Let’s use it!

And, oh by the way, don’t leave any ballot position empty. #runforsomething, run for anything!

Local races generally have very easy write-in requirements, so even if you didn’t go through a formal process, you can still get on the ballot in November!

Different individuals across the country are documenting the ongoing attacks on US institutions and our democracy. Legislators are running away from public events, but we have a solution to that problem. Public meetings are made available under state Sunshine laws that make open mics available for most any (respectful) comments.

We can use the sources below to engage and impact the political structure at all levels

Find your issue

If you want to know all of the Executive Orders and other actions of the current administration, there are several “trackers” available. One that I follow closely is by Olga Lautman called the “Trump Tyranny Tracker“.

Find your local impact

Taking this to the next level, here is a site that is (or will be soon – so follow it on LinkedIn) showing the local impacts of these actions.

Make your voice heard

With all of the Federal legislators starting to run and hide from public events or town halls, we can still make our voices heard a local government meetings.

That what THIS site is about, so start here, and keep building!

Our founding fathers set up our REPRESENTATIVE democratic system of government as a way to address the inefficiencies that were present in the original DIRECT democracy of Athens. In Athens, ALL citizens could be present to vote on measures. Imagine the chaos and confusion of having all citizens in on every vote. You can see that such a system does not scale up well to larger populations, hence the representative system was innovatively devised.

HOWEVER, a representative government DOES NOT remove the responsibility and obligations of citizens to oversee the actions of their representatives.

We need to remember this, because in times of relative calm when the rules established in our Constitution and our laws are being followed, we trust and rely on our representatives to act on our collective behalf and in our best interest.

When our Constitution and our laws are NOT being followed, the citizenry has the right, the power, and the obligation to engage the representatives to correct the actions and to “right the ship.” It is our birthright or our right as naturalized citizens to act on this responsibility. We cannot opt out of it.

If you are, like me, “of a certain age” where you were taught the way that citizens can interact with government, then these ideas are not new or radical, but to younger citizens who may not have received the civics instruction we’d like, these ideas may sound new.

As such, it is incumbent on those of us who understand how our system works to demonstrate our roles as citizens and to engage the political system at every level until the actions of the government align with the intentions of those who are governed…US!

Our Constitution and the laws derived from it MUST BE FOLLWED unless the PEOPLE say otherwise.

Let’s use our voices at every level to engage the political system, from the bottom up if necessary, to bring our country back into alignment with our core democratic values.

OUR VOICES are strong and POWERFUL!

I get it. I know we’re all busy and trying to save time by reaching out to our elected officials through some mostly impersonal methods, but those paths are full, literally full to the breaking point, with content feeders.

Is it any wonder your messages aren’t getting through?

So try this, instead.

Find a local government meeting, take your message and make it really personal and relevant to the elected officials at that meeting, and read your letter to them.

When you are done, ask them how they are acting to correct the issues you raise.

Record that speech, if you can.

I have these steps written out in more detail here, but if we all do this at every meeting and at all levels of government, your messages will get through.

They have to.

You are a voter, probably representing many other voters. Voters change elections when officials don’t act on their constituents’ wishes. They know that.

The people are the government and the officials only our representatives. We’re in charge, and sometimes we have to remind them of that.

[And always check the comments to these posts. Others are learning and sharing!]

There’s an idea that your vote is your voice, and this may sound very scary, but that’s going to be true if the coup continues. Your vote won’t matter if the ability to vote is taken away.

Our VOICE is our voice, and we need to let the entire political structure know what you think.

That’s where engaging the community and government through 1000s of open mics can be used to get action against bigotry, lies, and other questionable acts; and that’s where operationsunshine.info can help.

The people have a voice! We cannot be muzzled!

In every community, there is a need for a small number of people to gather the issues that are most impacting your local residents and to build the messages that need to be delivered to the local, county, district, or state officials.

Messages need to be delivered to every level of government so that they carry the message further up their network that these legally questionable or unauthorized actions by the federal government are having a real impact on their constituents and will have a even greater impact in future elections.

Every small community can have one or two people who are looking for the issues that most impact their community and who can connect those people and issues with the local elected officials that need to understand and can act on the impacts.

If you need help to figure out how to find issues or find people impacted by those issues, please comment anywhere and we can find help.

Together, we can fight back!

Every elected official needs to be asked the same or similar basic questions:

How are you connecting with the local residents who are most directly affected by these new Executive Orders and the questionable actions of organizations like DOGE?

Are you attending and promoting attendance at area public meetings to speak out about these issues and their direct impact on our community, district, and state?

What are the recent issues that you see having the greatest impact on our community or across the state, and what is the message you want us to send to elected officials so that they will drive responsibility, transparency, and accountability back into our system of federal government?

Are you aware of our Sunshine laws and how they can be used to support public engagement in the legislative process, including speaking out at local events and driving transparency into government oversight?

What is your staff doing to facilitate public awareness of the impacts of these Executive Orders and other questionable acts?

What are YOU doing to educate your constituents on the workings of government and how to ensure that their rights and the rule of law is protected in America?

Got other questions? Add them to the comments!