Love this post on Facebook. Basically it’s about moving the Overton window by redefining what’s centrist versus radical left.
“Going to start calling myself a centrist and then listing my leftist views as proof …” the post from Maura Quint on BlueSky starts out.
(I’m not actually on blue sky, but a lot of people on Facebook are cross-sharing across platforms these days. It’s a great thing. Amplifying wholesome ideas.)
My version for example: “I’m just into those centrist ideas such as healthcare for all, abolishing prisons, ICE, and wars, guaranteeing food and basic housing for everyone…”
Great idea! And this is also giving me ideas regarding my environmental/climate action communication.
“I’m just a very mild, middle-of-the-road when it comes to practicing water conservation, household thrift, retrofitting a basic urban dwelling to be free of dependency on electricity and city water (while still being fully on grid and supporting the grid), mutual aid, and basic Degrowth principles, land back, decolonization, & all that basic middle-of-the road stuff …”
Too many people tell me I’m the most radical environmentalist they know. They need to meet lots more people! I keep sharing the pages of those “lots more people”!
I guess I also need to publicly promote myself as a very mild centrist sort of eco-social activist.
On a similar note, I have taken to speaking to my fellow Boomers in an age-focused way — I’ll say things like “Well, you know, me being in my 60s, I just didn’t grow up with all this single-use plastic.”
Or me being the age I am, we just didn’t grow up with air conditioning.
Or, we just didn’t have this concept of water being sold in plastic bottles when I was growing up; we drank tapwater.
We didn’t have straws unless we were in the hospital.
Or, we just didn’t have these huge houses with more bathrooms than people, I never got comfortable with that. Etc.
Since I’m on the young end of the Boomer generation, most of the people I’m saying this to are older than I am, so my words might have some potential to prompt reflection. I’ve seen a few times where that seemed to happen.