Paul Loeb has spent decades exploring and writing about community involvement and citizen activism. In 1999, he wrote the book, “Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in Challenging Times.” It didn’t take off at first, but through word of mouth, its popularity spread to activists, teachers, and students. Today there are over 100,000 copies in print.
Paul Loeb has spent the past year updating and adding fresh stories and perspectives to the book. His goal was to create a new version that speaks to our new opportunities and challenges.
He asks: “How can we make sense of a world where Nike pays Michael Jordan more to appear in its ads than it pays all the workers at its Indonesian show factories combined? Or where the planet’s 500 richest people control more wealth than the bottom three billion, half of the human population?”
In the revised version of “Soul of a Citizen,” Loeb profiles a number of accidental activists who are finding their voice, getting involved, and taking a stand for a more just and humane world.
Press play to listen to “Your Call” with Rose Aguilar:
Press play to listen to “Your Call” with Rose Aguilar:
Guests:
- Paul Loeb, author of “Soul of a Citizen,” and “The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear”
- Angie De Soto, self-described “drunken party girl” turned environmental activist
Your Call is daily call-in show on KALW 91.7 FM in San Francisco and KUSP 88.9 FM in Santa Cruz.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
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We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
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With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy