Someone, with good intentions, DMEd me this clip from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I think in response to my “what’s beyond the edge of tomorrow?” post.
The thing that enrages and exhausts me is that the repertoires of what counts as “fighting” are so narrow and (usually) doomed to failure. And that there is so much resistance (for reasons I now understand, at least better than I did – see here for example) to any innovation.
And my concern is that this “well, I’m still standing”/”I’m still marching/chanting” is used as a shield against any assessment of whether what is being done is working, or whether somethings else might also work, or – gasp – work better.
In my former (and let’s face it, it is former and will almost certainly remain former) “activist” career I came up against this smugness and self-satisfaction so much. I even coined the phrase “smugosphere” to refer to it and the broader eco-system that allows people to stay in comfortable ruts and then say “well at least I am [doing stale thing x which doesn’t work but is in my comfort zone] so don’t you dare criticise me or I will start playing the holier/prolier-than-thou card.”
I have inklings as to why that all pushes my buttons so much, but those are only inklings, and are really quite irrelevant anyway. If “we” – the people who say they are on the side of the angels – are so virtuous, how come we have been losing and losing and losing for so long? How come emissions are so much higher? How come the business-as-usual culture is still one of death, mayhem etc?
At which point people in defence of the smugosphere will say “we’re out-numbered, outspent”.
At which point I say “yes, but we knew that all along.”
At which point they say “well, are you coming on the next march or not?”
At which point I curl up in as small a ball as a six foot four giant with absurdly tight hamstrings can manage and sob quietly.
marchudson.net 
Marc, having read this post for the eighth or ninth time I offer this comment. We ( count myself in) are complacent (soft), many of us know what’s right, but aren’t prepared to bleed for it. Token gestures OK, but dying in the street is just not on.
There will come a time (not far off in my view), when circumstances will require many to die in the street, in some parts of our world it is happening now.
One can only hope commentators like yourself keep posting and that finally the dawning breaks through.