Red Pepper is a full-colour quarterly (now) magazine for and by the extra-parliamentary green/left.
The following two statements about it are true
a) it is a useful source of information and perspectives about what is happening in the world and some of the things that might be done to make it a less dreadful place
b) it is the house organ of the Smugosphere, largely resistant to the idea that “we” might have done anything wrong on the way to the New Jerusalem
And so here below is the letter I sent in, the one they didn’t publish (or acknowledge, respond to in any way).
Sheila Smith (Red Pepper 242, Autumn 2023) wrote so well on how cultures of activism exhaust people, leading to burn out and anxiety. She wants activist spaces that can help people “engage in the conversations without having to pledge more time and energy.”
You published her letter – how about devoting an issue to pathologies of activist culture?
What are these pathologies, where they come from, what sustains them, what damage they do (short-term, long-term), what has been tried to overcome them (did it work? if so, for how long? If not, what ELSE was tried?)
What else might work and what resources would be required? What resistance could reasonably be expected and what one might do when faced with that resistance? Who we might learn from? How we might know if we were “succeeding”? Also, how do these cultures get spoken of, represented in activist products (books, blogs, songs – like David Rovics’ I’m a better anarchist than you). How accurate are mainstream culture’s views of activism?
I’d say do this annually, but that’s because I am obsessed, and believe this to be the crucial issue on which all others are based – if we can’t build and sustain movements capable of escaping boom and bust cycles of attention, how can we ever expect to win fights over water, land, air, justice?
marchudson.net 
Marc, there are those who are supportive of the “boom and bust cycles”, it suites then politically, financially or both. It seems to me that “boom and bust cycles” and the fact that many have short term memory spans has increased over the years.
Dedication to a cause is a facet of society that seems to be dying, if it is not already dead.
Hi Jon. Indeed, as per the end of this post from 18 months ago.
Marc, I must have missed the Cher post, but how true it is. I liked it and the fact that I liked it, shows why I dislike party politics. There is little difference (the way I see it) between how our major parties operate and the CCP, you either toe the line or your out.