Welcome to the Activist Resource Group

“We can’t focus our energy on the problems…
We must focus on solutions
that make those problems irrelevant.”
– Gregory Johnson

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Activism Defined

Ideally, activists would be like the white blood cells of culture and society attempting to bring about a more healthy and life supporting world. Being an activist isn’t a radical thing. It simply means that you are active. It means that you are passionate about something. It means that you believe tomorrow can be a better day than yesterday if we live responsibly today. It means you have hope for a better future. You can be an activist about anything: church, education, politics, the environment, human rights. Find your passion and grow in it.

Featured Activist Links. Below are some featured links to resources for impacting the world.

• Activism Stories – From the Front Lines
  • A Vegetarian Visits a Kosher Slaughter House – Postville Iowa Agriprocessors Rubashkin Meat Packing Plant
  • Reflections on the Prosecution of Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin and the Government Raid of the Agriprocesors Kosher Meat Packing Plant in Postville, Iowa
  • The Postville, Iowa Raid: Looking Back, What have we learned? – Federal Agents Invade Rubashkin Agriprocessors Kosher Meat Packing Plant
• Advertising that offers humor, hope, and inspiration
• Animal Welfare
  • Pop Female Vocalist Kesha Promotes Animal Welfare
• Banksy – A British graffiti artist.
• BoxxyBabee Market Analysis – a market value analysis of BoxxyBabee
• Change.org – “Today as citizens of the world, we face a daunting array of social and environmental problems ranging from health care and education to global warming and economic inequality. For each of these issues, whether local or global in scope, there are millions of people who care passionately about working for change but lack the information and opportunities necessary to translate their interest into effective action. Change.org aims to address this need by serving as the central platform informing and empowering movements for social change around the most important issues of our time.” [ Ideas for Change in America – Post an Idea ]
• Charitable Giving – Resources and reviews for charitable giving.
• Companies Giving to Charity
  • Chase Community Giving
  • Pepsi Refresh Project – Refresh Everything
• Consumer Defense Resource Group – Advocating for Consumer Rights
• Effective Activism – An article by Gregory Johnson
• Environmental Resource Group – Promoting sustainability and environmental action.
• Good.Alltop.com – News about doing good.
• Good.is – “GOOD is a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits pushing the world forward. Since 2006 we’ve been making a magazine, videos, and events for people who give a damn.
  This website is an ongoing exploration of what GOOD is and what it can be.”
• GoodTree.com – Online social networking of activists.
• GreenXchange – “Nike and Creative Commons are calling upon other companies and stakeholders to bring the network efficiencies of open innovation to solving the problems of sustainability. “
• Kiva – We’re currently promoting Kiva as a great way to help people save up money while doing good at the same time. Please join our Kiva Lending Team. Loan money, change lives.
• Nscfp.org – Northstar Center for Peace
• PeaceCorps.gov – Waging peace around the world.
• Political Resource Group – Politics that are “Fair and Balanced”
• Jay Shafer – Featured Activist
• ScienceCommons.org – “Many scientists today work in relative isolation, left to follow blind alleys and duplicate existing research. Data are balkanized — trapped behind firewalls, locked up by contracts or lost in databases that can’t be accessed or integrated. Materials are hard to get — universities are overwhelmed with transfer requests that ought to be routine, while grant cycles pass and windows of opportunity close. It’s not uncommon for research sponsors to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in critically important efforts like drug discovery, only to see them fail. The consequences in many cases are no less than tragic. The time it takes to go from identifying a gene to developing a drug currently stands at 17 years — forever, for people suffering from disease. Science Commons has three interlocking initiatives designed to accelerate the research cycle — the continuous production and reuse of knowledge that is at the heart of the scientific method. Together, they form the building blocks of a new collaborative infrastructure to make scientific discovery easier by design.”
• Slacker Uprising by Michael Moore
• Small Car Society
• Small House Society
• Super Efficiency Upsourcing Cost Effectiveness in Virtual Organizations and Businesses for a Zero Monetized Society
• The Story of Stuff – Exploring a dysfunctional model for production, delivery, consumption, and disposal.
• The True Enemy is War Itself – “The conflicting ideologies of the captain and the executive officer in the movie Crimson Tide are revealed early on in the film (from 20:40 to 24:13).”
• The Urgency of Global Feminism
• The Urgency of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• The Urgency of Youth Representation, Action, and Activism in World Democracy
• World of Good at eBay – Products that are ethically responsible with regard to labor, the environment, animals, and supporting social causes.
• World PROUT Assembly – “PROUT stands for PROgressive UTilization Theory. It means, the progressive utilization and rational distribution of all the earth’s natural resources.”

Faith and Activism. Most religions include as a central tenant the concept of social action, social change, and healing the world. People from all generations, and numerous religions have found a connection between faith and activism. Faith can provide the hope, courage, strength, and determination required to contribute toward positive change in the world. Below is an excerpt from the Tanya.

ולכן אמרו רבותינו ז״ל במדרש: ראה הקדוש ברוך הוא בצדיקים שהם מועטים, עמד
ושתלן ככל דור ודור

“The Almighty saw that the righteous were few, so He arose and planted them in every generation.” Tanya 1:25-26

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