Personal political thought and organizing

I randomly stumbled on this blog entry "How to Think About Politics" by Ryan McCarl which I found interesting and worth posting, especially this excerpt:

Question yourself, your ideology, your vocabulary, and the beliefs behind your beliefs. And also question every overt and covert political statement, every candidate’s speech, every newspaper opinion column, every dinner-table rant, every historical narrative, and even every piece of art or literature. Politics touches everything and everything touches politics. Cultivate your awareness of the political dimension of the world, a dimension that is often hidden beneath the surface of things.

I agree with the author to a certain extent that critical thinking and self-education are important to developing one's political thought. What I believe he's missing is when political thought translate into action. It's great that you continually self-educate yourself on political issues ( I do regularly) but politics aren't simply an individual intellectual exercise. Local, state and federal politics effect our lives in numerous ways. We as citizens must be involved in shaping them towards our common good through organizing and activism or else only the big money interests will dominate our government and its policies. Thus one's political views are irrelevant if you don't do anything about them. It won't matter what you'd like to see happen, if you aren't willing to not only do something about it but reaching out to and motivating others as well to get involved. This is the essence of organizing, bringing people together around shared issues and mobilizing them, and the key to putting political thought into action.