Hi Marjorie,
Do you hv any idea when you will be able to incorporate San's suggestions into
yr union res? And send me a copy? I'd like to get a copy to hostos psc Chapter
before the semester ends.
Re social media: gagging at the idea that we might have a polemical exchange
w Chris hedges, is counter productive. He certainly has a very different
strategy for making revolution. And one that's not vey appealing to much of his
readership. I think he used to be a monk. But he has a good deal of integrity
and a lot of moral authority, if not programmatic credibility, among his many
thousands of weekly, left-inclined readers. There are a lot of forums that
reflect different strategies for achieving social change, most of them
reformist, like Blm, black educator groups, bad ass teachers. But they include
activists, lacking our politics, hungry for the changes we seek. Now more than
ever the choice between socialism or barbarism(or worse) can resonate with
Avery large part of the population . and we need to be addressing them (this
feels like the arguments gerald and I used to hv w the sl 40 yrs ago. But Now
we can speak every day to thousands engaged in, or feeling acutely the need to
engage in, struggle). We could probably find 50 sites that have audiences that
include people who might be responsive to our program and politics.
sOCIAL MOVEMENTS that hope to be of ANY CONSEQUENCE must make use of the
social media and the internet. Disdain for them is counterproductive. What did
the luddites achieve except a footnote in history as losers in the fight
against the unstoppable industrial revolution.
Do we want to develop new audiences, or do we expend our energies producing
brilliant writings, only to try to win someone from nycore w them. Year in
and year out.
Any fb page can choose its audience, public, fb friends, members of a closed
group, identified by page manager, members of an open group identified by
common interests. And block any individual or site in a minute. And ask to join
other groups, or simply join them if they r not closed, and post headlines and
summaries on them w links to full articles. It happens a thousand times a day.
As for san’s concern that fb will give the surveillance state info on us, you
can be sure they already hv all they need. As greenwald told Snowden in citizen
4, there were then 1,400,000 in the U.s. constantly under surveillance, with
the number constantly growing. ( the only reason we might not be among them is
we r too old to bother with.) Two of my young, goodnik, civil – rights type,
Blm, fb friends recently posted freedom of info-obtained homeland security
reports that stated that they were to be targeted to be “neutralized” in the
event of a social uprising. Their activity, reporting on Ferguson.
I wd hv offered to help w this, despite my unending frustration at being unable
to negotiate the technology, U except we r in the midst of a move, living in
temp housing, trying to get permit for renovation in new apt, with apt mngmnt
reluctant to give it. I told bella, if I had it to do over again, I'd move back
to Cleveland.
H
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