This is bigger than hip hop- Blogger Call to Arms

Take a step back for a second and think about it.  There's a lot of shit going down right now.  From Katrina to Bush to the Supreme Court to Rove making the headlines- and all of the sudden we get NYC subway terror threats.  And alleged links to Iraq.  Which of course trumps all other news stories and promotes a certain type of fear and short term memory loss among the populace.  Media control has gone a little too far.  Bloggers, step your game up.

Real talk.  If you ever wanted to justify why you spend hours on end laboring over your next idea or your next blog entry, read this.  It's long and its heavy, but in-between the lines you'll recognize that we bloggers- voluntary citizen journalists- are one of the last lines of defense against increasingly corporate and politcally controlled media outlets. 

The hip hop blog community for example, provided a lot of the counter commentary to the Katrina disaster.  With or without knowing it, we started and maintained a real discourse about real people who were experiencing real discrimination in one of the most embarrassing chapters of our nation's short history.  So whatever it is: politics, culture, music, hip hop- keep blogging.

"The final point I want to make is this: We must ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any limitation on the ability of individuals to choose the content they wish regardless of the Internet service provider they use to connect to the Worldwide Web. We cannot take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it because some of the same forces of corporate consolidation and control that have distorted the television marketplace have an interest in controlling the Internet marketplace as well. Far too much is at stake to ever allow that to happen. " ~ AL GORE

Comments

[i'm the skwidawd]

And what are you suggesting we do?

[spcoon]

Here's a few ideas of what you can do:

1) Get your RSS feeds in order, especially from political blogs, major newspaper op-eds and political satire (we all need comedy relief). Blog accordingly.

2) Watch C-Span! It may seem boring, but it's a wealth of blog post accountability stories.

3) Educate others. If you have friends or family that don't know how to use RSS or how to blog, teach them. This is the future of the American people having a voice in a democratic Republic.

[nastack]

but who's to say that these newscasts are incorrect? What can I possibly tell them about an NY subway for example?

[spcoon]

political blogs such as blather (http://texastentialist.typepad.com/blather/), Crooks&Liars (http://www.crooksandliars.com) and Media Matters for America (http://www.mediamatters.org) are all engaging, fact based blogs, presenting a multitude of political perspectives, news and accountability. There's more than enough information covered on a daily basis for an intelligent blogger to grab a thread that hits home, re-frame (remix) it with a different perspective and push it back out into the blogosphere.

the ny subways? how about pulling together some stories and frame your perspective? maybe the idea that this security blitz came when the bush administration is falling apart at the seams? be creative by looking for connections that match your gut instinct. remember, you're framing your opinion of the world, not making world peace.

[i'm the skwidawd]

spcoon...

how will you know if your approach is working?

[spcoon]

i don't know if there's a metric that could absolutely prove that anything we post makes a difference. one solid approach is to keep an eye out for trends developing around some of your thoughts and ideas and follow up with more discussion. hey, we're all in this together, but we'll never know unless we open up and share our perspective about what's goin' on. like marvin said...

[i'm the skwidawd]

Why would I (1) get an RSS feed, (2) watch C-Span, and (3) educate others, if I have no idea what the purpose is?

The problem with most activists is that they are full of activities, but have no effective strategies.

RSS feeds and C-Span will not stop the war in Iraq. How do I know? Because RSS feeds and C-Span are not strategies.

[spcoon]

how do you put together a strategy before becoming informed?

my point about RSS is that if you find 50 to 100 blogs, sites, etc. that *you feel* round out your interests and keep you informed, setting them up in an app like bloglines.com will make it much easier for you to track the signals between the noise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal-to-noise_ratio#Informal_use)

my point about C-Span is that it is a direct line into our political process. take the analogy of sports as an example of my point. people that care about sports don't just read about the games or read the box scores... they watch the games. in person. on tv. listen on the radio. then they have their personal experience of watching the game first hand when disagreeing/agreeing with sports columnists, journalists, general managers, coaches, players, etc.

with politics, we just watch sportscenter.

all i'm saying is that if you set your world up to receive information, instead of relying only on stumbling upon it, you'll be in a more informed position to publish your perspective. if you watch the actual game, you can then comment on the nuances and compare your perspective to the "columnist" perspective.

[spcoon]

more good info if you blog with a purpose:

handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents
(http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=542)

[i'm the skwidawd]

what is lacking is not RSS feeds or access to C-Span (which probably 90% of Americans have access to). the problem is that people lack the education, perspective, purpose, and, yes... the strategies to make a change.

You are not a dissident if you don't pose a threat. You simply have an opinion (mind you, one that is actually held by the majority of Americans... hardly dissident material).

[spcoon]

education, perspective, purpose and strategies.

one at a time, my man, one at a time.

[i'm the skwidawd]

seems more like NONE at a time, imo.

[spcoon]

Are you speaking in general or trying to call me out? Since you and I know *nothing* about one another, I'll assume the former. Here's an example of what I've been talking about:

Think Progress (http://www.thinkprogress.org) just posted a story which peels back another layer of this administration's evil and hypocrital ways of advancing their agendas (http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/07/elbaradei-prize/). I came across their post, in real-time, because I subscribed their RSS feed to my /politics/ folder in bloglines. Now you and the visitors to this site might be exposed to it for the first time all because I subscribed to the feed. That's the great thing about RSS.

But RSS is just a tactical way to engage in digesting information in an age of information overload. So I'm now thinking about posting a follow-up post about hypocracy, which I touched upon in a post about Sean Hannity a few days ago on my blog, while broswing the web for other examples in making my thesis complete.

The strategy behind doing this is to get one more perspective out in the world, driving discourse and opening eyes. Maybe my *strategy* will morph into *strategies* as time goes on, but for today, this is my contribution.

So none of this makes any sense to you, eh?

[i'm the skwidawd]

It makes sense. You hate the "evil" Bush administration, and talking about it makes you feel better. I get that.

My point is to differentiate between making yourself feel better, and actually doing something about a situation.

I definitely engage in both approaches. But I have learned to differentiate between blowing off steam and actually changing things.

There are very few threats to the exhange of information on the internet. I'm not sure where Al Gore is coming from. The government and corporations have little need to clamp down on the Internet because the internet poses no major threats... yet (need I mention that Republican hegemony has increased dramatically since 1998 ;)

The problem with the internet -- if one chooses to see this as a problem -- is that most people (a) aren't looking for dissident material in the first place, (b) don't understand the dynamics of our political economy, (c) don't know how to connect the information with action.

I can't change (a) and (b) -- and neither can you -- but I do know a few things about (c).

This might sound familiar, but the key to (c) is identifying goals and developing a strategy to achieve them. This is how your "enemies" work. This is how they are successful.

If you focus on (a+b) you will actually HELP the Republicans stay in power, because all the battles involve (c). If you aren't engaging in (c), you are merely a cheerleader for blowhards like Al Gore (whose wife, need I mention, was head of the PMRC).

[spcoon]

Look, man, you really know nothing about me, especially about what "makes me feel better." You don't know how I live my life between posts and you certainly don't know where I've been or where I'm going, so drop that line. I'm not your fucking stereotype.

Back to topic: You perspective of government and big business not clamping down on the internet is simply naive. Exactly what signs are you looking for, levees to break?

Rupert Murdock professing the importance of blogs back in May is enough for me to get worried. Murdock's purchase of MySpace.com for half a billion (with a B) is another wake up call. On-air regulations and market deregulation didn't happen overnight, yet here we are living in a conglomerate media world. What are you going to do when the signs are explicit?

Of course "identifying goals and developing a strategy to achieve them" is how you bring about change. What makes you think I'm not doing that already? Let me make this crystal clear; before "I" plan any course of action against an "enemy," I learn all that I possibly can about them so I can pull them up by their roots.

Becoming well informed (your a & b) will never give anyone else the upper hand in any confrontation; verbal or otherwise. Running blindly ahead with "c" will just get you knocked on your ass.

By the way, if you read my post, you'd see that I pointed out the same thing out about Gore and his wife... but apparently, you're not into educating yourself for an argument, let alone a struggle.

[i'm the skwidawd]

what are your goals?

[spcoon]

sorry dude, i don't get down like that on a first date.

[i'm the skwidawd]

Eric: What should I do?
Spcoon: RSS-feeds, C-Span, educate other
Eric: Why?
Spcoon: I don't get down like that.

[spcoon]

Yeah, I guess I didn't get into any details as to why we should be consuming information in a strategic manner (your terms).

I guess I also didn't touch upon why I believe it's important to do so, you know, educating yourself to have intelligent, civil discourse.

You're right, I only told you that I wouldn't share my personal goals with you, just as I refused to with my high school guidance counselor and college advisor, my parents throughout adolescence and complete strangers my entire life.

Well, at least we're not complete strangers anymore, Eric.

-Sean

[Bakari]

I just found this site and haven't yet read through all the comments, but as a long activist and now a father just trying to raise his kids, I gotta agree with Micheal that it's indeed important to keep blogging and letting our voices be heard.

Sure political and organizational strategies and objectives need to be established and built--that must happen--but we're fighting a propaganda and information war in this country and indeed the rest of the world. We are hit with a tons of information everyday and most people can barely consume one percent of it. So you have to be selective about what information you will consume. Will be nonsense to make rich people money or will it be information that's about change.

If you're really about trying to have freedom and justice in this society, you simply have to be clear about what ideological perspectives you support and where you find the information that supports your ideological views. Without the information and analysis it is seriously hard to win the battle that is being waged--which is essentially the anti-peoples forces vs. the people's forces. It's between those who see profit as more important than people vs. those see people as more important than profits.

We need to use forms of multimedia to raises our voices and the same time build organization for change.

[obifromsouthlondon]

I hear you hashim. for real knowledge is power. discourse breeds it.

gwan wid ya bad self breddren

[spcoon]

i got a good case in point about c-span. check out the following link:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/10/07.html#a5275

now who's going to take this example of the bullshit on the hill and run with it? no, not bitching and whining, but dropping a katrina klap on it?

you know what, to keep this shit real, i'll see what i can pull out of my bag-o-rhymes and putting fingers to keys.

-s

[spcoon]

dropped.
(http://www.seancoon.org/2005/10/the_power_of_tw.html)

[spcoon]

here's more fodder:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-leopold/karl-rove-lied-to-the-fbi_b_8524.html

who's on my left?

[Stussy D]

I just want to say thanks for the post. That's one of the best things I've read in a long time, and I think its especially important for youth like myself to be motivated to help in these societal goals.

We should all commit, if we have not yet, to spreading the wealth of knowledge available to us, in hope that we can change our country and the world.

While skwidawd has a point in emphasizing action, it is and always has been important to be educated and educate others. Action neeeds to be taken, however, primarily as a means to spread knowledge, and with this knowledge, induce change.

[i'm the skwidawd]

If you wake up in the morning and see 100 articles in your RSS feed, how do you pick which articles to read?

You can't read all of them.

Naturally, you pick articles based on your goals, even if it seems like a spontaneous or natural process of elimination.

Most people's goals are a mix of group and individual goals. But when it comes to politics, it tends to be more of a groupthink process (that's word to The Lucifer Principle).

OK, my point is simple. You gotta clearly defined your goals before you start your education and dissemination. That doesn't mean you can't change those goals. You can change them anytime!

Whether you know it or not, you have goals. And those goals are changing how you read and educate yourself, and how you see your place in the world of political economy.

When you clarify and/or change those goals... then you can actually see what those goals are and whether you have a chance of accomplishing them.

Do you want power? Knowledge does not equal power. Sometimes knowledge disempowers by crippling and misleading, obfuscating and confusing.

goal + achievement = power

[spcoon]

I don't set goals.

I live life and pull over every now and then to examine the life experience bugs caught up in my grill. These experiences help shape the next path I take, wide-eyed with pen and pad in hand.

My life isn't about acheiving power, it's about understanding who I am and enjoying the people around me, which gives me a decent view of the divergent possibilities of the road ahead. By knowing me, really knowing me, I can have empathy for people and situations outside of my own. That's my most important "goal."

If I ever am in a position to impact society with my perspective, it'll be because I keep it real to these values.

With all respect, I'm not running for office; that simplistic, additive equation of ascending to power is what makes men throughout history, such as Rove, the type of men we want to expel into the ether.

[i'm the skwidawd]

Spcoon...

I wasn't suggesting that your goal should be anything other than whatever your goals happen to be. I certainly wasn't suggesting that a goal need be political in nature, or ambitious. A goal could be anything from being a monk in a cave... to blowing up the world. And if you truly have no goals... amazing... what more could one ask?

I'm not here to tell anyone what their goals should be. I'm simply responding to your very specific pleas for people to do this or do that pertaining to these fairly specific political issues.

And, of course... there is the obvious question: why post articles, indeed... why say anything at all... if you truly have no goals? Isn't that a contradiction?

[spcoon]

my 1st comment was in response to your question of "what are you suggesting we do?" in the context of michael's post. little did i know you were asking a rhetorical question, as you didn't agree with his perspective (or gore's) in the first place.

my suggestion, if you were interested in getting involved and educating yourself about politics so you can step up to michaels call to arms, was to get your feeds straight and watch some c-span once in a while. basically, get involved in the game and the discourse surrounding it. i assumed you (or anyone) would know what to do with knowledge once you found it, whether it's a political perspective post, dropping lyrics, getting other people involved, or whatever other action you'd undertake armed with more information. my last point was to help others get in a position to cut through the noise as well, to become informed and do similar things.

as for your last question, i said i didn't *set* any goals. that doesn't mean i don't recognize opportunities in the moment and run with them (my grill metaphor). i like to think of that as freestyling.

[i'm the skwidawd]

> i assumed you (or anyone) would know what > to do with knowledge once you found it

No, absolutely not. But my use of knowledge is not of interest to me. I want to know what other people are doing with their knowledge.

Let's take your latest post on this page here.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-leopold/karl-rove-lied-to-the-fbi_b_8524.html

I, personally, have no idea what to do based on it. Does it suggest an obvious course of action?

What are you going to do because of this article? Anything?

Again, my only point/question is simple and not the least bit rhetorical.

What are you going to DO and WHY? I'm not saying you should act on every article you read. But I do want to know: when do you take action? and what form of action do you take?

And anyone else is welcome to chime in too. I just want some examples of what people are DOing.

[spcoon]

eric, just last night i wrote a long article about the potential shadyness of technorati.com climbing into bed with a major PR firm to prod bloggers for answers about how they perceive corporate communications. i did this because i got an update of the technorati weblog through bloglines and their post gave me some concerns.

within 20 minutes, dave sifry, the ceo of technorati, left me a long, engaging comment on the post and gave me his personal cell phone number to call him to discuss this in more detail. i removed the cell number for the sake of his privacy.

isn't that an example of "doing" something, or does that not count because it was a blog post and not something else? i don't know what you're looking for?

regarding michael's "call to arms", why don't you try crafting an intelligent point around something, send it off to the ether and see what comes back. you just might hit a nerve... or don't.

this thread is getting painful.

[i'm the skwidawd]

OK, cool. Sorry to bug you. Advocacy and lobbying are definitely action. Direct communications with powerful people can accomplish big things.

As far as me making a difference, I'm still figuring out how to live my own life. With regard to influencing or changing others, I try to live my life as an example. With regard to activism, if I see a movement worth joining, then I'll join it. But right now I haven't seen anything that truly threatens the current paradigm/status quo.

After reading the Tao Te Ching about a year ago, I realligned my notions of change, what change means, and how I relate to change. The traditional notion of activism (petitioning elites to grant "rights") is generally out of sync with current views on change.

I respect your thoughts and I appreciate your taking the time to answer my questions.

[spcoon]

dude, you're not bothering me, it's just all i could hear on the other end of this monitor is that you wanted explicit directions. i don't have any, because i don't beleive there are any. pretty similar to tao, no?

my father had a book of tao when i was growing up. he kept it in his night bureau, right next to his stash of playboys. yeah, i wasn't supposed to be in there, but it exposed me to a lot. i'm sure he'd laugh if i told him about this. well, to my original suggestion, i'm going to take your lead and pick up a copy of Tao Te Ching.

along those same lines, pick up a copy of noam chomsky's "understanding power." noam is a master linguist, understanding that language is everything and nothing, simultaneously. very tao. but he's also a scholar of history. mix those two together and you can guess why he gets zero media coverage in america (he's practically a rock star oversees).

to wrap, i completely agree with you about the concept of "petitioning" for rights. as soon as you petition, you suggest to power that you have none. the only thing the power structure pauses for (from making more capital), is a threat to their wealth. in order for that to happen, no matter how you slice it, people need to stick together with a focus. look at the current state of this nation and compare it to the state of union labor. coincidence?

if you want to continue this conversation offline, give me a shout at spcoon *at* seancoon *dot* org.

peace

[spcoon]

of couse i let a sleeping dog lie...

http://www.blogrevolt.com/archives/2005/10/whats_the_money.htm

it's an article about RSS, more from a business perspective--how they're missing opportunities--but it touches upon how it, even in it's overwhelming presentation, helps brings people's focus of interest *to them*

later

[Ic]

Great points sir.

[Hip Hop Editor]

The hip hop blog community for example, provided a lot of the counter commentary to the Katrina disaster

[511 pants]

Thank you very much for the great information.

Thanks
511 pants

[hip hop music]

great news!!

[YELLA MANE]

yella mane