[Air-l] howard dean, social movements and clay shirky

[Art McGee]

> >That's never been asserted. What's been said is that the
> >dependence on online technologies can lull some people into
> >a false sense of security.
>
> To the contrary, that is more or less Shirky asserts:

I see, you're talking about Shirky and I'm referring to the
people on this list. My mistake.

Well, the first problem with Shirky's assertion is that as
an elite not connected with grassroots social movements, he
speaks from the place specifically having to do with
political campaigns and the existing social structure, i.e.,
voting and elections. That is the extent of what he is
referring to, and in that sense, there is no evidence to
back him up, because Dean is pretty much the first
politician to put any of this into sustained and consistent
practice. So yes, Shirky has his head up his ass.

On the other hand, if we're talking about grassroots use of
the Internet to support and sustain political *organizing*
and various forms of action and intervention (in other
words: movement building), we already have numerous examples
of that, including everything from the anti-Corporate
Globalization Movement to the work I did with the Black
Radical Congress.

So the issue is really what type of political actions are we
trying to identify? If we're merely talking about voting,
then yes, the evidence is weak there. If we're talking about
grassroots political action, then there's plenty of evidence
of it's effectiveness. Part of the problem is defining what
effective action is. Shirky, and I suspect many others, only
see that which results in the election of officials from one
of the two Corporate-owned parties as "real" effectiveness.


Art