Back in the old days (oh no not again) my activist training included learning use of current technology to support our activism. We also learned street speaking, setting up literature tables, writing pamphlets, and writing press releases. And how to be arrested.....
The first social change technology I assimilated involved pouring gel into an flat 8"x10" wooden frame. When the gel set, I placed a stencil resembling a sheet of carbon paper on it, peeling it off a little while later. Then we would carefully place individual pieces of paper on the inked gel and make copies, sheet by sheet. One stencil could make about 50 copies. Our hands turned bright purple, as did our accompanying bottles of beer.
Later on, I was taught to disassemble, clean and repair a mimeograph - which used similar stencils, but pulled paper off a stack with its hand-cranked drum - hundreds of copies in short order.
In the 60s, I was as thrilled with the transition to mimeo as any contemporary kid with Facebook on her smartphone.
But let's not jumble the tools and the goods. I'm discouraged these days to hear about Twitter (or Facebook) "Revolutions." NPR and others confuse the utensil with the object it creates, the chisel with the chair. In doing so, they expunge the core of what they're reporting on: years of struggle, terrible suffering, and great skill at organizing frightened people into tentative crowds and finally into the social movements that change history.
Those brave people in North Africa and the Middle East, and many others around the world including in our own Occupy camps, are putting their most non-virtual selves on the line. They are abetted by their nifty apps and gizmos no doubt. But organizing for social change is a corporeal and utterly non-technological and most of all human occupation.
Good reporters might find time on their commutes to reread - maybe on their Kindles - Elias Canetti's Crowds and Power. It was published in 1960, so it was hot stuff when I was learning about organizing. As a Bulgarian, maybe Canetti knew a thing or two about oppression and resistance. When I reread my battered copy 40 years later, it held up very well.
Even if you don't work for public radio, you might want to have a look. Our contemporary tools are great; here I am with my blog. But we'll create movements that protect and defend our precious liberty with sweat and with kisses, sometimes both at once. Tweeting and blogging alone just won't do it.
The Salt Marsh in Early Autumn
