Bloggers on the Bus by Eric Boehlert
How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press
From the guy who wrote LapDogs: How the Press Rolled Over For Bush, which sounds interesting too. I may have to check that one out too, after I’ve read about 100 pages in Bloggers on the Bus (Title invokes memories of an old classic by Timothy Crouse that I never heard of: “Boys on the Bus”, about the writers who tagged along with campaigns to “get a feel” for the politics and issues and lives of the candidates amongst the people on the campaign trail.
The first third of this book chronicles the startups of several now famed blogs and Social Networking experiments. An Obama MySpace page, and how the Obama administration blew it with him by being clueless….Robert Greenwald’s campaigns against Fox News (which , when I saw this in my first perusal of the book, decided it was a keeper…since I absolutely loathe Fox News).
Also chronicled are Atrios, Digby, Huffington Post, and more. The book reminds me a lot of the Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi’s 2004 book, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. But now , 5 years later, that revolution has become televised in another way via YouTube.
Books like this (and this one is well written), tend to get my net-geek/activist juices flowing , but my activism is focused on how the church can leverage Social Networking to help its people connect with the important people and resources, and have someone to talk to at literally all hours of the day and night. Expect to see me posting more from here on, as the Social Networking excitement flows through several organizations and enables communications of a sort never before known. (Don’t take that to signal that I am a Netopian, because my optimism is based in the assumption that the church will be the Net Roots that drive the kind of renewal of revived interpersonal and social relationships, and along with that, and through that, a political movement of a different sort ; a politic driven by the kind of world a people of God envision as they explore together a discernment of how to be Kingdom of God people.
Juan Cole with some on the mark thoughts on the U.S. and Iran
The fact is that despite the bluster of the American Right that Something Must be Done, the United States is not a neutral or benevolent player in Iran. Washington overthrew the elected government of Iran in 1953 over oil nationalization, and installed the megalomaniac and oppressive Mohammad Reza Pahlevi, who gradually so alienated all social classes in Iran that he was overthrown in a popular revolution in 1978-1979. The shah had a national system of domestic surveillance and tossed people in jail for the slightest dissidence, and was supported to the hilt by the United States government. So past American intervention has not been on the side of let us say human rights.
….
Moreover, very unfortunately, US politicians are no longer in a position to lecture other countries about their human rights. The kind of unlicensed, city-wide demonstrations being held in Tehran last week would not be allowed to be held in the United States. Senator John McCain led the charge against Obama for not having sufficiently intervened in Iran. At the Republican National Committee convention in St. Paul, 250 protesters were arrested shortly before John McCain took the podium. Most were innocent activists and even journalists. Amy Goodman and her staff were assaulted. In New York in 2004, ‘protest zones’ were assigned, and 1800 protesters were arrested, who have now been awarded civil damages by the courts. Spontaneous, city-wide demonstrations outside designated ‘protest zones’ would be illegal in New York City, apparently. In fact, the Republican National Committee has undertaken to pay for the cost of any lawsuits by wronged protesters, which many observers fear will make the police more aggressive, since they will know that their municipal authorities will not have to pay for civil damages.
The number of demonstrators arrested in Tehran on Saturday is estimated at 550 or so, which is less than those arrested by the NYPD for protesting Bush policies in 2004.
Informed Comment: Washington and the Iran Protests:
Would they be Allowed in the US?
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