AstroTurfing USA

If it doesn’t look like grassroots, smell like grassroots, or grow like grassroots. Its not grassroots.

What do the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street have in common? Both involve people.

I was under the impression the Tea Party was a grassroots movement that was co-opted by corporate interests. Turns out the Tea Party is an exercise in American propaganda, as it was called before Edward Bernays, a man who argued manipulation of public opinion was a necessary component of democracy, convinced the US establishment to call it public relations.

The Tea Party has huge corporate sponsors, paid organizers, and a clear list of demands pretty much from its birth. Somehow people find it easy to believe that this is a recipe for honest American grassroots political action serving the interest of the average hard working American before corporations.

Occupy Wall street is a real grassroots movement. And how do you know that Amanda?
Because it was disorganized and chaotic. Repeatedly, I heard the criticism that OWS’ers have no list of demands. Repeatedly, I asked, “Have you ever participated in a direct democracy whose members change daily? Me neither, but something tells me you can't easily cook the voting books."

The Occupiers may have been evicted and to many it looks and feels like a failure. For some strange reason, or specifically, early christian indoctrination, the Parable of the Sower comes to mind and this video is an amazing.

Movements can have tons of momentum but die out immediately, they can be co-opted and splintered and the cause suffers, or if the conditions are right the movement can produce effective change over time.

Now, I’m no scientist but, I’m pretty sure AstroTurf will never go to seed.

Sensationalism is the Medium

On 9/11 we read Nora Ephron’s article about Stanley J. Forman’s photos of the 1975 Boston fire. If you haven’t, I recommend reading/viewing. The topic was sensationalism in the media. Calling it 9/11 rather than September 11^th or last Tuesday is a testament to the circus that is The Media. Never Forget. Why not? We typically love cultural amnesia. 

SENSATIONALISM AT ITS FINEST

I had no idea so many of my Facebook friends were into politics. Or calling for the murder of a bad guy in a country they know absolutely nothing about. Man, times are good when I can do my part in saving Africa by watching a 30 minute video on my iPhone at lunch.  All without having to check out the background of the organization, how they spend their money, or if they support military groups accused of looting and raping their fellow citizens, because a hip looking white guy’s very young son opens the film by saying his daddy fights bad guys. It just feels right. I’m going to go with my gut on this one.

After a showing of the ICC's Kony 2012 film in Uganda one victim said, "How can anybody expect a person to wear a T-shirt with Kony’s name on it?’ Many people were asking: ‘Why give such criminals celebrity status? Why not make the plight of the victims and the war-ravaged communities, people whose sufferings are real and visible, the focus of a campaign to help?"

I think the answer is that American's are so distracted by capitalist consumer culture that many of us can't do anything without treating it like a product.

Visit to WYSO

We met with Community Voices coordinator, Sarah Buckingham, to get some ideas on how to use the studio as a resource in our final project. Sarah gave us a tour of the new facility. The highlight by far--beside seeing our classmate, Jerry Kenney, irl while ON AIR-- was the Archives room. Wall to wall music. Every type of recording medium since 1958. Heavenly.


Each year from January to June WYSO offers a training course on Saturdays to teach the community how to produce radio stories. This year WYSO is running a pilot class for Antioch University students. If all goes well students from any campus can take the course for undergraduate credit. 

Sarah gave us a sort of flash-class in Vox Pop. Vox Pop is short for vox populi which is Latin for voice of the people. We discussed techniques and technicalities such as fair use, how to hold the mic, how background noise can make or break a production, and tips for writing for radio.

I recently went to Albuquerque, New Mexico for vacation. On my return flight my friend, Jessie and I began talking to the woman in the window seat of our row. Jessie has takeoff and landing anxiety, but the woman, a frequent flyer reassured her we wouldn’t die. Throughout the flight we made small talk with the woman. She had an issue of Essence magazine with a spread of Jada Pinkett Smith and her new website dontsellbodies.org. About mid flight the woman admits that she grew up with Jada and was on a tour of youth centers to speak about Human Trafficking--funded by Jada’s organization. I gave her a brief (and uncomplicated) history of Antioch and we exchanged emails.

At first I was convinced I’d pick a smaller local issue for my final project. Human Trafficking may be a global issue but it happens in our communities across the U.S.

Here’s a link to a piece about Human Trafficking by Sarah Buckingham.

Child Sex Trafficking: A Statewide Problem

The Revolution will not be televised

 

It will be tweeted.

Last Tuesday was the first day of Social Media and Social Change with Nathan Singer.  I prepared for class with this book.

A book of tweets. Someone in class asked me to read some of the tweets. She was obviously unfamiliar with Twitter. No one who knows what Twitter is would want a book of tweets read aloud. 

The editors recommend reading this book as a Twitter user reads tweets, skimming to those tweets the user finds relevant or catches the eye. Sections are broken up in themes such as, The Spark, Anticipation, and The Revolution Deepens, with short summaries by the editors. This new method of recording a historical narrative (all histories are narratives) maybe a better way to capture a people’s history rather than a white-washed establishment version.

A study of the role of social media in the Arab Spring by The Project on Information Technology and Political Islam at the University of Washington's Department of Communication concluded that,

“ 1) Social media played a central role in shaping political debates in the Arab Spring.

2) A spike in online media revolutionary conversations often preceded major events on    the ground.

3) Social media helped spread democratic ideas across international borders.”

 (Can't wait to see how this data is used to suppress resistance movements in the near future!) 

But it was the following piece of data that sparked my interest.

 “Over the course of a week before Mubarak’s resignation, the total rate of tweets from Egypt—and around the world—about political change in that country ballooned from 2,300 a day to 230,000 a day.”

The Internet has personalized globalization. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter allow people to connect instantly around the globe. But only the privileged have the means to be connected at all times. Still the relatively small number of people with constant access to the Internet creates an atmosphere in which the alienated can feel connected not only with her fellow countrymen but also with the world. 

The American government has installed dictators and supported authoritarian regimes for their own benefit. Thankfully Social Media allowed for the People of the Arab and Western world to experience solidarity. Person to Person. Facebook to Facebook. 140 characters at a time.