Thoughts on Tweeting Activism

So Andy Downs was talking to me on Twitter and asked my thoughts on tweeting, "Liking" and online petitions as activism

Here is the link to the larger conversation

Conrete Results - Working On The End Game

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Andy Downs, Wednesday at 5:09 PM.

Andy Downs Member

I was talking to an online friend of mine the other night. They were disheartened by being involved with the activists who do nothing but post and repost, tweet and retweet, "LIKE" etc etc

Their point was nothing changes so why do it.

While I get the frustration, this is exactly what the US Government would love along with big corporations. It is why real terrorists can win, they don;t own many wrist watches (let's not get too literal here, I am sure many terrorists have watches somewhere)

However my point is those who stay the course and disregard how long something is taking will lose.

In my humble opinion we need to set concrete goals for change. Not a "Grand Bargain" of sorts, but start breaking this down into smaller battles that could add up to winning the war.

It is why I thought of, and posted: How Detroit Could Be A Game Changer
https://whyweprotest.net/community/threads/how-detroit-could-become-a-game-changer.115585/

We all want corporate corruption to end and the NSA to give back the internet along with our right to privacy. The question them becomes, how do we specifically get there?

SOPA was a win. The USA Freedom Act is less sure.

We need a series of wins to build momentum and keep the believers in the fray and add to them as we go along.

When you read the Gene Sharp Books it talks a great deal about small things to do that add up to a win. But most importantly it talks about what you need to have in place, at least some plan, of what to do after you accomplish your goal.

The example in from Dictatorship to Democracy is you don;t want to destroy your government, you want to change it. To do that you have to have a plan so that chaos doesn't ensue and all that was fought for is lost to the next jackass (not a direct quote)

So I would like to discuss what specific goals do we have, and come up with a series of battles we can undertake to achieve those goals (in a legal and peaceful means)

Thoughts...or do you think I am out of my mind?

Andy Downs, Wednesday at 5:09 PM

#1 Reply

 I wrote this in response

My thoughts on social media activism and online petitions are this---twitter and facebook are great forums for learning about topics and meeting other people, and for being globally active while staying in front of a computer screen, but as I saw on twitter, "if petitons actually worked they would be illegal" ---now Rachel Maddow has pointed out a petitioner from Asia that actually got a result from the White House, but policy issues are rarely acutal responses from public outcry.....we may think that we stopped SOPA, PIPA, or the bombing of Syrian but really it was the tech giants and their lobbyists that have more influence in DC, and it was most likely the White House itself that used the threat of strikes against Syria that forced a deal on chemical weapons, not us on twitter or even Tea Party in congress, who were BEGGING Obama to get involved in Syria before he said he would, that made the decision to strike or not----so while I would like to think that we matter, I have yet to see concrete evidence so far, though I'm sure NSA thinks we're all terrorists anyway......LibDem

Libdem, Saturday at 7:39 PM

#24 Reply