Buy an inexpensive, used notebook computer that has wireless access. You can keep it in that cute magazine basket next to the potty. I’m just saying…

you need to shoulder your way into the newspaper or get onto the radio they listen to at work.

And then looking at blogs in the context of the community activism, they are not where the action is. The action is going on through word-of-mouth and local media visibility. If you want to reach community activists like my parents, you need to shoulder your way into the newspaper or get onto the radio they listen to at work. Or hit the word of mouth networks. The head-up-the-asshole narcissism of new media advocacy results in ceding entire audiences to the right, which is willing to invest in local radio, television and print.

for all my raving about the wake-up that blogs have been for me, I keep a few dead tree journals in buisness. My favorite these days is Vanity Fair. [ VF has a web presence but I can’t read web pages on the pot, my longest stretch of quiet time these days.

I imagine it’s mostly a matter of his continuing cultural identification with the South and/or the working classes, whether sincere or politically motivated. He’s probably argue against patriarchy per se– after all, he has a smart wife and a couple of daughters– but he’s still got some traditionalist leanings. And we can’t forget that he’s not 35 or 40, even though he looks it; he’s a full generation, or even two, older than most of us.

Ahem.

I quibble however with this:

With some exceptions, grassroots organizers are not writing blogs, they are organizing people. This is why I had literally to travel the states to get their stories because they’re not written down anywhere. Grassroots activists know what they do, and they talk to each other, but it’s rarely written about. Bloggers may think of themselves as activists, but they’re not in the streets.

Like any generalization, this assertion [observation] has plenty of examples in support but the exceptions alluded to should not be discounted. Not that many people ever really change their mind but both the reading and the writing of blogs really can help people not formerly politically engaged to find their voice and discover what their own feelings are on all kinds of issues. The discovery of like minds, concentrated in a comment thread and uncovered from the camoflage of workaday living, can help transform one form closet liberal to activist. For years I lurked on MoveOn’s email list and did nothing. My blogging began as self expression and complaint. But the exercise eventually lends itself to transformative learning. The fact that blogging is only words in HTML for all to see makes the “its just talk” charge easy to apply but I looked over a series of my posts and found that I have actually gone from complainer to organizer in part because I have exposed myself to supportive company. Now I am very much in the streets and I will keep up the blog because it may encourage others toward the same transition as I made. [I am resisting the urge to link the entire sequence of posts in which I progress from complaint (which is incessant) to discovery to involvement to recruitment…I have already poached enough traffic from your comment threads ;-]

Bottom line, however, is: sincere thanks for bringing Laura to our attention.

O hai u haz typo. Just a headsup.

Note that he is still talking about “internal conflicts” re actual gay marriage. I just don’t understand what’s up with that, unless it is an expression of a sincere belief in Christian-dictated patriarchy.

Note that I don’t think this means Edwards is some kind of evil Trojan Horse or anything like that. Objectively speaking he’s clearly way less patriarchial than most candidates–than Hillary, for instance. But I just don’t see any logic in going so far toward recognizing the full humanity of queer folk and then stumbling there unless he really thinks that somehow or other marriage is a magically blessed mystical union and he fears blaspheming against God–and that would imply he thinks God might be “conflicted,” which sort of undermines the whole committment on his part. Better someone with a good heart and mostly clear mind who is haunted by a few ghosts and demons, than someone more cynical–but that’s still not a “I’ve got no problems with gayness, why should anyone?” Now is it?

Jake Squid
May 26th, 2007 at 1:27 am

…When I was working w/ the local Green party I repeatedly suggested the idea of community outreach (an office where neighborhood folks could find help for various stuff and so on) as a way of creating a positive presence. Unfortunately, most of the Greens are stuck in the politics is only in the voting mode and there was zero support for the idea.

That is so ironic! When I moved to Humboldt County in 1992, I made sure to register Green to give the new party a chance to get onto the ballot, and looked forward to active participation. But I found no organization whatsoever to hook up to. The upshot was I had disfranchised myself from the primary elections, because the Greens weren’t running anybody. In 1994 we moved to Sonoma County; I kept my Green affiliation, again disfranchising myself from the primary–and was explicitly told by some Green or other “Hey dude, we’re, like, the party that doesn’t believe in parties and elections and all that materialist crap.” Well, that’s not what I thought from reading Charline Spretnak and Rudolf Bahro and going to Green meetings in LA, so I just gave up and registered Democratic.