A few days ago
spoon-or-no-spoonwrote the popular post
USA 1776-2006 where
Liberal Thinking proposes a hybridized form of social protest/activism.
" protesting on the Mall is passee. If you want to get attention, you have to organize for attention.
Instead of 100,000 people on the Mall what we need is 100 people at each media outlet: radio station, TV station, newspaper bureau, state legislative office, HR home office, Senator's home office, and all the corporate headquarters at the same time. With modern communications this would be an unstoppable force. No one government, police station or any other organized force could stop it, and the press (because they'd have to cross the picket lines to get to work) couldn't ignore it.
So, the next time someone decides to plan a march, I suggest a virtual march. March to the local office and wave some signs.
And, I assert, there are enough blue people in red territory to make it hurt in Kansas. If the staff of the local representative from Lincoln have to cross lines of angry pro-choice protests every day for a while to get to work, it will get on the news.
Flip
This activism effectively speaks to media institutions, the spread out nature of activists across the country and world, the ability of new technology to organize these gatherings inexpensively and quickly, and the community developing strength of public vigils.
I'll poll new names for this protest type below.
Lets get to work on this new non-violent social action.
To start this planning we need a few things:
a topic
a list of places to protest
a website to organize the participants
a detailed list of the rights and regulations that participants need to know while participating.
The most important topics are the Iraq War, the War on Choice, HealthCare Reform, or Corruption Reform in the States,
There are many places across this nation that would be effective for these topics of protest. We need to collect a list of spaces across the country which prove effective for this forum including media outlets, recruiting offices, legislative offices, etc.
Does anyone know of a web-hub that could support this type of activism? I'm thinking a organizations similar to what drives flash mobs would be really effective because it seems decentralized and interactive with both internet and mobile technologies.
Finally we must collect documentation similar to what is passed out to protestors which details the rights and regulations of individuals participating in this social action.
Lets get to work!!