Social networks, social revolution

All Quiet on the Western Front

There's no war here. Not overtly, no soldiers in the streets, no tanks. But Sony corp wants your browsing information if you view any sites or videos about jailbreaking PS3s. American corporations want to drive our wages down until competitive with China and India. Companies are hiring less, making more profit and paying less for healthcare, but there's no war here.

No AK-47 pointed at me in the grocery store, but I pay more for food. No watchtower, no soldier at a checkpoint, but the RealID Act could prevent me from entering a government building or an airplane. There's less and less debate every election cycle: the GOP will send six battalions overseas, but the Democrats will only send a half dozen. Republicans will gut union rights, Dems say "we" must make sacrifices and then give tax cuts to rich.

That's why I take such joy in the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. People want what a responsible government is suppose to deliver. And the kicker is the way they are going about it is a form of direct democracy. I hope historians are watching Al Jazeera and taking notes. Kids in the West may need them one day.

Photo: The corner taken w/ iPhone 3GS, Hipstamatic app (Lucifer VI lens, Alfred Infrared film, Cadet Blue Gel flash)

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The Doha Debates: This House Believes The World is Better Off With WikiLeaks

The Tweet Who Sat by the Door

They closed the door in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya - in hopes that descent could be curtailed without Facebook or Twitter. But the Internet is just a tool, not the source of descent. If the human spirit is sicken by oppression, then it will heal itself using all matter of resistance.

You see, protests are just the human collective healing itself from the disease of bad governance. Oppression is a malignancy in human culture. The antibodies are the activists, the freedom fighters, the revolutionaries (sometimes even politicians). The more they are killed, the more they are produced. It's a reaction to the infection of intolerance, poverty, brutality. Lack of freedom is cancer.

While military intervention is the chemotherapy of Failed States, but it's far better for the body politic to heal itself through peaceful resistance. Since chemo can kill as many pro-democratic actors as it does provocateurs, it's a gamble some states like Egypt aren't willing to take.

Photo: Clear 4G Hotspot taken w/ iPhone 3GS, Hipstamatic app (Chunky, Blanko)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Ghosts in the Machine

The machinery looks frightful. Blue steel gears all oiled up with corporate money. But teachers and fireman stood against the monster. The liberal media challenged its shrill narrative. Wisconsinites got dirty, pressing their bodies between the agenda and it's implementation, slowing down the oppressor's drill.

The cables are taut now. Straining under the weight of the Press. The masses, even genuine fiscal conservatives, see somethings wrong. The hard won protections of non-capitalists in a free-market are being threaten by the political machine. Squeezing people between scarcity and low wages, squishing folks under the high cost of health benefits.. Trapped - the would be victim finds the strength to face anti-labor agents like Governor Walker.

The slippery slope of capitalism claims as many souls as politicians can push. The GOP seems to have bigger hands this year. As my brothers and sisters slide into debt, think that I should really start a business. Because in capitalism, if you don't have capital, you don't have power. This is why real democracy is so important. One person, one vote.

Photo: Drill at construction site taken w/ iPhone 3GS, Hipstamatic app (Chunky, Blanko Noir)


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Cream, Two sugars

Is this what they want? Caffeine and emails? A rat race or democracy? In the West, we tend to think it's the same thing. For how can you have the right to vote without the right to purchase?

In America, the tectonic shifting of rich and the government, keep middle class houses under threat. Is this what they want? In Egypt, Tunisia, etc, do they just want the right to choose which elite will rule over them? Is the experiment they seek possible? How do they build a republic without republicans becoming corrupt?

The challenge we face in the West is corporations perverting our democracy. First it was rich land owners that made the laws, now corporations want to run the society like sweat shop: minimum regulations, low wages and no unions. Hope the family in the Middle East can improve on what we call democracy.

Photo: Too expensive coffee and mobile taken w/ iPhone 3GS, Hipstamatic app (Lucefer VI, Blanko Noir, RedEye Gel)

Helen Thomas on Her Resignation and Middle East. Wonderful woman of courage