(Protesters burst into spontaneous cheering and applause.)

PROTESTOR 1: (salutes)Thanks, Chief!

PROTESTOR 2: Wow, what a caring government!

YOUNG PROTESTOR: (through tears of joy)I… I wasn’t sure I would know what to do when I got here. Now I feel safe!

__________________________
Shira, just for the election cycle?

Red Queen, I hope there is a way to fix things with the internet… but it’s just a new technology. Might shake things up in a meaningful way, but then again, kind of looking right now like it might not.

The net is a tool which is only good for as long as we have the freedom to roam across this worldwide series of tubes unhindered. Alas, the infrastructure of the internet is mostly in the hands of our Big Bad Greedy Capitalist Overlords. So if the proles figure out a way to use the web in a way that really does kickstart some kind of Revolution, then the Overlords take note. And the wild-and-wooly days of the internet will be over.

Most of us bloggers already have the early American spirit of pamphleting down. Now we just need a way to take the message from those that agree with us to changing the opinions of those that don’t.

That was kind of the problem for the pamphleteers, too. What’s the message? Who is “us”? There is certainly a lot of coordination between progressive bloggers right now. Conventions all over, important action alerts galore. But as they stand right now, the closest thing to a consensus message, to a gestalt that could be called an “us”, is a shared belief that the best way to improve things is to work from within the Democratic party.

As everybody here has surely figured out by now, I don’t believe this approach will achieve much in the way of positive results. At least not while “improving things” means making rich people a little poorer. So until it dawns on the public at large that the safe methods that the ruling class allows us are doomed to failure, things can’t possibly change.

Best I think we can do right now is try to wake people up to this fact. Strength can only come with numbers. Unfortunately, this concept is alien to most people because they are skillfully counter-programmed from a young age. Double unfortunately, we may have run out of time, what with the blade of global warming and peak energy hanging over our necks.

So what can we do? Just keep on spreading the word the best we can, and try to be good to those in the real world wherever we are, and try to relax and accept those things that, injust as they are, it’s just not in our personal power to change by ourselves.

(And also to arrest and quite possibly deport you should you fail to be sufficiently docile, he did not add.)

I’ve been thinking lately about how protests no longer work because of incidents like this. And about how we need to find another way to get the message out to large groups of like minded people. We need to find an electronic way of protesting. Most of us bloggers already have the early American spirit of pamphleting down. Now we just need a way to take the message from those that agree with us to changing the opinions of those that don’t.