I think it is important not to underestimate the role the Internet is playing in Brazil or in the United States (e.g. occupy). It is still growing, but what is amazing is the way people are learning from it. Something really extraordinary happened in the United States last night in Texas, which is already being treated as historical but may actually be a watershed moment. There was this horrendous bill being shoved through the Texas legislature where basically the state is taking control of a woman's body. Wendy Davis, decided she would filibuster the bill (holding the floor of the Texas Senate) at which point time would run out and the Senate would have to adjourn. If it followed the script everybody knew what was going to happen, at the last minute the majority party would re-invent the rules for debate, get Davis off the floor, and then ram through the bill at the last minute. That is exactly what happened, with about an hour and a half left the majority party were able to push Davis off the floor. Historically this is where that would have ended causing incredible frustration but a "what are you going to do" attitude. Two extraordinary things happened. One is using Twitter the amount of people watching a live feed of the proceedings increased from 40,000 (which was already a lot) to 160,000, and the Senators knew this was happening making it much more difficult to steam roll. But even more incredible, using Twitter the people who had come to witness in the gallery devised a strategy among themselves. If debate was shut down they would make enough noise to make it impossible to take a vote and continue through midnight. I watched all this happen in real time from here in Columbus and it was the most extraordinary thing I ever saw. In the end the crowd was successful. The vote could not be taken until 12:03 and because so many people were watching in real time it was impossible to use subterfuge).
I have to admit when I first heard of Twitter I thought it was ridiculous, but it is turning into one of the most extrarordinary devices for organizing "projects" I think imaginable. We will perhaps have to throw all our old ideas about projects and collaboration out.
Where do we go from here? Buckle your seat belts I say.
Michael
________________________________________
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] on behalf of White, Phillip [Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2013 1:06 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [xmca] Knotworking and Brazil
E. P. Thompson in "The making of the english working class" - points out that just before and after the glorious revolution of 1688 the questions of teaching reading and writing to the lower classes through sunday school activities, notes that in time religious dissenters began writing letters to one another regarding the organizations of dissenters churches, as well as the continuation of teaching reading and writing to those generally deemed illiterate. the singular act of letter writing was deemed by the crown to be a treasonous act. considering the founding of the thirteen colonies on the american eastern seaboard, the activity of letter writing as an organizing tool for distance communities continued - so that by the 1770's, the committees of correspondence emerged which led to the organizing within the colonies the war of independence from england.
clearly in brazil now the multiple venues within the internet are being exploited as tools of organization.
it think that it is still unclear how successful those venues have been for occupy wall street, protestations in germany, spain, portugal and greece, much less for wikileaks and snowden.
sometimes these times seem like a re-run of the revolutions of the late 1840's in europe.
phillip