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United States

Can the internet enable direct action offline? 3

Submitted by
notque
notque writes "We are sitting in a time with so many political scandals, and some would say an illegal war. You would think that given these facts the United States would be a hotbed of political activity and protest. So far this hasn't occurred, although people continue to do difficult work. There are many websites that attempt to coordinate political activity, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot to show for it. Can the internet actually enable direct action offline? What are some ways that this could be carried out? On another website, digg, there was an article concerning a general strike on 09/11/07 that received 4600 diggs, so it seems that people want to do something, but feel isolated and alone. Does the internet help foster this? Noam Chomsky once said, "By margins that are now so overwhelming that it's even front page news, people are strenuously opposed to everything that's going on and are frightened and angry and reacting like punch-drunk fighters. They're just too alone, both in their personal lives and associations and also intellectually, without anything to grasp. They don't know how to respond except in irrational ways. In some ways it has sort of the tone of a devastated peasant society after a plague swept it or an army went through and ruined everything. People have just dissolved into inability to respond." How can individuals help to change this, and is the internet a useful tool for that? Does the internet just stagnate individuals further? Thanks."

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