> Working the Net for the purpose of political organizing, though, allows
> you to reach less than half (48%) of "opinion leaders." The
> overwhelming majority of "online political citizens" -- white (86%),
> male (nearly two-thirds), and college graduates (60%) -- fit into the
> demographic profile of "the least likely" to turn to the broad political
> left (much less the revolutionary left!). Political communication on
> the Net is prone to bypass those whom organizers who desire to revive a
> mass movement on the left need the most: "opinion leaders" of low-income
> working-class communities -- especially women leaders in black and
> immigrant working-class communities.
Yoshie trots out the same old stuff about the left's message being the most palatable to poor people in working class communities. When you adopt conclusions like this, you miss out on opportunities to think outside the box and reach people that standard leftist thinking says you can't reach.
My take on this as an anarchist webmaster is that this is an opportunity. I want to create a website that gets in the face of these conservative, college-educated white guys. And based on the hate mail we get at Infoshop.org on a daily basis, we are evidently getting lots of visits from these guys. Most of these guys are not going to change their minds, but if I can get through to 5% of them, I'll take that.
The Left is in ia perpetual ghetto in this country because it operates on many false assumptions about average people. We assume that they won't be interested or receptive in our message, so we don't even try to talk to them. The recent success of left authors such as Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Molly Ivins, Eric Schlosser, and Al Franken show that there is an incredible hunger for left-wing ideas among average Americans. If you write them off on some unsupported assumption, then you have only yourself to blame when they remain ignorant of your ideas.
Chuck0