[lbo-talk] The role of social media in the Egyptian uprising

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Thu Feb 10 17:30:19 PST 2011


This year, for the first time since SDS dissolved, there is an actual radical group on the ISU campus. I was talking to the initiator of it on Sunday (he calls himself a "socialist anarchist," but that's not important). He has returned to school to get a second bachelors degree. I believe his first degree was in musical technology or something like that; now he wants to teach and is back to get a teaching certificate with a major in sociology. He defined the purpose of the group to develop people who would when they went to work in various places try to form similar groups. Now THAT is thinking like a radical. They meet once a week at a local coffee shop. That is radical, going back to the days of neighborhood bars. And they all know already that their first task is to organize themselves! Liberals can't get that through their heads. They immediately strike out to "do something quick," to reach out to more people before they exist themselves as a collective.

I have great hopes for this groups, especially as it's a reasonable premise that what is happening in one place is probably happening in others. At some point if such groups are coming into existence, they will began to form links (not between people but between groups.)

Carrol



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