----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Pollak" <mpollak at panix.com>
Everything I have read credits labor organizing as the key factor in the Egypt uprising. It will clearly play a crucial role in the coming months, as the generals attempt to stem the flood. But what I don't understand is why it has to be one or the other.
This uprising has been years in the making -- something like a decade. I see social media playing two roles in that period. One, by broadcasting images of the torture it made something a matter of public indignation that would otherwise have been a matter of private shame. Second, because social media tends to flatten hierarchies, and to suggest that we do indeed make stuff up as we go along...it created a new space that the participants could fill with their own reality and dreams.
j.