Off the Internet and Into the Streets: From Social Media to Social Movement ~ Korean lovers

Sabtu, 19 November 2011

Off the Internet and Into the Streets: From Social Media to Social Movement

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Session 2A - Off the Internet and Into the Streets: From Social Media to Social Movement
Chair: Jessica Maxwell (Syracuse Peace Council)
A panel of Syracuse peace and justice activists will speak about their experiences.

We had two activists come in to talk to us. Both of them were girls that seem to be a little older than college aged, maybe in their mid-late-twenties?

First was Ursula, she is a part of the Peace Council and the Green Party.
She is all for Howie Hawkins 2011. She showed this cute and funny video that was created via xtranormal - Green Hawks for Public Power
She also showed us the Facebook pages for the movement Occupy Syracuse and the Syracuse Peace council, as well as the website that is dedicated to Occupy Syracuse.

Then she spoke to us about click-ivism. It's basically 'activism' that isn't making a difference. A lot of people these days will join Facebook groups and click on links to 'support' a cause, but when there's a march or an event, a lot of those people won't show up. They say they support a cause, but they won't do anything about it.

It's like the quote on peace by the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "One of the most persistent ambiguities that we face is that everybody talks about peace as a goal. However, it does not take sharpest-eyed sophistication to discern that while everybody talks about peace, peace has become practically nobody's business among the power wielders. Many men cry Peace! Peace! But they refuse to do the things that make for peace."

Then, Laura took the stage and talked to us about her involvement in Occupy Syracuse (Occupy Syracuse - The Only Solution is World Revolution). She told us the story of Scott Olsen, an Iraq war veteran, was injured and jailed at Occupy Oakland:

" Adele Carpenter, who knows Olsen through his involvement with anti-war groups, said she arrived at the hospital at 11pm on Tuesday night.

Carpenter said she was told by a doctor at the hospital that Olsen had a skull fracture and was in a "serious but stable" condition. She said he had been sedated and was unconscious.

"I'm just absolutely devastated that someone who did two tours of Iraq and came home safely is now lying in a US hospital because of the domestic police force," Carpenter told the Guardian."

(More articles can be found if you just google "Scott Olsen Oakland") This is another article and video that was posted on Friday, 2011 December 30. He is in recovery and he says that he expects to rejoin the Occupy and antiwar protests.

Laura is also involved in managing a number of Occupy Syracuse forums and is a part of the administrators that tries to keep the forums professional and civil, the people up-to-date and tries to block out the people that tries to join debates with no background information (You know, the kind of people that states their 'opinion,' but then have nothing to back up their opinion and just ends up cursing up and down and calling everyone idiots because they don't agree with them. They're really annoying.)

There was also apparently a 11/11/11 march - a Veteran's Day march to honor the Veterans. For more information, Google it. Seriously, there are so many articles and videos of the event.

Then there was an issue that she bought up, a question of sorts: The difference between Social Media and Print Media. The consensus seems to be that Social Media is more impersonal and breeds click-ivism, while print media is more one-on-one and more intimate.

I'm going to post the Occupy Syracuse link again for those that want more information about Occupy Syracuse and/or those that want to get involved.