Smart Mobbing the War. [nytimes, reg yadda] I love it when the old-school press picks up a bloggish meme - it's like when Sinatra covers a Beatles song. I'm not sure the author gets the premise of the Reingold book quite right -- it's more about the decentralized nature of Internet anti-war organization, than about the specifics of wireless populi. In fact, he doesn't even credit Reingold, or mention the book. But it's a good read anyway. [By the way, they're protesting a coming war in Iraq, in case you haven't been following the news.] [MetaFilter]
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"Dot-org politics represents the latest manifestation of a recurrent American faith that there is something inherently good in the vox populi. Democracy is at its purest and best when the largest number of voices are heard, and every institution that comes between the people and their government -- the press, the political pros, the fund-raisers -- taints the process. ''If money is what it takes to get attention, we'll do that,'' Pariser says. ''But we'll do it the grassroots way.''
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"The spirit of Emerson was on First Avenue, and it hovers over the new antiwar movement as it has infused so much protest politics in American history. There is a very old American type of protester -- think of Emerson's friend Thoreau, or of John Brown -- who sees politics as an expression of personal morality. "
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"Part of the success of the Feb. 15 demonstrations, and of the movement itself, lies in the simplicity of the message. L.A. Kauffman, a staff organizer at United for Peace and Justice, the coalition of more than 200 organizations that endorsed the rally, designed leaflets and banners reading ''The world says no to war.'' The slogan says nothing about oil, or inspections, or Israel -- or Saddam. ''It's not a paragraph of analysis,'' she points out. ''It's not a lengthy series of demands.'' The simplicity allows groups that have nothing else in common politically -- that might even be opponents -- to work together. "
