Culture

Debating Social Activism In the Age of Tweeting, Blogging, and Facebook-ing

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“[Social media] makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact.” This provocative assertion was made by Malcolm Gladwell in his New Yorker piece, “Small Change,” published earlier this month. To sum it up quickly, Gladwell’s article is centered around what kind of activism social-media outlets are really motivating. Specifically, he talks about Twitter and Facebook, and omits -though it is public knowledge- that he doesn’t use and doesn’t like Twitter. But we’ll let that slide.

Culture

Tikkunista

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Dear TDB readers,
I wondered if this description of my online magazine, Tikkunista, was inappropriately self-serving for a post on Tikkun Daily so I asked Dave if he thought it was worth posting. He asked that I share his answer, which follows. I think this post would help a lot of people understand the appeal to the writer of online writing and blogging. We are looking for more people like you who want to do this on Tikkun Daily. We especially want people, whether they are generalists or not, who are able to take a “beat” that fits with our spiritual progressive mission.

Media Tools

Can You Give Tikkun Daily a Sandwich a Month?

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Mmm, nourishing: a veggie sandwich, just like Tikkun Daily. A smorgasbord of good things. We are looking for 200 of our readers who could give us $5 a month to keep us going, the price of a sandwich a month. Would you consider being one of them, by clicking here? Or would you give us a larger one-time donation?

Culture

#Boulderfire: Twitter Echoes The Shofar

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Sue Salinger is a long-time media writer/producer, student of Reb Zalman Schacter-Shalomi, and doctoral student in media philosophy: a new academic discipline to my ears at least. I met her at the US Social Forum where she was training novice reporters, one of whom shepherded me through an interview on Free Speech TV. She just sent me this post about the role of Twitter in the recent fires in Boulder, Colorado. She describes the thousands who used Twitter to tell each other about the direction of the fire, to offer help, prayers and information as “A beautifully anarchic collaboration.” I am personally resisting Twitter though we use it to promote Tikkun and this blog, but this impressed me.

Culture

Nonviolent Conflict and Comunication — at Street Level

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Edwin Rutsch is videotaping all kinds of people in political hotspots and asking them for their views about and experience of empathy. Today he is at a pro-Johannes Mehserle demonstration in Walnut Creek, an outlying Bay Area suburb. Mehserle is the San Francisco Bay Area transit policeman who killed an innocent, unarmed traveler in full view of dozens of people last year, and who was just convicted of involuntary manslaughter. After the verdict was announced on July 8 a great deal of anger was expressed on the streets of Oakland at the insufficiency of the verdict, and Edwin was there taping as well (he recommends #s 27, 29 and 34 to our readers): here is # 27, his brief interview with our own Nichola Torbett:

In this video Niochola deftly brings together two strands of nonviolent work that can seem to be working at odds with each other. Here she is talking about empathy for the police, while linking arms with fellow protesters against efforts by the police to minimize and disperse their collective energy.

Media Tools

Report from the G20 Demo

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Saturday June 26th, the anti-G20 demonstration in Toronto was planned to start at 1 pm. I had been uncertain as to whether to go; originally a group of Tikkun Toronto veterans had planned an alternative demonstration, focussed around the slogan, “Open your heart to what matters more.” But the unexpected death of the brother of one core member, and difficulties around getting permission, and the predictions of violence and anarchy that the media had been purveying had reduced our enthusiasm below the critical mass we needed to make it happen. Perhaps, I thought, I don’t need to go. But the MSM descriptions of protesters against the G20 as “thugs and anarchists”, the spending of $1.2 billion on the summit, the revelation of new powers to arrest and detain that the police had been secretly given all made me feel that my right to peacefully gather with my peers was worth coming out to defend.