Wednesday, April 23, 2008

History on Hold

Our history link is presently down. Wikipedia
understandably fails to grasp the key organizational
feature of Public Good Project, namely (as stated on
the website under About Public Good) that it is a
network, not a corporation.

The network comprises the top (roughly two dozen)
pro-democracy political researchers in the United States,
along with numerous correspondents.

Our citations and reports illustrate that, but Wikipedia
got impatient. I expect that once the references
requested are added it will alleviate Wikipedia's concerns.
The author of the article, however, is attending to urgent
family problems, so we ask your forbearance as well.

Networking for Social Change

Networks constitute the foundation of political power; networking for social change is essentially the intentional linking and nurturing of already established personal relationships for a common purpose. As I observed in my prior learning portfolio, genuine community organizers simply articulate the beliefs people already hold, promote an agenda consistent with those beliefs, and provide opportunities for individuals to act on them.

A society that is uninformed cannot address a problem; a society that is misinformed cannot address it effectively; a society that is disinformed will probably make it worse.

--Jay Taber

Monday, April 07, 2008

Tool Misapplied

We recently had occasion to check out some ignominous associates of One Nation United, the leading Anti-Indian organization in the US, and found the usual suspects involved in opposing Native American gaming as part of their overall strategy to undermine indigenous sovereignty. The first level of research took about two minutes on a standard search engine, but background on the individuals would, of course, take a little more money, time and effort.

As usual, we shared the documents with those who could put them to good use, but our perpetual question naturally arose. Why isn't this organizing tool taught as part of basic political science, instead of sequestered away in journalism schools?

I mean, open source research is so fundamental to positive social change, that leaving it to those seeking careers in corporate media seems like such a waste. Maybe that's the whole point.