Reply #9: I understand your disappointment

[Time for change]

Believe me, if I thought I knew of a good strategy I would have shared it. Strategies of course are important, but it's not something that I feel highly competent at. I think that I'm much better at the first two steps -- spreading awareness of the problem and trying to visualize a better way -- so that's where I put my energy. So I appreciate your telling me that I did a good job at that.

Neither did Michelle Alexander, in her book, attempt to go to step three. In the last chapter she says:

That said, no effort is made here to describe, in any detail, what should or should not be done... Such an undertaking is beyond the scope of this book.

The closest she comes to telling us of specific actions is this:

A growing number of formerly incarcerated men and women have been organizing in major cities across the US, providing assistance to those newly released from prison and engaging in grassroots political activism in pursuit of basic civil rights. One such organization... is named "All of Us or None". The name explicitly challenges a politics that affords inclusion and acceptance for a few but guarantees exclusion for many. In spirit, it asserts solidarity with the "least of these among us".

As you probably are aware, our political system is currently quite broken. There is way too much money in politics, and income inequality in our country has risen to record levels, surpassing that seen in the Gilded Age. Way too many elected politicians these days are willing to do the bidding of those with money rather than serve the people who elected them. But what does the money buy them? It buys them a huge megaphone with which to get out their message. The only way I can see to combat that is to get out our own message. And the best medium we can use to do that is the Internet. Here are some things that Naomi Klein said in her book, "No Logo", about the power of the Internet to influence even powerful corporations:

It is the Internet that has rapidly become the tool of choice for spreading information about multinationals around the world… This is the medium that doesn’t require campaigners to jump through hoops doing publicity stunts, or depend on the good will of an editor to get their message across. It’s also less vulnerable to libel suits than more traditional media…

The broader corporate world is scrambling to learn the lessons of these campaigns… One of the major strengths of pressure groups… is their ability to exploit the instruments of the telecommunication revolution. Their agile use of global tools such as the Internet reduces the advantage that corporate budgets once provided… The Net… allows coordinated international actions with minimal resources.