HOW
Learning how it works and how to activate it in your life is what All American Network is all about.
Is technology crucial to social change — to getting what you want? Consider . . .
The printing press was invented in the 1440s. The Protestant Reformation followed in 1517. The first thing made the second thing possible. Without the printing press to distribute his arguments Martin Luther would have influenced few people. Instead, he probably would have been burned at the stake and then quickly forgotten.
Printing technology made possible the American Revolution. It’s difficult to imagine that this world changing event could have happened without the widely read pamphlets and newspapers that fostered and nurtured it. This is especially true of Tom Paine’s “Common Sense.” No printing press; no American Revolution.
Something similar is true of the American civil rights movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Television began its rise in the late 1940s. The civil rights movement began a few years later in 1955. But this new civil rights movement was far from the first attempt by African Americans to win equal protection under the law. It was simply the first to gain traction and success. Television was the key difference . . .
Many previous civil rights efforts had been suppressed by a violence that few people ever saw. But television made the violence visible to everyone. Americans could now see the fire hoses, the attack dogs, the beatings, and the burning crosses. They could also see the bravery and dignity of the people who bore these blows. The result was national shame and cultural change.
Is technology equally crucial to the kind of social change we want to cause? We think it is. Some aspects of this are obvious. DownsizeDC.org wouldn’t exist without the Internet. Likewise, the Internet was crucial to the money bombs of the Ron Paul campaign and the social networking that allowed the Tea Party movement to blossom. But . . .
Is this as good as it gets?
We think not. The more we’ve pondered this, and experimented with different ways to educate, recruit, and exert social pressure, the more we’ve come to believe that . . .
* The full potential of the Internet has yet to be realized
* The development of new Internet-based tools (levers!) is the critical path to getting what we want.
Join us in this work.