I have to say my skepticism about this new medium has now disappeared. Without it, one wonders if all this could have happened…Technology has not just made the world more dangerous; it has also enabled freedom to keep one small step in front of tyranny and lies. One thing you can do is use Twitter to fight the regime yourself. Help bring these fascist bastards down at the end of your modem. — Andrew Sullivan
A week ago, a G-20 protestor was arrested for using Twitter as a means to communicate with other activists. His house was searched, his possessions seized and his life turned upside down. It was an unprecedented event—the first Twitter-related arrest in the United States, the “land of the free,” where the State Department only recently denounced similar arrests in other countries.
And now that it’s here, our system is exposed for its hypocrisy.
Though that’s not unprecedented at all.
Much like my conflicting feelings regarding Facebook, I tried Twitter and eventually made the decision to quit and delete my account. I found that, even more than Facebook, Twitter sucked me in and spit me out. I was brain dead and unmotivated. I clicked refresh too many times to count. And, most of all, I spent more time reading what other people were doing (in 140 characters no less), people whom I didn’t even know, and less time doing good for myself, less time being.
Perhaps I was wrong about our reliance on technology—abusing it is easy, taking advantage of it is the challenge. If we can resist the inclination to become apathetic, we can use it. Not in the way Obama used it: not to solicit support or for self-promotion. We can use it to participate, to instigate change and activism.
Ironic—by arresting this man, by charging him with “hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communication facility, and possession of instruments of crime,” I am inspired to rethink this form of social networking which I once considered so vapid. If it can expose the truth, then count me in.
Thank you for your comments on my post regarding the balancing act of blogging — everyone has a different perspective and position on the subject. It’s very interesting to hear where other bloggers draw the line for themselves. I responded to many of you via email — this is a discussion I am more than happy to continue in the future, as I continue to look for my line.
It’s hard to broach a controversial subject like the current Israel-Gaza situation. The thought of writing about this conflict did not occur to me until Hope decided to venture into the unknown with her own post. It dawned on me, after reading a comment or two, that many people are entirely unfamiliar with this war and its history. As someone who has traveled in Israel, and who has a very good friend currently living and working in Jerusalem, the notion that people aren’t paying attention baffles me. Most everyone had an opinion on our recent election. Most everyone had an opinion on Proposition 8. How can people pay attention to these events, to this news, and not to situations like Israel, Darfur or Iraq?
Have we, as an American society, become numb to such current events? Do the majority of Americans not care? Or, do we absentmindedly push such news to the back of our minds because it is simply too difficult to confront? And, if this is the case, how can we make change and progress if we’re not paying attention?
How often do you read a newspaper, or watch the news? What news source do you rely on? How much do you think about world events?
Couldn’t resist sharing this with the interwebs in lieu of a real post (which is coming soon — The GREs can take a lot out of a one’s desire to blog)…
Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she’s a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power. Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she’s the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV – And this country is going to eat her up, cheering every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation.
– Matt Taibbi for Rolling Stone, “The Lies of Sarah Palin”
I’ve written in the past of Los Desaparecidos, the “subversive” citizens of Chile and Argentina (in particular) who were kidnapped, tortured or murdered. In essence, they disappeared. It has been easy to consider this a part of history, a part of what, is now, the past. However, even in the aftermath of their dictatorships, even in the process of “democratization,” disappearances continue.
Two years ago, an Argentine man named Julio Lopez appeared as a witness to a human rights trial. The trial was set to convict a police chief who had taken part in the violent acts of his country’s totalitarian regime. The day before the police chief was sentenced to life, Julio Lopez disappeared. The BBC News calls Lopez a “victim twice over:”
His family and human rights activists believe he was taken by police officers or ex-police officers as a warning to others considering testifying in subsequent human rights trials against former members of the military government.
Mr Lopez has not been seen since, despite a massive campaign of marches, rallies, media coverage and appeals from his family and the president.
In honor of the second anniversary of his disappearance, mass protests have been organized in Buenos Aires, the capitol, and La Plata, Lopez’ hometown. While the police initially concluded their investigation and closed the case due to its dead end, current protests now demand that he be found alive.
It’s an unexpected turn of events — a man, whose name few knew, now represents the ongoing fight to bring justice to these countries. He now has a Wikipedia page and countless articles have been written about his disappearance. The government of Buenos Aires offered an reward, that has now been doubled, for information on his whereabouts.
We make so much progress, over time, and yet events like these continue to take place. I’m tempted to call it “astonishing,” but perhaps it isn’t astonishing at all. Perhaps it makes perfect sense — just because the corrupt men are no longer “in power,” doesn’t mean that they don’t have power. Meanwhile, citizens who are being “empowered” through democratization, through free elections, are still disappearing.
Argentine Writer Ernesto Sabato once wrote (about the disappearances that occurred during the dictatorship), “It is only democracy which can save people from horror on this scale.” It looks like democracy is not, necessarily, the savior after all.
His wife found him. He had hung himself while she was out. He was only 46 years old.
And, within moments, Wikipedia updates their page to include past-tense verbs, to note his death.
I’ve spent the morning reading about him…
He talked about how difficult it was to be a novelist in a world seething with advertisements and entertainment and knee-jerk knowingness and facile irony. He wrote about the
maddening impossibility of scrutinizing yourself without also scrutinizing yourself scrutinizing yourself and so on, ad infinitum, a vertiginous spiral of narcissism — because not even the most merciless self- examination can ignore the probability that you are simultaneously congratulating yourself for your soul-searching, that you are posing.
He and I had an ongoing resolution to each other, going back several years now, to go watch tarantulas scurry across the Claremont fire trails in the late fall week when they make their mad dashes out into the open. When I first mentioned that phenomenon to him, he gave me an impromptu lecture on the different characteristics of various arachnids, especially the dangers experienced by the frenzied male tarantula on the make. He really wanted to go. Somehow we never made it. When such a strange opportunity presents itself, when a David Foster Wallace wants to go tarantula watching with you, you probably shouldn’t let that one slip away.
