The Occupation Will Be Tweeted

Update: Maybe this is why the media hasn’t been covering the story. The police and the politicians won’t let them. Media Can Avoid NYPD Arrest By Getting Press Pass They Can’t Get.

The MSM is beginning to cover the occupation of the United States by many of its own citizens with greater regularity and veracity since police officers in their zest to clear space are providing television and print outlets with gestapo photos of jack-booted policemen pepper spraying and assaulting individuals whose sole offense is sitting in one space too long. Prior to the use of force to arrest people for closing their own bank accounts, the usurpation of public (and some private) spaces in protest of the unequal siphoning of resources was only being detailed by modern journalists without credentials, the bloggers and tweeters and tumblrs, snapping pictures with iPhones and digital elphs and uploading those to the cloud where they shot around the world in a flash thanks to “social” media.

The ability of individuals to broadcast their experiences from tablets and cell phones is remaking journalism, citizenship, and government, from Tahrir Square to Washington, D.C. And though the corridors of power remain hallowed halls tread by elites with the good fortune to have been handed the keys, this new democratization of world citizenship is ushering in a new era of accountability which will transform who is being represented by legislators, and who is giving the orders to the aforementioned jack-boots.

Whether #OccupyWallStreet maintains its momentum remains to be seen. Whether the movement of individuals which has catalyzed the occupation of Los Angeles, Denver, Portland, Seattle, Barcelona, Madrid, London, San Francisco, Athens, Chicago, Atlanta, San Diego, etc. But the power of the people to document and distribute is real and is quickly calling into question the abuses of authority which until the advent of television were incidents isolated by locale. With the advent of television, those images, like the Edmund Pettis Bridge were broadcast, but it was still simply one-way distribution. From Davey D’s live-tweeting of the violence at Occupy Oakland to the video of students being pepper-sprayed at Occupy UCDavis, social media is creating an interactive, quick-response culture which empowers the oppressed, the silenced, the citizens to speak out, to speak truth to power, to shift the very nature of power itself.

As Efrain Nieves’ tweet heard round the world said, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” Yes, he was quoting Dr. King. But the fact that this sentiment has been retweeted across the globe in a matter of hours gives us a glimpse into the changing tide of communication, into the power of social media that is changing the world.

Related articles

• Tracing the Roots of #OccupyWallStreet (greatfinds.icrossing.com)
• #OccupyUCDavis: Police in Riot Gear Use Chemical Agent on Students (crooksandliars.com)
• How the Occupy Wall Street Protesters Can Defeat the Corporate Elite (alternet.org)

It’s the media…the social media, that is.

UPDATE: It seems fitting that this is the post I wrote yesterday, the day before the passing of Steve Jobs. While I avoided the terms iPhone, iPod and iPad, Job’s visionary genius and Apple’s leadership in terms of technology are the foundation and infrastructure upon which these social media tools depend, and are the hardware students are using and will be using for years to come to access the universe we all inhabit. While the company will continue, and his spirit of creativity is no doubt imbued into the philosophy and plans for the future, his creative vision will be missed. Thank you, Steve.

“Social Media” conjures up a variety of thoughts and images: kids hunched over their smartphones in groups, not speaking to each other but laughing about the text they are sharing; teenagers or college students snapping pictures of each other, posed and unposed, and uploading them to Facebook for consumption by that website’s “more than 800 million active users”; people wasting time in front of screens, mobile and desktop, instead of talking to each other or appreciating nature and athletics. All of these pictures portray a negative, narcissistic environment doomed to collapse under the weight of it’s own self-indulgence. But what if they’re wrong?

Mobile computing, social media, smartphones and iPads are toys that adults are turning into tools (or tools masquerading as toys) that have the power to transform education as we know it. Latinos are already the largest ethnic group of users on Twitter and Facebook. Rather than fear this fact, muttering to ourselves in Spanglish about how children are spending too much time playing on their phones, we need to encourage them to put those tools to work, creating a revolution inside the classroom, inside the schools in this country, inside our minds to empower our children.

The power of social media played out earlier this week when thousands of people, Latinos and others, logged in to Ustream to participate in a town hall on the state of education in the Hispanic community with US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. What was notable was the immediate access and interaction granted the citizens of the United States via Twitter, allowing real time interaction with the man responsible for shepherding education policy in the United States. We got to ask questions, from the philosophical to the financial, and get some answers. It will play out again when people from across the country gather in Chicago next month for the LATISM National Conference. Imagine if we shared that power to learn and interact with our students.

Teachers are already finding that student success is increasing using technology and social media across the country. It simply takes a shift in thinking to understand that what our kids are using for fun can be used to teach them both the content and skills, that the same apps and sites they’re using to KIT (keep in touch) can be used to create songs, films, podcasts that speak to who they are and share their gifts and talents with a larger world.

In doing this, using new technology and social media to interact with their own education, they will learn that the power to transform the world rests in their hands; the tools they need to impact their school, their neighborhood, their city, their state, their country can be used inside the classroom as well as with their homies.

And there is definitely an app for that.

Originally posted 10/03/11 at Latinos In Social Media for Edu-Wednesday.

Related articles

• Time to Vote for LATISM’s BEST of 2011 (juliorvarela.com)
• Word Cloud: How Social Media Remembered Steve Jobs (socialtimes.com)
• Social media is for telling your Story.. not for distributing your CV !! (mysocialadventures.wordpress.com)

Hitting the Reset Button

My children like to play Parking Lot. It’s a great game, both as a board game and as an app for my iPhone. For those who don’t know, it’s a puzzle game where you move cars, trucks and buses out of the way to get your car out of the parking lot. It’s a problem solving exercise that strengthens the brain while it entertains. When you get stuck, though, it can be frustrating to the point of nail-biting, cursing whoever invented the automobile, or flipping the bird at inanimate objects. For the cool, calm and collected, it comes with a reset button which allows you to put everything back in place and start again having learned from your mistakes and miscues to approach the same problem.

Many of us, in the United States and around the world, are operating as if life has a reset button, too. I know personally that the President’s forceful passivity on the torture situation is causing me to raise my voice, both here and in person. The tea baggers don’t like President Obama, don’t like paying less taxes, don’t like bailing out corporations, don’t like socialism, don’t like “big government”, and I would venture to say, don’t like much of anything right now.

But President Obama appears to be working without a reset button, looking at the cars on the board (or the crises he has inherited), and making the best moves available to him. On some fronts, he is moving the cars back to where they were before President Bush came into office – rescinding torture as an American tool of interrogation; drawing down our military involvement in Iraq; allowing the Bush tax cuts for the rich to expire; repealing the ban on adult stem cell research, etc.

In other cases, he is moving the cars from the position they’re in to what he deems more beneficial positions for the future – more troops and attention paid to Afghanistan and Al Qaeda; actual diplomacy with Iran; repealing the ridiculously stringent relationship between the United States and Cuba; understanding that our economic turbulence requires both indirect (tax cuts for many Americans) and direct (bailouts of restructured companies) government interventions which are politically unpopular, etc.

In both cases, millions of us are screaming, saying, writing, blogging, thinking, critiquing, criticizing, and encouraging his moves. For the ninety days that he’s been moving the pieces, he’s made a lot of progress toward actually getting our yellow car out of its parking space, and moving it forward toward its goal. There are still obstacles in our way – nuclear North Korea; staggering unemployment; Republicants; budget deficits; over-extended military personnel and their families; corporate and other pirates; escaped war criminals, etc. But unlike those of us screaming from the sidelines, President Obama is making the moves to get us out of the lot.

And he’s doing it without the reset button.

Opposition Grows to Obama’s Decision Not To Prosecute CIA Agents

Obama ‘gravely concerned’ about U.S. journalist in Iranian prison

We can move U.S.-Cuban relations in a new direction

Bailout overseer draws fire from right

Picking Letters, 10 a Day, That Reach Obama

Obama defends greeting Hugo Chavez

Senator says Obama’s appearance with Chavez ‘irresponsible’

Summit of the Americas ‘productive’

A World of Trouble For Obama

Two al Qaeda leaders waterboarded 266 times

Election Day 2008

It’s 5:35am.  I’ve made thirty calls.  I was the eleventh person here when I arrived at 5am.  I was the fourth person to get a confirmed vote for Senator Obama!  We’re calling Ohio.  Right now there are twenty-five people in the office, it’s still dark outside, and the rain has stopped, but the streets are still wet.  It was steady raining when I drove here this morning.  And the coffee is hot!  YES WE CAN!

I made 70 calls before leaving at 6am, to the clouds parting, the sun coming out, and the radio blasting a little Will.i.am.  It feels like a great day, a new day is dawning.

It’s 8:01am.  My wife, my mother-in-law, my son, my daughter and I all rolled out to cast our votes for Senator Barack Obama for President, and No on Proposition 8, and a whole lot of other stuff.  The line was about 150 people long, and the volunteers were helpful.  No voting issues to report!  Get out and Vote!

My middle brother, who works in politics but usually leaves the talking to us, sent the following text/email to his people this morning:

This morning while waiting in line for 30 min. to exercise my right to vote I wrote the following text to a few of my friends who claim to be undecided for whatever reason. What I failed to mention is that my 30 minute wait, which I’m not complaining about, was a lot easier to handle than what my parents & grandparents faced in the mid to early parts of the last century when dogs, firehoses, & domestic terrorists did everything they could to prevent today’s events from taking place.

“This message is for all my “friends” that have expressed confusion or apathy towards today’s  vote. The decision we have as Americans, ESPECIALLY minorities, is a decision between health care for all and an economy of deregulation & tax cuts for the rich, which has gotten us into the biggest economic crisis since the “Great Depression”; funding a war in Iraq @ a cost of trillions of dollars annually; who decides the next appointees to the Supreme Court, which will affect womens rights; and amongst other things race relations in this country. Today is not a joke – it’s not to be taken lightly. Obviously you know who I am voting for. The man who despite being raised by a single mother became the editor of the Harvard Law Review, one of the most prestigeous positions in academia; a man who has convinced the likes of Colin Powell & many other people who know far more than I do about the state of the world & our country that he is CAPABLE. Your vote counts as a message that the status quo hasn’t been & won’t work for us. Wake Up & Do The Right Thing! Peace”

Because many cell phones have limited space or don’t recieve full text messages I am resending this as an email. If you already got this or didn’t want to get it at all. Too bad & too late.

 

An American Revolution

I don’t often rail against fate.  I find it useless, and energy unwisely spent.  But today I am breaking my calm, unruffled demeanor because I’m angry, frustrated – frankly, I’m pissed off.

As a student and teacher of history, I know what has happened in the United States over the last two hundred plus years:  Tupac and Biggie got shot, and their murders are “unsolved”; Clarence Thomas got confirmed to the Supreme Court, filling the seat vacated by Thurgood Marshall; King, Malcolm, RFK and JFK were assassinated; Jesse Jackson was “the black candidate” for president, not a candidate; Emmett Till; Rosa Parks; my grandfather got to serve his country but could only serve with other “colored” soldiers; two separate laws (15^th Amendment & Voting Rights Act of 1964) were passed so that my people (black men) could vote; three different laws (15^th & 19^th amendments & VRA) so that black women could vote; Hillary supporters marginalized black women, saying they were traitors to their gender; Leave it to Beaver and Happy Days are “idyllic representations of American life” with one or no black people in them; Denzel Washington doesn’t get an Oscar for portraying Malcom X, but gets one for being a cracked-out lying, thieving stereotype in Training Day; Abraham Lincoln frees the slaves over which he had no authority, but leaves enslaved the ones he could free; Thomas Jefferson writes the Declaration of Independence, then fathers five children with his dead wife’s enslaved half-sister whom he owns; the assassination of Medgar Evers; the Little Rock Nine; Plessy v. Ferguson; Jim Crow; the Ku Klux Klan; people spat on Jackie Robinson because he was good at baseball; white people who get offended when they hear the term white privilege; Bill Clinton notes that “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina, too”; the cover of TIME magazine trumpets “The economy trumps race” like race was an obstacle in the presidential election; John McCain tells his supporter, “No ma’am, he’s not an Arab.  He’s a decent, hardworking, family man.”

For these reasons and more, I am not happy right now.  Five days before Election Day, I am consternated, frustrated, worried, paranoid, tense, exhausted, ecstatic, tearful, anxious, hopeful, euphoric, confused and angry.  The free market philosophy that rose to power with Ronald Reagan, the Milton Friedman “market is god” ideal that George Bush and his henchmen have nearly perfected and ruined the country with is shredded.  The stock market is a roller coaster without seatbelts; white, black, brown, yellow, red and every other color people are losing their homes, their jobs, their teeth, themselves; the United States is fighting a war on an esoteric noun and losing an invasion that shouldn’t have occurred; and still, people are questioning, the polls are tightening in the final four days.

The cable-news beast, jaws slathering and salivating without much meat to chew since the McCain campaign is off the rails, and Obama seems to be pitch-perfect, is manufacturing more doubt by questioning yet again whether race will play a “secret part” in the voting booth.  Their buying the obvious psych-job by McCain’s campaign who claim their “internal polling” shows the race a dead heat.  Here’s the hard, cold fact:

The black man IS going to win this race.

Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States.

And I want to celebrate this, want to hug my children tight because they are helping to make it happen, they are my motivation for helping to make it happen, I want to cry over them because We are one step closer to realizing the vision of the founders, even when they didn’t see what that vision truly was.  I want the liberty to be happy with anticipation, without the dread of seeing it stolen like my ancestors were from Africa and Mexico or like my dignity when I get pulled over for driving while black.

You know what?  That’s exactly what I’m going to do.  I’m going to work each and every day to help get Senator Obama elected.  And I’m going to do it with a smile.  I’m going to do it with joy in my heart.  I’m going to do it with the Obama Inauguration Day Countdown application on my iPhone.  Because being a student and a teacher of history, there’s one more thing I’ve learned:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

This is the new American Revolution.  And we’re going to win it one person, one ballot, one vote at a time.

McCain looks to turn Obama’s Ohio Advantage

Obama’s prospects in Missouri may hinge on the economy — and race

Barack Obama is the iPhone – and everyone wants one!

People are lining up (still) one week later to get their iPhone 3G.  Patient and excited, they are wrapping around city blocks, sitting on sidewalks, talking to friends, neighbors and other enraptured devotees.  They’re excited about the revolutionary change that Apple has wrought upon the technological landscape.  Yes, there are people who are content with their Blackberries, their Trios, and the other phones and mobile devices that were out before.  But the iPhone represents something new and better.  From the App store which allows you to personalize your phone to your interests, to the 8megapixel camera and interface with the Mac computers, operating systems and programs, to the motion sensors and touch screen interface, the iPhone is living up to the hype.  It was promised to be something new, something innovative, something transformative and revolutionary.  It is.

So it is with Senator Barack Obama.  Though he is not new to politics, he is relatively new to the national political landscape.  And like the iPhone, he is revolutionizing politics as we know them.  Bringing sound judgment (against Iraq, for universal healthcare, for attacking Al Qaeda where they are, and more) and a new vision (speaking with those who oppose us, both to state our case and to find common ground, planning how and determining why we should apply our military before sending them into action, understanding that being the last remaining superpower doesn’t mean everyone has to do what we say but that we are still part of the global community) to the national discussion, he is changing the dynamic.  Additionally, let us not forget the millions of new voters, contributors and participants in our political process that Senator Obama has engendered.  Yes, Senator McCain has been around longer.  And he has served our country, for which he has earned respect and appreciation.  But like those earlier mobile devices, his application is limited.  As he and his surrogates (who now include the President of the United States) continue to speak, their dated approach becomes more and more apparent.

As I continue to play with my iPhone (1.0) and my political philosophy (socially more liberal, fiscally more conservative, a little libertarian with regards to the Constitution), I find that Barack Obama is speaking my language (and he speaks so well).  He is living up to the promise that he showed in the 2004 convention speech, both in words and more importantly, in deeds.