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    <title>cmdln.net_2008-07-30</title>
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    <outline text="Intro" Offset="00:17">
      <outline text="Questions for promos"/>
    </outline>
    <outline text="Listener Feedback" Offset="02:56">
      <outline text="Matt, Kaity on Ogg feed"/>
      <outline text="Bashar on book lists, Amazon aStore"/>
    </outline>
    <outline text="Word of the Week: demo" Offset="07:51">
      <outline text="http://catb.org/jargon/html/D/demo.html"/>
    </outline>
    <outline text="Monologue: Grass roots hacktivism" Offset="09:24">
      <outline text="Grass roots as an organizational model">
        <outline text="Organized from the bottom up, like grass growing from roots"/>
        <outline text="Opposed to centrally orchestrated actions"/>
        <outline text="So popular there is a term for orchestrated action that organizers try to camouflage"/>
        <outline text="Astroturfing "/>
        <outline text="Also traditionally action is local, efforts feeding into larger movements"/>
      </outline>
      <outline text="Implication is grass roots organization is more natural, authentic">
        <outline text="Action by those organized is typically the same"/>
        <outline text="Organizing people does require sharing a lot of information"/>
        <outline text="Real problem may be quality, bias in information"/>
        <outline text="Ideally, if people organize themselves, do so on their own research"/>
        <outline text="Skeptical that all members of a grass roots movement research for themselves"/>
        <outline text="Have certainly seen a memetic drift from organizers to typical citizen"/>
        <outline text="Penn &amp; Teller have done Bullshit episodes on grass roots activists, like environmentalists that demonstrate this"/>
      </outline>
      <outline text="New term, net roots, talks about using online tools for grass roots organization">
        <outline text="With the Internet grass roots organization need not be local, per se"/>
        <outline text="Still by interested citizens, organic"/>
        <outline text="Reach can be near global"/>
        <outline text="Action is still local, more in common with grass roots action at that point"/>
      </outline>
      <outline text="What do grass roots movements do?">
        <outline text="Raise awareness">
          <outline text="Canvassing neighborhoods"/>
          <outline text="Cover events, talking to people"/>
          <outline text="Stage demonstrations"/>
        </outline>
        <outline text="Donate time and money">
          <outline text="Supports non-local action"/>
          <outline text="In politics, lobbying"/>
          <outline text="For some organization, fund legal defenses and other legal activities"/>
          <outline text="EFF, PK use donations to fund their own actions as NGOs"/>
        </outline>
        <outline text="Take action">
          <outline text="Call congress people, corporate representatives"/>
          <outline text="Organize and sign petitions"/>
          <outline text="In politics, getting people out to vote"/>
        </outline>
        <outline text="For net roots, some additional actions">
          <outline text="Setting up social networking groups"/>
          <outline text="Fair Copyright Canada group on Facebook"/>
          <outline text="Post on blogs, fora and the like"/>
          <outline text="Build and grow wikis to share information, educate"/>
        </outline>
      </outline>
      <outline text="Some actions have limited or arguable effect">
        <outline text="Paradox of large volume of individual action"/>
        <outline text="Most targets of activism want to know request for change are genuine"/>
        <outline text="This is fair, especially when there is an appreciable cost to change"/>
        <outline text="A strong bias towards printed, even hand written, letters"/>
        <outline text="Skepticism of anything online"/>
        <outline text="It is too easy to spoof online database"/>
        <outline text="Similar skepticism even of paper petitions"/>
        <outline text="It is a fair question, how do you prove each individual contributor is authentic?"/>
        <outline text="Even ink signatures can easily be spoofed, hard to verify in the hundreds or thousands"/>
      </outline>
      <outline text="Newer organizations bridge grass roots and central organization">
        <outline text="Electronic Frontiers Foundation"/>
        <outline text="Public Knowledge"/>
        <outline text="Open Rights Group"/>
        <outline text="Provide tools, action centers, to provide information and means to act">
          <outline text="Information may be biased but if done well, easy to use as a starting point for own research"/>
          <outline text="Tools provide ability to take action, typically form letters for editing and sending"/>
          <outline text="Some also allow sending FAXes, an interesting combination of electronic and physical action"/>
        </outline>
        <outline text="Become centers of organization for like minded activism"/>
        <outline text="Non-profit, member donation funded"/>
        <outline text="Use funds to gather, host and present information on relevant topics">
          <outline text="Staff bloggers"/>
          <outline text="Staff researchers for all purposes"/>
        </outline>
        <outline text="Many also take direct action, also using funds">
          <outline text="File briefs"/>
          <outline text="Participate directly in law suits"/>
          <outline text="Produce own educational materials"/>
          <outline text="Participate in conferences"/>
          <outline text="Host events, speakers"/>
        </outline>
        <outline text="Earn reputations for the issues they pursue and act on"/>
        <outline text="Can make true grass roots activism easier by following issues of the day by organization"/>
      </outline>
      <outline text="Gigi Sohn's lament">
        <outline text="Most of what these new groups do themselves is narrow"/>
        <outline text="Fight specific legal battles"/>
        <outline text="Target specific legislation, legislators"/>
        <outline text="There is a desire to go beyond, to form a positive reform movement"/>
        <outline text="More proactive, sweeping, broad effect rather than reacting to issues as they occur"/>
      </outline>
      <outline text="Hacktivism">
        <outline text="Challenging traditional modes of activism"/>
        <outline text="Creative Commons is the best example"/>
        <outline text="A good goal, developing a voluntary commons"/>
        <outline text="Providing tools, means to contribute to the commons"/>
        <outline text="A few politicians directly engaging with constituents, either for funding or traditional action"/>
        <outline text="Novel technology demonstrations, like at hacker conventions"/>
        <outline text="Few examples, a real challenge"/>
        <outline text="Limited by the paradox of large amounts of individual actions"/>
        <outline text="More often new ways to organize, motivate traditional activism"/>
      </outline>
    </outline>
    <outline text="Outro" Offset="32:24">
      <outline text="Contact me">
        <outline text="Email to feedback@thecommandline.net"/>
        <outline text="Web site at http://thecommandline.net/"/>
        <outline text="IM to command.line@skype"/>
        <outline text="Listener comment line is 240-949-2638"/>
        <outline text="del.icio.us tag is &quot;for:cmdln&quot;"/>
        <outline text="http://twitter.com/cmdln"/>
      </outline>
      <outline text="I'd like to thank libsyn.com for AAC hosting and Wouter de Bie for MP3 hosting"/>
      <outline text="These notes and the show audio and music are covered by a Creative Commons license">
        <outline text="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/"/>
        <outline text="Attribution, non-commercial, share alike"/>
      </outline>
    </outline>
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