Thank you for posting this.

Alan W. Silberberg
CEO
You2Gov
USA

Twitter is bringing the impact of the early telegraph – speed. Without people though, it is nothing.

And people are what make the difference in politics. What matters is the consensus that we develop – the interests we are willing to suspend, or at least leave negotiable while we pursue a common goal.

People are impressed by events in Iran but they are forgetting the corollary – who is not in the Twitter network in Iran and what are their views. I have no idea, except from the news coverage, but I have seen middle classes lose their political battles elsewhere because they aren’t willing to the do the ‘connection’ work to take them out of their ‘tribal stronghold’. Connection work called shoe leather – walking from village to village and house to house.

Twitter would have helped and hindered Alinsky. What he had on his side was surprise value. He came in off a low base, organizing people who weren’t organized before. The middle classes of today are impressed that middle class Iranians suddenly got organized but they forget there are other organizational structures too – something Alinsky never forgets.

BTW Alinsky’s principles are very much like the Little Red Book and are suitable to guerilla struggles – which he alludes too. His tactics suit one issue campaigns which can lead to durable power but within the system that is already there. The method collapses if there is no system to push against. And obviously when you represent the system, you must expect these tactics to be used against you and you continue to play ‘realpolitiks’ but with state power on your side now.

Twitter is only a technology – what counts still is self-interest and our willingness to build a political consensus to get done what we want done. Without the latter, then we have little more than village gossip – entertaining as that might be.