(written for and published originally by portside)

by Alfredo Lopez

There was a time some years back when progressive activists debated the importance and usefulness of the Internet. It is a reflection of our movement's progress that, today, that debate is over. Most progressives now use the Internet as an important component of our campaigns and organizing; some rely on it entirely.

This happened about 25 years ago. In a late-night conversation with some organizers from the Mid-West, I was asked to describe my "organizer's fantasy". I was still drinking back then and the combination of beer and wee hours can nurture adventures in speculation.

I answered that I'd want a huge mass movement made up of people with diverse skills and backgrounds and I'd want to be an integral part of it -- not just something I would join after it was developed or something I would "intervene" into or work to support. Not the usual organizer's scenario. This would be a movement in a community of which I was an integral part day to day and that suddenly spawned this amazing movement.

I remember calling it an organizer's dream. I think that describes the Internet. And in this last of a three blog series I want to explain what I mean.

To understand the nature, popularity and importance of the Internet, I think it's critical to look not at the tools we use on-line but at what we do when we're using them.

If we picture our lives in contemporary society as unfolding in a physical space, we might use the metaphor of a closet.

If we had to define the Internet and were suddenly blind to the wires, machines and code that most of us think of when we hear the term, what would we be left with?

It's a question worth thinking about. In a society saturated with and stifled by alienation, our fetish with the props of our human drama too often clouds our ability to see and analyze what's really happening.

We tend to see technology as its "things" and that makes it virtually impossible to understand technology and where it's going.