I love Facebook. Via FB, I, like millions and millions of FBers, have reconnected with old classmates, friends, family, fraternity brothers etc. The updated status reports provides me real time shout-outs to birthdays, reunions and anniversaries.
Gossip, amusing comments, pictures, party announcement aside, I also hope that we can maximize FB as a tool for community empowerment and continue a substantive dialog that addresses issues that impact our community and society.
The template for this type of activism is the phenomenal uprising in the Middle-east and Northern Africa. There, young people networked and interfaced via Twitter and FB to demand more accountability from their respective governments.
In particular, I hope through FB we can organize and mobilize to counter the covert and diabolical war that the well finance far-right, Fix News, Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch and others are waging against the middle-class.
The far right agenda is anti-union, anti-worker, anti-public education and anti-immigration and against Health Care Reform. In addition to be against a much needed energy policy (think five dollar gas), their policy position denies the link between carbon emissions and climate change. Needless to say, their agenda is 100% pro-business.
I am not saying FB should not be about socializing - no let's continue to have our fun - but let us this tool to the max. We can host voter registration drives, virtual rallies, government petition signings and so much more.
As historical election 2008 was, 2012 is going to be much more significant because the far-right is ginned up (by mid-term 2010 success) and they want to repel health care, dismantled medicare, give more tax cuts to the ultra rich and implement the Tea Party agenda.
Stay tuned.
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