Things I’ve Seen

From The Washington Post, via Atrios and Gabriel

US hostage taking in Iraq is in clear breach of Geneva Convention

From Lee Felsenstein ad seriatim

HOW TO MAKE A REVOLUTION in three easy steps

OK, here’s the method for making sweeping, positive social change.

FIRST, everybody gets a project.

     Join one or start one, but the project has to be directed toward making things better. That’s what’s called a “positive vector”.

SECOND, everybody talks with everybody else about their projects.

     That’s “talks with”, not just “talks to” or “talks at”. This sets up a “field of communication”, with information flowing in all directions. It’s very important to the process, and we now have the tools (the Internet and the phone system) to make communication available without much hierarchy.

THIRD, be prepared to change your project based upon what you learn by communicating about it.

     This is also very important. It “closes the feedback loop” by making the communication consequential, and, with everyone’s good sense, sets up a “converging system” in the general direction of the vector.

     That’s it.

My favourite economist explains why it isn’t just wrong, it won’t work.

http://www.pandagon.net/archives/00001384.htm

http://billmon.org/archives/000407.html.