Friendster and Meetup: Synergies

Somewhere around the blogosphere and the general internet ether, I'm sure that someone has thought of this idea and probably blogged the idea. Nonetheless, I will recklessly proceed. In getting very involved in setting up my Friendster profile today and simultaneously desperately trying to promote the Meetup for Pro-Choice New Yorkers, I became almost apoplectic with joy at the discovery of a new synthesis: Friendster + Meetup.

Here's the thing - in the Friendster profile, one defines one's location and one's interests. Those words in the interest section represent categories of a very lazy kind (lazy on Friendster's part). You can then do a search either on your own self-defined interests or plug a word into the search facility. Voila - a list of people, at least remotely connected to you, who share both geographic area and state of mind (at least in part). What does this have to do with Meetup you might ask? Well Friendster also has a tool for sending messages through their interface (no email addresses are thus visible) and if one was so inclined, one could send all of the people who share your interest in your given network an email about a meetup on that interest. For the less well-known and starter meetups, this could be a way of generating some buy-in. And once a Meetup has more than 5 members, all systems are go. So if you are faced with an as-of-yet unpopular Meetup and really want the thing to happen, sign up at Friendster and see what shakes out of the system for you. Of course, the Dean Meetup organizers need not apply (though this may be a good tactic for those outisde of major urban areas even for the Dean folks).

All Screamed Out: a Whimpering Anti-Bush Protest in New York

I guess we are not going to see the rebirth of the 60's anti-war movement any time soon. Today, at the behest of Planned Parenthood, I attended a protest gathered outside the hotel where Bush was conducting a fundraiser of some sorts. These days there's a lot about which to protest on the reproductive rights front, with all the court-packing and anti-choice legislation, like the most recent so-called partial birth abortion bill. But pro-choice issues weren't the only meal on the platter - there was also anti-war, voter rights, and the usual suspects. While the turn-out seemed substantial enough and there were the usual chants (among the milder were "Stop Bush Now" and "This is what democracy looks like"), I had the feeling that the activists were, shall we say, all screamed out.

Some people think the dilution of leftist activism in this country comes from the single-issue groups that populate the Democratic Party, who have nothing more in common with one another than their position on the political spectrum. I would argue that the same is true of right-wing groups - one set is bent on merging the state with their religion and the other is almost solely devoted to the pursuit of wealth by a privileged few at the expense of the majority. From the point of view of the rally today, the problem seemed more like a lack of leadership and organization. The left needs inspiration now, not just of the Clintonian sort, which we perhaps have in Dean, but more like a singular clarion voice, that can rouse us from our television-induced slumber and compete with the distractions of Mall of America. The 60's had Abby Hoffman and John Lennon, among countless others who roused the great mass of youth to change the path of a nation and a culture.

Our issues, abortion, environment, education, the endless war on terror, poverty, and so on, are as pressing to us as fighting Jim Crow and ending the Vietnam War were to the famed demonstrators of the 60's. But we will not capture the imagination of Americans with clever slogans like "Empty Warhead in the White House." There are no songs either, and I didn't even see a guitar (although I did make out a silent drum in the crowd). There was a moment, when this guy broke free from the crowd and started challenging the police for some reason or another, when everyone got excited but this seemed somehow related to our likelihood of making it into CNN footage. Not exactly holding flowers out to soldiers or linking arms and singing, "Give Peace a Chance."

We need a superhuman, one with the power to sear through teflon coating and swim from under oceans of gag rules. Someone, perhaps, not unlike Neo, but without the leather coats and Russian mob shades and maybe with a few more words. Any takers?

Those of you who responded with "Ralph Nader" need to take a long , hard look at yourselves and then perhaps sit down and have a good cry.