Revolutionaries or Mouse Potatos?

We lost television. What could have been a powerful media for diseminating useful information and catalyzing positive political and social change has become a mostly empty vessel of violent police shows, sexist comdies, soulless sports events and lowest common denominator trash. Those who claim that this is what the people demanded are ignoring effect of network, corporate advertising and government control over the media.

We have another chance with the Net. But of the hundreds of Websites i have surfed passed, almost none of them contribute significantly to getting people to actively do something to make the world better. The very best are chronicaling the activism of others, providing inspiring stories and soliciting donations for good groups. If this remains our best effort, we will lose this more powerful media more tragically than TV.

What is missing is "contract buttons", where you push here if you are actually willing to do something more significant than move a mouse around. There are some who contend that the Net alone can be a significant actor in political and social change, but this seems uncompelling - the serious problems we need to address require action which takes place outside of the cyberworld. In the best case we can find allies and develop strategies with the Net, but ultimately they must lead to concrete action outside this virtual reality.

The Fignerbook project is an effort to inform people so that they embrace lifestyles which are more fair, enjoyable and sustainable. Originally, these works only existed in paper, but with the exploding popularity of the Net it was an obvious choice for a propaganda project to go on-line.. The paper version continue to be useful (and very cute in format) and are easier to carry in your pocket or give to a friend than a computer screen.

Ultimately, we will try to edit these Fingerbooks interactively here. Adding informaiton which is useful and changing content in a consensus editorship of these materials. This page "discuss" will be an entry to this discussion for those interested. But for the forseeable future the dialog coordinators are crazy busy with Chernobyl 10th anniversary events and the referendum against the Krsko NPP in Slovenija to be able to do much with this part of the Propaganda Project.