Shelley didn't like my war metaphor. She said she tunes out when she hears me talking about what we're doing here having the power to change the world, to stop wars. Respectfully, she's wrong.
It's not about blogging per-se (the word will be so mainstream as to not even be used in the near future if Google does good). It's about, and this sounds trite thanks to Cluetrain-come-before-us, conversation.
Don't tune out yet...
It's about who is heard (now) and who isn't (now). It's about what are now bottom-rung ideas and dreams, plans and movements, art and science, poetry and music, flip-flopping to the top. It is about ending the spin of Bush and Blair and companies that trickle down from them. It's about voice and choice.
It is precisely about war and peace and global understanding and shrinking the world down to neighborhoods.
I didn't choose the war metaphor to be cute. Let me explain more, just a little more tonight. I'm gonna borrow from the comment I left at Shelley's place, as I think jenna's strep throat is taking hold in me and I feel like shit.
Still, I have this current running through me about the potential of voice-given-wings through the Google/Pyra deal. I have that energy. I'm not NOT going to talk about it.
When we got here, I thought we could change the world. That's why I came. Not for technology or writing or to meet new and interesting people. I came to blogging because I had read a book called Gonzo Marketing, and I wrote as I read it realtime, and I believed the promise of Gonzo and it's predesessor. And I still believe it just as much.
I believe that conversation can stop war.
There, I said it.
And I believe that what we do here is have conversations.
We also create. Creation, the opposite of destruction and ruin. Get my drift?
I believe that flipping the current power and spin structure can happen. And I think the Google/Pyra deal is the closest thing I've seen to enabling it to be so.
Unlike Shelley, I think this is precisely the step needed to stop war. This war? I don't know. Depends on how fast/how deep things happen. Google, get busy. But it actually, mostly, depends on us.
What if one day soon it's not about Bush and Blair and they-who-come after.... what if it's not their view of the world, controlled and told to us by Ari/CNN/ABC/NBC/BBC/NYT/WSJ/LMNOP?
I'm not saying the pyra/google thing is a sliver bullet that will cure the cancers of the world.
But to me, it is the biggest advancement toward global understanding, and yes, potentially peace Shelley, to have taken place in my recent memory. As powerful as the peace marches. Do I really think this? Do I put so much credence in a guy flipping open his laptop at Live from the Blogosphere, and Doc uttering the yikes heard round the world: "Holy shit!"
Yes, I do.
Voice to Voice, things CAN change. What if we can do more than marching. What if it's me and you and gary and golby and tom and farrago and MOC and everyone we know and don't know yet (too tired to add links tonight..)--AND--what if our voice is at least half as loud half as often as the bush/blair spin machine and media puppets?
You don't think that you and us and them talking and linking and listening have magnitudes of power, and have momentum to power change? If not, why are we here? Or maybe it's just me.
Shelley, what better plan is there? What advancement has the potential to bring voice = humanity up a notch or two or ten to where people are hearing each other? Where big media sits down and we stand up?
You better believe I chose the war metaphor for a reason. For the precise reason that winning in the Google battle means we have at least a chance of winning at peace.
sleep on it. dream on it. I will be.
good day.
