Re: talking & action (was Re: carol and lou on religion)

[Doyle Saylor <djsaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings Comrades,
    Alan's questions about the connection of action to an e-list are valid.
I'd like to add a few of my thoughts on the issues that need to be thought
of concerning connecting e-lists to action.  This list has about 300
subscribers with a very substantial international component.  Picture trying
to coordinate international action with about 300 people.

    What sort of organization does an e-list suggest?  Most organization on
the left has arisen from first of all worker organization in a specific job
site and geographic location for an industry or trade.  Then using the press
of the left nationally as a single voice.

    Most people on the list here are not here because of being organized to
be here.  They came looking for something.  How does one go about organizing
people to be here and then use that to action in the real world?  This
information here differs from a press or newspaper in the sense that people
directly involved in actions could easily write for this list, but what is
the organizational ability of the list to put back into some local effort?

    There is of course the potential for growth on a list so that a list
might represent enough people to really affect local organization (with
thousands of locals reading the list to get their information about what is
happening.  How does one see using a list in that way?  The electronic form
is significantly different from traditional print forms of media that the
left has access to.  The lack of geographic barriers to the community talk.
The difficulty of coordinating people through an e-list.  I mean how to get
people to do something together through writing into a list that would
actually have a real impact upon real working class actions?  The
overwhelming of mental ability that happens to anyone when disputes break
out and there are hundreds of e-mails to read per day.

    These seem to me to be just the beginning of the sort of questions that
might be debated about the relationship of action to the sub e-list.  In a
fundamental sense the small population size of the lists, the large number
of people who simply lurk in the background while a small subset of people
actually write in suggest there are many areas that need development before
action becomes seriously possible.  The sheer volume of mail that makes it
hard for people to keep up for moderators, regular contributors and lurkers.
The constant turmoil with disputes to resolve in some kind of positive
fashion are all connected to what Alan was asking about action.

    Alan talks about how he was going around Canada to organize, which is
totally different way of organizing than what one could think of doing with
a subscription e-list.  There is no such thing as a particular location for
meeting with the subscribers.  There are other lists with different mixes of
participants with different reasons to participate.  But one doesn't have to
travel to get there, and the reason why people stay with a list are quite
different from why one comes to a meeting about struggle.  Or for that
matter join a party.  These differences are important aspects of the changes
that are occurring in workers culture through the tools of electronic
communications.  Shop floor organizing has always dominated workers getting
organized.   An e-list suggest that organizing can be important simply on
line.

    Being on line develops one's mind in a way that is impossible given the
limited nature of face to face discussions have in regular real life.  This
mental development may move people forward in ways that have been impossible
before.   Showing people how directly alike all our thinking is quickly in a
matter of hours or showing how deep disputes are long before they could be
summarized in a press.  Show how much power there is many talking at once.
Show how much has never been tried before in organizing people which
creative people can figure out and go forward with.
some thoughts,
Thanks,
Doyle Saylor