Customer Reviews

Taking on the System: Rules for Change in a Digital Era

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

For those of us who sometimes take the internet and blogging for granted, "Taking on the System" is a comprehensive reminder of just how influential ordinary people can become as they open a forum for political debate and spur a grassroots movement for participatory democracy. The Dailykos founder outlines the history of blog sites, their successes and failures, and provides advice and tools to help common citizens exert influence and promote societal change. The book is a clearly written, entertaining glimpse into a new and powerful medium, and one every person intending to vote should read.

Sarah McKerrigan, author

Like most people, I don't want to be bothered by politics, but this election is a really big deal. It's time to lift the darkness, and this book has practical ideas for grass roots change that's good for all. It helps also to have a few cautionary tales, and to appreciate the heroic role of Stephen Colbert.

Craig

... VERY overlong. Basically, this is a 5-10 page essay which has been ballooned to fill a book. The message is that using technology and a strong grassroots effort, we the people can take back the media from entrenched interests and affect change. The delivery is 288 pages of related anecdotes and self-congratulatory rhetoric.

My problem is when Zuniga used stories from the music business (I'm in the music business). He cites the last Radiohead album as having been free for download, and the average user paying from $5 - 7 for it as an example of the democratization of media, freed from oppressive corporatism... well, in fact the vast majority of people downloaded it for free, paying nothing. It's an important distinction, and if that's an example of 'power to the people', it bears noting that the people wanted something for nothing. What other stories might be likewise skewed? It made me wonder.

Still, it's a breezy, entertaining read, and there certainly is truth that we the people can bring about reform if (and when) we set our collective minds to it. I'm just not sure it takes so many pages to make that point, or that it can't be better made with better documented, more effective examples. Good blogs do not necessarily make good books, it seems.

I can't help thinking that author Markos Moulitsas wouldn't mind very much if readers just skimmed the book for some inspiration and moved on quickly to do something toward "taking on the system." Someone else mentioned that the titles and subtitles are the best part of the book. "Set the Narrative." "Target Your Villain." "Exploit Their Weaknesses." "Build a Wave." "Aim for the Gut, Not the Brain." "Advance and Hold Enemy Ground."

So many Americans have felt increasingly disenfranchised and disengaged from the system. Moulitsas describes a process--sort of an evolution of character and action--in which an individual can pick a cause, start small, become engaged, identify the roadblocks, and then move on and on with persistence and determination to knock down the roadblock and get something done. And then lots of individuals can find like-minded communities and become part of a movement that collectively takes on the system to serve the needs of real people in the real America of today.

Moulitsas uses military imagery from time to time, not to suggest acts of violence but rather to move slowly and strategically to stake out a position and then hold onto it. As it turns out, this physically small man I've heard called "twerp" served a stint in the Army, then came out, went to college and then law school, and has now, without physical force, become a part of a movement that's slowly been turning from a minority to a majority representation of the desires of the American people.

I've been reading the author's blog, The Daily Kos. Markos Moulitsas is a prolific writer (using the blogger's name "Kos) posting day after day to keep his readership focused on task and focused on victory in the upcoming elections. He's been labeled "far left," "radical," and more. I don't really see anything more than Democratic partisanship, expressed in a way that drives people to make sure Democrats will win big in the upcoming elections. He uses the key elements of this book every day. He senses his coalition is close to victory, and now he's calling for full victory, no mercy, win as many seats as possible by as big a margin as possible.

For Markos Moulitsas, it doesn't seem to be all that much, really, about ideology as it is about making sure Democratic candidates win elections. So, Taking on the System is sort of a guidebook (I wouldn't go so far as to call it a military handbook) for political success through nonviolent, strategic means. It could probably be as useful for Republicans as it is for Democrats--if not for the fact that Republicans have been using many of these tactics to win elections for the past 30 years.

This seemed like an interesting book on how to play digital culture to the advantage of those seeking to make changes in the political, scientific or social landscape.

The book did have a few quirks the author may not have realized, such as talking about enforcing the status quo vs. being the little guy trying to make a point, then going on to say that global warming is "settled science" and that anyone who makes a legitimate point contrary to the scientific consensus is just a troublemaker. Does the author not realize how hypocritical this sounds? Arguing for the inclusion of the little guy's voice in discussions, and then acting like the authoritarian brute and trying to exclude the legitimate opinion of the "little guy" in the global warming debate.

Aside from a few foibles of that sort, the book was a pretty interesting read, drawing lots of specific examples from various newspapers, TV shows, liberal blogs, etc.

The book itself has a very liberal slant, so anyone who's a die-hard conservative may roll their eyes at some of the discussions. But, political points aside, it seems like a decent enough manual for trying to get one's point across in whatever field there are "gatekeepers" trying to suppress your point of view, etc.

While I'm not much into the political sphere, there seems to be a lot of politicking in science, and very similar tactics may be useful in effecting change in scientific circles.

The book's probably not for everyone, but it kept my attention and made some interesting points.

This book is an interesting and informative look at how activism is changing. It identifies tactics which have been used effectively (such as the use of the internet for fundraising), as well as those which have lost their effectiveness over time (for example, street protests). It lays out very distinctly actions to take and provides examples along the way of both successes and failures.

I found it very interesting that Moulitsos holds up the Heritage Foundation as an organization that really gets it, and which other organizations, both conservative and progressive, model themselves after. I wonder if some of the other reviewers have actually read the book - only one of the negative reviews seems to actually address the content of Taking on the System.

Taking on the System is filled with stories of victories and failures, and highlights how technology in general (and not just the blogosphere) has changed the playing field. Not all of the examples are related to politics. The book is about getting around gatekeepers, which exist everywhere. I found it to be a very valuable, interesting, and inspirational read.

Over the past twenty or so years few things have infuriated me more than the nonsensical and completely absurd myth of The Liberal Media. If by "liberal" one means "of the left" the media has never been liberal. At best it was solidly in the middle. You might occasionally get some unrepentant New Dealers like Eric Severaid (though he was a terrible sexist), but I am unaware of any mainstream television or print journalist who is more than mildly to the left. Even in the sixties there was no journalist as far to the left as William F. Buckley was to the Right. And today there are dozens of journalists all the way to the lunatic fringe of the Far Right, while there is not a single person who could be described as Far Left. For instance, among the more prominent left-leaning individuals today -- E. J. Dionne, Paul Krugman, Keith Olberman, Gene Lyons, the late Molly Ivins, and similar individuals -- I know of no one who is more than slightly to the left. The Far Left -- people like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Fredric Jameson, Simon Critchley, the late Robert Heilbroner, etc. -- is completely unrepresented. There simply is no place in contemporary mainstream media for anything that is more than tepidly left wing.

Yet the Myth of the Liberal Media, one of the great achievements of the Far Right, persists. Somehow no one seems to notice that the Media is corporate owned and therefore largely conforms to the viewpoints and needs of the corporate world. By labeling moderate, middle-of-the-road journalists as "liberals," the Right has effectively shifted the common understanding of the political spectrum. Though a host of individuals holding ultra right wing (and absolutely nutty) positions get their own TV or radio shows, people like Rush Limbaugh, James Dobson, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bob O'Reilly, Michael Savage (who reminds me of the reviled Father Coughlin), TV and radio has no place for anyone as far to the left as these people are to the right. Not a single one. Not even Air America has a single person to the far left. So the next time anyone babbles to you about the liberal media, ask why there is a complete and utter absence of a far left presence in the media.

Enter the Internet. Though most so-called liberal bloggers are not really of the far left, they are definitely to the left of the token liberals TV and radio gives us. But as Markos Zuniga shows in this book the Internet and its left-leaning bloggers have reopened the political debate to those who are left of center. Though the left has been completely suppressed at NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, and the various cable networks, it is alive and well on the Internet. Markos should know; he is the force behind one of the most successful blogs on the Internet, DailyKos.

The book explores new strategies for the spreading of information, facts and stories that the mainstream media would prefer to ignore. Just as Berkeley said that if a tree fell in a forest and no one was there that there would be no sound (though something most don't notice is that Berkeley believed that God was omnipresent and that therefore he was actually describing a counterfactual situation), so Markos points out that even if you have a half million people in a protest march and it receives no media coverage, it is as if the march never existed. This is because if the media doesn't cover the story, it doesn't spread out into the larger world. Markos shows how the Internet can and has been repeatedly used to break one story after another, such as the promotion of the senatorial campaign of Jim Webb and the exposure of the racist actions of his opponent George Allen (such as cutting off the head of doe as a young man and putting it in the mailbox of an African-American family) or the scandal of the firing of federal judges for political reasons.

In working through some of the successes of the bloggers Markos develops a series of New Rules for Radicals (he cites explicitly Saul Alinsky's important book). He illustrates these rules both by showing where the left got things right and where it got things wrong (a prime example of the latter being the unfortunate loss of narrative by Cindy Sheehan, whose heartbreaking plight became diffused by her being co-opted by a host of good but disparate causes).

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to help the America people take back our country from the corporate interests that have so successfully manipulated Americans into buying into the Right Wing agenda that is so overwhelming opposed to the genuine interests of Americans. Such as babbling about "values" but turning around and only giving tax breaks for the wealthy and businesses. Or fear mongering about gay marriage or terrorism to such an extent that they don't notice the undermining of programs that aide and empower the middle class. Virtually all Americans prospered from government actions in the thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties. Only a tiny fraction of the American people have benefited greatly from government action from the seventies to the present. This needs to change. This books lays out some of the ways we can help bring change (real change, not the persistence of the status quo which seems to be the kind of change McCain talks about) about.

This book came back to mind after the revolt in Egypt. I read it about a year ago, at the time my attitude was basicly "so?" but then I'm pretty conversant with the internet and pretty cynical about social networking sites. I got as a sourcebook for internet marketing...in that light, it failed me, as I had to wade through alot of "slacktivist" cyber-revolution rhetoric...but nonetheless it did provide a pretty comprehensive overview of social media and some creative approaches to using it. If you actually ARE looking to start a revolution, you would find the tone of the book alot more to your liking than I did. Obviously it can be done, as the youth movement "behind" the Egypt revolt credits socail meadia for getting his message out...but have no illusions about how far you will actually get by tweeting you grievances around...there was alot more to that revolt than a few young visionaries and hunger for freedom. I'll stay away from the politics, but that those kids were used by a far more "traditional" group of revolutionaries. As with all things in life, your own mileage may vary considerably.Still, an interesting and colorful read, and a good introduction to social media for those who need it.

I'm a conservative who reads all sorts of books from all sorts of views. I wanted to know how and why Kos did what he did with his blog. And while his book answered my questions, it also left me asking, "Why does he have to be so boring!?" and "Why is he still mentioning the 'stolen' presidential election of 2000?" Kos's strategies could be whittled into a pamphlet. No one wants to wade through the rehash of big news stories just to further understand his rules. These stories are supposed to be educational and inspiring, but they fall flat early on. Liberals who really want to change the world should simply read his section on the plusses of keeping a small readership.

What made me laugh (at him, not with him) was his mention of the music industry. Quoting Courtney Love's rants against the music corporation was perfect... in showing more liberal hypocrisy. (As a young adult, Love received a trust fund from family to do all the things most people cant do- do hardly anything except live in the underground music scene. There are musicians who choose to sacrifice themselves to corporate music so they can make some money with what they love to do.) And then, of course, Kos throws in Fiona Apple's fanbase sticking up for her. Thank goodness these insistent fans could create online petitions and letters of concern so that Apple's CD could finally get released. I hope that Kos has moved past a fascination with indie/underground/sticking-it-to-the-man music and is only including this section for his 17 - 24 year old audience. Seriously, the whole music industry rant seemed unnecessary.

Oh, and he just loooooooves Saul Alinsky. yipe!

It seems that the main points of this book are straight from standard public relations texts, marketing texts, and politics how-to texts. Not sure there's really anything ground breaking in his main points. There seem to be many times that he makes a point and then contradicts himself. But here are just a few quotes I thought were interesting.

Foundational rule of the book: "Without the media, little can be accomplished." Yet he says that direct communication with people is better and that individual bloggers can accomplish more than main-stream media.

"Shape public opinion by making your voice heard, your ideas clear, and your cause visible." But he seems to flip back and forth between putting pressure on the traditional media vs creating your own media outlet.
Influencing the gatekeepers vs bypassing the gatekeepers.

"Drawing in collaborators to reach a critical mass depends on the crucial ability to articulate a vision that is shared, and to create a narrative with a story that inspires, motivates, and lays out a path to change."

"Effective leaders draw people into their cause by creating powerful stories, with clear distinctions between good and evil, hero and villain." Yet when he was made into a villain, he says that the tactics used against him were unfair and evil.

"Values all Americans cherish - fairness, opportunity, and tolerance." Yet he slings a lot of school-yard name-calling of those who don't agree with him, and shows very little tolerance.

"When evaluating the work of your allies, don't criticize effective tactics merely because you find them distasteful or feel they have crossed your own self-defined ethical lines." Yet he criticizes successful tactics against the "War on Christmas" and calls them intimidation tactics.

"Lasting change in the world is built on one-to-one relationships and small actions. Be proud of what you can do for your cause, even if you can't move a mountain alone." I found some of his points instructive of how my conservative activism can be more effective, and I look forward to using his ideas to promote conservative causes.