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Hello,

Blogs are a familiar feature on the internet - where users post content in an accumulating manner, with comments, and search options, etc. They facilitate expression and exploration, and via attached comments, also debate and synthesis.


Reading and
Navigating Blogs

Our blogs are quite powerful. Each writer can post, as is typically the case. Sustainers who have the option can also post, however. All Blogs appear in the blog system, and sometimes also in content boxes the top page of ZNet - and always via the left menu of the top page - and can be found via searches, etc.

Commenting on blogs follows the blogs, attached at the bottom, and blog comments, like all others, are also visible in many places that show comments including in the forum system. In addition, the entire blog system gathers content for everyone - but one can look at the accumulating content in many ways.

  • For example one can look at one writer's efforts - so one is seeing what is effectively a blog system for that one writer, or Sustainer.
  • One can also look at the content by topic, seeing blogs that are tagged as being about a certain topic - or place, as well. Thus, when doing that, it is a blog system about a topic, or a place, with many contributors.
  • One can look at only writer blogs, or only sustainer blogs, as well.
  • One can look at blogs for particular Groups, too.

All this is easily done using the left menu. Searches allow even more variables and refinements.


Creating Blog Posts

If you are a Sustainer with permission, and are logged in, you will see a link in the left menu for you to post a blog - and you can use that to post one, and then tag it various ways (such as with a topic or place, or a group tag), and once you do, it is in the system with you as the author.

You can also use the console button to the left to post a blog - anytime and from anywhere in the site, as long as you are logged in.

Meanwhile, enjoy the blogs - and, by the way, if you are a Free Member or a Sustainer with a ZSpace page, of course you can put one or more content boxes on it, pulling blog links of any sort you may want to filter for, for example, by you or by your friends or by others - and by topic, about places, for groups, etc.

Blogs

Web

Chris Spannos's Blog

Web Address: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/chrisspannos
Bio: Chris Spannos has had over a decade of experience in self-managed media collectives and also as an activist, organizer, and anti-capitalist. From 1998-2006 he participated in the Redeye collective,... (More)

All Spannos Blogs

LAC, Day Three

By Chris Spannos at Aug 23, 2004


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Today was the closing day of the Life After Capitalism conference. Hundreds of people excited, stimulated and inspired, exhausted came together and are now going their separate ways again. It almost seems sad except I know that this opportunity to meet face to face has resulted in an exchange of ideas, experiences, strategies, tactics and visions.

Many will take this to the RNC, others will go back to their communities and organise, and still others may simply ponder the many issues raised over the weekend. What ever the case, such events have a quality that could be said to be that of a 'liberated zone', where people freely express, receive, experiment, and perhaps build. And although it is tough to go back to the many unsatisfactory institutions that one may have to face in their daily life, these events are fuel, and evidence that resistance is worth it.


Today I attended a workshop titled "Envisioning Democracy". The folks presenting were Cindy Milstein of the Institute for Social Ecology, Z commentator Steve Shalom, and Martin from the Argentinian Neighbourhood Assembly of Colegiales. I'll be totally candid here, I am sympathetic to Steve's vision of a nested council structure for a political vision. Hearing all three presenters today reaffirmed my sympathy. However, this does not contradict my sympathy for the other speakers. Both had very insightful things to say. Cindy spoke with intensity and clarity about a vision and practice of liberating human and social relations. She talked about many values and principles that I think are important. However, she had very little to say about the liberating institutions and procedures necessary to embody and facilitate her desired values, and social relations. Martin spoke with a passion and experience that demanded my attention and fascination. He outlined the background of Argentina's financial crisis, analysed the human relationships formed and gave liberating examples of ways that we may relate to one another. However, I left, still without knowing anything about the institutions that embody Argentinian direct democracy. He mentioned a textile factory (I think the one that is often cited) and a school (I think a kindergarten), but I left not knowing anything about these institutions. How they got them or how they functioned. What worked and what didn't (As a side note, Naomi Klein did address some of these issues in one of her forums and I can't wait to see Klein's "The Take", recently mentioned in D Morduchowicz' blog)


Other highlites of the day included a workshop on "Multi-Racial Alliance Building" and Radical Queer Politics: Resisting Capitalist Co-optation". These two conferences were initially separated plenaries, however the organisers thought that it would be better to bring them together, which in fact it was. The only draw back was that there was now 7 speakers over a two hour period, very intense and exhausting. The speakers were Elizabeth Martinez, Chris Crass, Steve Williams, Monami Maulik, Geoffery Winder, Dean Spade and Rickke Mananzala. For this to, you'll have to wait for the audio, there was simply to much content for me to recall here...
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