Zcom_simple

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

1

Michael Albert's Blog

Web Address: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/malbert
Bio: Michael Albert is a founder and current member of the staff of Z Magazine as well as staff of Z Magazine`s web system: ZCom (www.zmag.org). Albert`s radicalization occurred during the 1960s. His po... (More)

All Albert Blogs

Organizing an Organization

By Michael Albert at Mar 11, 2004


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Back in early 2003 ZNet hosted a call called the We Stand for Peace and Justice statement and site. In a period of just a few weeks, a little over 100,000 people signed the statement. At the time, it was a protest against on-coming war. I have been wondering recently whether it wouldn't be possible to use this statement, or something like it as the basis for a positive organizational assertion. Could we develop an international movement of movements – or even some kind of international structure – around this stance? Here is the statement… “I stand for peace and justice. I stand for democracy and autonomy. I don't think the U.S. or any other country should ignore the popular will and violate and weaken international law, seeking to bully and bribe votes in the Security Council. I stand for internationalism. I oppose any nation spreading an ever expanding network of military bases around the world and producing an arsenal unparalleled in the world. I stand for equity. I don't think the U.S. or any other country should seek empire. I don't think the U.S. ought to control Middle Eastern oil on behalf of U.S. corporations and as a wedge to gain political control over other countries. I stand for freedom. I oppose brutal regimes in Iraq and elsewhere but I also oppose the new doctrine of "preventive war," which guarantees permanent and very dangerous conflict, and is the reason why the U.S. is now regarded as the major threat to peace in much of the world. I stand for a democratic foreign policy that supports popular opposition to imperialism, dictatorship, and political fundamentalism in all its forms. I stand for solidarity. I stand for and with all the poor and the excluded. Despite massive disinformation millions oppose unjust, illegal, immoral war, and I want to add my voice to theirs. I stand with moral leaders all over the world, with world labor, and with the huge majority of the populations of countries throughout the world. I stand for diversity. I stand for an end to racism directed against immigrants and people of color. I stand for an end to repression at home and abroad. I stand for peace. I stand against this war and against the conditions, mentalities, and institutions that breed and nurture war and injustice. I stand for sustainability. I stand against the destruction of forests, soil, water, environmental resources, and biodiversity on which all life depends. I stand for justice. I stand against economic, political, and cultural institutions that promote a rat race mentality, huge economic and power inequalities, corporate domination even unto sweatshop and slave labor, racism, and gender and sexual hierarchies. I stand for a policy that redirects the money used for war and military spending to provide healthcare, education, housing, and jobs. I stand for a world whose political, economic, and social institutions foster solidarity, promote equity, maximize participation, celebrate diversity, and encourage full democracy. I stand for peace and justice and, more, I pledge to work for peace and justice.” Of course a new version would have to be updated and made a bit more broad, etc., but is it possible? Aren't there thousands, tens of thousands, and perhaps more people around the world who could align together, organizationally, yielding far more coherence, continuity, and power by virtue of doing so -- and without taking on any ugly sectarian or otherwise inflexible attributes?
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