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

Welcome to Goodbye Maggie

By Michael Albert at Mar 10, 2004


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This blog is for discussing economic vision, and particularly participatory economics. In deciding to set up some blogs within the rubric of ZNet, a little research suggested that titles should be creative. However, it is hard to do a creative title for a blog on economic vision. Tomorrow's Economy? Not too creative. Parecon? Very explicit, but no subtlety and pizzazz. Okay, opting for “Goodbye Maggie” as a title won't appeal to everyone, but it does have its virtues. First, it refers to Maggie's Farm, a fictional creation in a Dylan song about the ills of current economic arrangements. In a new economy, none of us will work on Maggie's Farm. Second, it refers to Margaret Thatcher, the past British Prime Minister and most recent prominent proponent of the stance that there is no alternative to current economic relations summarized as TINA. So the point is, this blog is about transcending corporations and markets and all the familiar economic mess that Dylan alludes to and that Maggie Thatcher celebrates as eternal. Here is the bard's formulation… Maggies Farm Bob Dylan I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more. No, I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more. Well, I wake in the morning, Fold my hands and pray for rain. I got a head full of ideas That are drivin' me insane. It's a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor. I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more. I ain't gonna work for Maggie's brother no more. No, I ain't gonna work for Maggie's brother no more. Well, he hands you a nickel, He hands you a dime, He asks you with a grin If you're havin' a good time, Then he fines you every time you slam the door. I ain't gonna work for Maggie's brother no more. I ain't gonna work for Maggie's pa no more. No, I ain't gonna work for Maggie's pa no more. Well, he puts his cigar Out in your face just for kicks. His bedroom window It is made out of bricks. The National Guard stands around his door. Ah, I ain't gonna work for Maggie's pa no more. I ain't gonna work for Maggie's ma no more. No, I ain't gonna work for Maggie's ma no more. Well, she talks to all the servants About man and God and law. Everybody says She's the brains behind pa. She's sixty-eight, but she says she's twenty-four. I ain't gonna work for Maggie's ma no more. I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more. No, I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more. Well, I try my best To be just like I am, But everybody wants you To be just like them. They sing while you slave and I just get bored. I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
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