Ralph Nader Podcast - Fighting For Water; social media hinders organizing
I posted this on September 29, 2019 on heyheyrenee, my first blog. It's another powerful example of why people have the power and social media is no place for organizing.
Listen to this 4 minute clip from this week's Ralph Nader Radio Hour Podcast by Professor Ugo Mattei, lawyer and activist who masterminded the Italian campaign against the privatization of water.
Professor Mattei illuminates that not only was social media not helpful, it was a hinderance. Read the entire interview here. Search for "social media".
Here's a transcript of the clip:
Ugo Mattei: Well, that's exactly what they were trying to say about the social media, so at the time there were no social media yet, very important. This time now, 10 years later in which we are doing the same thing now to try to transform indignation in law, that is to say to try to have, finally after 12 years, the reform of the civil code be put into the Italian books of law, okay. We've been collecting more signatures now and we found it hard to get 50,000 signatures, okay. So we got 1.5 million to introduce the referendum, now we find it difficult to find 50,000. We actually got it barely because the people today, after 10 years of neo-liberalism and 10 years of social media, are not able anymore to understand physical struggles.
Ralph Nader: This is an amazing comment.
Ugo Mattei: This is really important; the social media are against social movements. It's complete rhetoric and narrative that the internet and the social media are crucial for the success of these kind of battles. I think it's a complete . . .
Ralph Nader: It's supposed to be just the opposite, right?
Ugo Mattei: Supposed to be the opposite, but it's not true. That’s what the people believe, but it's not true. It's simply plainly false. The social media are not avenues of emancipation, of political emancipation of the people. Actually they are ways to keep the people attached to their laptops, hypnotized by their cell phones, believing they are doing politics by writing “I like it” on some Facebook program, giving away their personal data, creating a society of control and a society of surveillance, and of spectacle, that is the opposite on what we try to create when we talk. We need institutions of the commons. Institutions of the commons are institutions that require physical participation, that require engagement, that require thorough discussion, not slogans. We have to invent institutions, new institutions that are going to be in place for the next 100 years that are able to substitute institutional constructions that took 200 years to capital to build and to destroy with its own corporatization, okay. We are talking about really important war we have to do and we cannot do that on Twitter, okay?
Ralph Nader: Ugo, obviously, it's music to my ears. We've been trying to say this to people, but you actually saw it on the ground when you had to go physically and meet and connect with people. You collected far more signatures and aftermath energy by far.
Ralph Nader: So you're saying you cannot really build democracy and fight the power structure by virtual reality.
Ugo Mattei: No.
Ralph Nader: You have to do it on the ground with real people.
They'll be coming after our water too, people. Posting about it on social media won't stop them.
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tty next time,
