28-08-2012, 11:39 PM
(This post was last modified: 31-08-2012, 10:23 PM by Nathaniel Heidenheimer.)
It think the effort has to be wide, systematic, multi-faceted, and constantly illustrating new examples of relevance for the wider political debate i.e. it has to constantly show, SOME INGREDIENT of "how we got where we are today"?
This is because, IMO , the 50 th CAN NOT BE about what some people who already know why the assassination matters so much are doing such and such an activity that will be a media blip for one minute on the evening news.
Rather its purpose must be explaining for new audiences the significance for us today in terms of how we got here. We cannot assume this. My experience posting into the wild frontiers (i.e. non JFK specialized forums) is that there is much greater interest than we think, but also what some of us older folk might believe is a generally known context of the assassination is much less generally known because of the emphasis on top down dumbing down of education via testing etc. As a teacher, I now have to make AGGGGGGGONIZZZZZZING decisions about whether to spend x amount of minutes on Bay of Pigs OR y amount of minutes on CMC OR Vietnam. How absurd is that? It is insane, but that is what Wall Street wants. For more to have less of a common denominator making political communication impossible. They are doing great work.
That is why IMO we need to make what I have been weirdly calling SNAGS. By a SNAG I mean a stand alone snippet --could be a quote from a book, could be an observation about Seven Days in May connected to a JFK and the Unspeakable link for a movie type audience (e.g. if you are posting on a movie site) Imagine if you are posting on a site where you just KNOW there lurks the terrible demographic of Newhoused ReMemnick New Yorker readers, and their heavily cultivated sense that mentioning anything about JFK is terrible vulgar and low class. Solution: YOU KNOW HOW THOSE RAILS HAVE BEEN CUT , YOU KNOW THE SOLUTION SO WELD THE RAILS BACK TOGETHER WITH A SNAG TARGETED AT THAT PARTICULAR NICHED OUT INTERNETTED AUDIENCE. One way? SNAG: Use NYer writer Richard Rhodes and the great examples of SAC aunauthorized pic nicking with Mad Dog and Mr. Powers that Rhodes includes in his book Dark Sun. By quoting one of "Their crowd" you now have their nose in it.. then connect to Daniel Schorr NPR quote on the BOP conference and you have a link to Unspeakable with the Ellsberg endoreseme hammer to close the really really classy box.
Then you plant these SNAGS ALL OVER THE INTERNET CUT AND PASTE OR WHY ARE YOU HERE WALKING ON THIS PLANNET? DO YOU WANT TO WRITE GREAT ESSAYS THAT WILL BE SEEN BY 2,000 PEOPLE TOPS OR DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE HISTORY AND GO FOR MULTIPLIER EFFECT? If the answer is not the second one for a lot more of us, it will not work folks.
We need more soldiers doing the grunt work.
Now many people think that this wide internet approach will not work because the threads will disappear. I have experience with this Between 2008 and about 2010 and half I was posting on 25 at greatest time and later about 7 at lesser time big newspaper sites or more specialized sites like Chronicle of Higher Education, and dumb sites like Thommmm Harrrrtmannnnnns site which is important more because of who its targeting rather than the garbage mixed with good bait thats on it. Next I will give a brief overview of what works well and could be transferable to the 50th. As a preview I will just say this:
I think the internet strategy for the 50th has to be about building hubs. 3,4,or 5 main hubs like DPF, CTKA, BOR, but WITH A LOOOOOOOOT OF SPOKES LEADING NEW AUDIENCES TO THESE HUBS.
The building of both hubs and spoke can only work if it is a coordinated effort. To conclude with an example, One of the threads I worked on I convinced a sufficiently jaded British person in hot weather to help me out in posting on. This very well informed citizen is fast on the sourcing and together we made the thread get MORE THAN 18,000 VIEWS for that particularly annoying audience who think they know everything when they know less than nothing. And guess what . Books were moved because of those views and other threads at the same time. COORDINATED internet use can and must work. more on this later.
This is because, IMO , the 50 th CAN NOT BE about what some people who already know why the assassination matters so much are doing such and such an activity that will be a media blip for one minute on the evening news.
Rather its purpose must be explaining for new audiences the significance for us today in terms of how we got here. We cannot assume this. My experience posting into the wild frontiers (i.e. non JFK specialized forums) is that there is much greater interest than we think, but also what some of us older folk might believe is a generally known context of the assassination is much less generally known because of the emphasis on top down dumbing down of education via testing etc. As a teacher, I now have to make AGGGGGGGONIZZZZZZING decisions about whether to spend x amount of minutes on Bay of Pigs OR y amount of minutes on CMC OR Vietnam. How absurd is that? It is insane, but that is what Wall Street wants. For more to have less of a common denominator making political communication impossible. They are doing great work.
That is why IMO we need to make what I have been weirdly calling SNAGS. By a SNAG I mean a stand alone snippet --could be a quote from a book, could be an observation about Seven Days in May connected to a JFK and the Unspeakable link for a movie type audience (e.g. if you are posting on a movie site) Imagine if you are posting on a site where you just KNOW there lurks the terrible demographic of Newhoused ReMemnick New Yorker readers, and their heavily cultivated sense that mentioning anything about JFK is terrible vulgar and low class. Solution: YOU KNOW HOW THOSE RAILS HAVE BEEN CUT , YOU KNOW THE SOLUTION SO WELD THE RAILS BACK TOGETHER WITH A SNAG TARGETED AT THAT PARTICULAR NICHED OUT INTERNETTED AUDIENCE. One way? SNAG: Use NYer writer Richard Rhodes and the great examples of SAC aunauthorized pic nicking with Mad Dog and Mr. Powers that Rhodes includes in his book Dark Sun. By quoting one of "Their crowd" you now have their nose in it.. then connect to Daniel Schorr NPR quote on the BOP conference and you have a link to Unspeakable with the Ellsberg endoreseme hammer to close the really really classy box.
Then you plant these SNAGS ALL OVER THE INTERNET CUT AND PASTE OR WHY ARE YOU HERE WALKING ON THIS PLANNET? DO YOU WANT TO WRITE GREAT ESSAYS THAT WILL BE SEEN BY 2,000 PEOPLE TOPS OR DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE HISTORY AND GO FOR MULTIPLIER EFFECT? If the answer is not the second one for a lot more of us, it will not work folks.
We need more soldiers doing the grunt work.
Now many people think that this wide internet approach will not work because the threads will disappear. I have experience with this Between 2008 and about 2010 and half I was posting on 25 at greatest time and later about 7 at lesser time big newspaper sites or more specialized sites like Chronicle of Higher Education, and dumb sites like Thommmm Harrrrtmannnnnns site which is important more because of who its targeting rather than the garbage mixed with good bait thats on it. Next I will give a brief overview of what works well and could be transferable to the 50th. As a preview I will just say this:
I think the internet strategy for the 50th has to be about building hubs. 3,4,or 5 main hubs like DPF, CTKA, BOR, but WITH A LOOOOOOOOT OF SPOKES LEADING NEW AUDIENCES TO THESE HUBS.
The building of both hubs and spoke can only work if it is a coordinated effort. To conclude with an example, One of the threads I worked on I convinced a sufficiently jaded British person in hot weather to help me out in posting on. This very well informed citizen is fast on the sourcing and together we made the thread get MORE THAN 18,000 VIEWS for that particularly annoying audience who think they know everything when they know less than nothing. And guess what . Books were moved because of those views and other threads at the same time. COORDINATED internet use can and must work. more on this later.