Social Forum Musings

I've been at the Social Forum now for a few days, and I have some observations. I haven't been to a huge number of sessions (3 so far, I expect to get to a few more before the close.) And, two of those sessions I was involved in, so it's hard to make much of a pattern out of that. But there have been some very interesting conversations, and I do feel like people are looking for some new avenues and strategies for change. Which feels good. I gave a short talk about my own experience with blogging - I was on a panel about blogging with Brad Friedman (of BradBlog), BobFitrakis (of the Columbus Free Press), and Matthew Cardinale (from the Atlanta Progressive News.) They were, of course, real investigative journalists. My perspective was that primarily as a progressive faith blogger, and a techie. It was interesting to talk a bit about being a "progressive faith blogger" (am I that?) and the organization of progressive faith bloggers. I got lots of blank stares, and a few perky looks. I would not quite say that part of the conversation went over like a lead balloon, but I got the definite impression that it was something that hadn't been on most people's radar. It would be interesting to have been able to talk to people perhaps more in depth about their perspectives on that whole thing. In talking afterwards with people, I talked with someone who had her own blog (the christian environmentalist). In general, the crowd here at the social forum is, well, familiar. It's that interesting mix of people with garish t-shirts that have outrageous (or not so outrageous) slogans, aging dyed-in-the-wool activists, and professional activists and union organizers. There is a very large contingent of people from Atlanta, especially African Americans. It is a very, very diverse crowd, which I know was the point - the primary organizers of this forum are part of organizations that primarily focus their work on communities of color. It is also pretty chaotic. Sometimes, here at the Westin where I'm staying, between sessions, it can take 10 or more minutes before an elevator that isn't full arrives to take you up or down floors. Things are spread out enormously.  But in the chaos, there is, it seems some comraderie, and shared sense of purpose, which feels nice.