Tidbits, Reader Response & Announcements
August 11, 2012

* Can anybody define 'meme'? --Tidbits - Aug. 8 & 9, 2012 -
  responding to David Worley) - Marc Beallor, Wilson Riles

* Re: How to Launch a Mass Movement for Economic Justice
  (Laurel MacDowell, Marvin Mandell)

* PROTEST: WAR IS NOT A GAME - August 13 - @NBC in New York

* New campaign by Free Press to track political ad $$

==========

* can anybody define 'meme'? --Tidbits - Aug. 8 & 9, 2012
(responding to David Worley)

The word "meme" was invented by biologist Richard Dawkins.
A meme is, in Dawkins' words, "a unit of cultural
transmission. . . Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-
phrases, clothes, fashions, ways of making pots or of
building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the
gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperm and eggs,
so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping
from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense,
can be called imitation."  From "The Selfish Gene" 1976

Marc Beallor

===

The definition of meme is much deeper than that! Check out
the seminal book on the subject: Brodie, Richard. Virus of
the Mind: The New Science of the Meme (Integral Press, 1996)

Wilson Riles

==========

* Re: How to Launch a Mass Movement for Economic Justice

This approach sounds sensible. There is nothing to lose and
although it would be hard work, electing Romney really would
be disastrous for the country. Let us hope it works. I guess
if you can put a car on Mars, you should be able to elect a
constructive government. With social, economic and climate
issues looming, it has never been more important.

Laurel MacDowell

===

Not once does William Greider mention Obama's disastrous
foreign policy. Obama and Bush have been the prime
recruiters for Al Qaeda. Instead of sending drones and
assassination squads, Obama should be sending doctors and
engineers. If the US did that, support for terrorism would
dry up. Have American liberals given up on their country's
murderous foreign policy? Have they accepted it? So one
would conclude from Greider's article.

Marvin Mandell

==========

* PROTEST: WAR IS NOT A GAME

When: Monday, August 13 at 5pm

Where: Rockefeller Plaza - W. 49th St. btw. 5th & 6th Aves
(outside NBC studios)

When I first heard about this new show called Stars Earn
Stripes that starts Monday, August 13 on NBC, I honestly
thought it was a joke. Shooting a gun means killing someone,
not points in a game - this show is not only awful for what
it says about our society's acceptance of perpetual war, but
is also disrespectful to our veterans and service men and
women who know all too well that war is not a game.

How could a major network have a "reality" show glorifying
war, engaging "stars" in military "games" for fun, while the
war in Afghanistan will soon begin its 11th year? When the
news covers the lives of so-called reality tv stars more
than it covers this war in Afghanistan? When more than 6,500
U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent civilians
have lost their lives, with hundreds of thousands more
wounded? When every day a U.S. soldier or veteran takes
their own life because of what these wars have done to them?
What does this say about the war-weariness of our society
and our priorities?

The fact that this show has been made and is airing is cause
for alarm and should be a wake-up bell for everyone in the
peace movement to take a stand against this type of
glorification of war. If you are in NYC, please join a
protest Monday, August 13 outside the NBC office - W.
49thSt, Rockefeller Center, between 5th & 6th Ave. at 5 PM.
Thank you to Military Families Speak Out, Veterans for
Peace, the Grannie Peace Brigade, and Just Foreign Policy
for organizing this action.

You can sign an online petition to NBC by clicking here.
http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6405
 
In peace,
Alicia Godsberg
Executive Director,
Peace Action New York State
[log in to unmask]
646-723-1749

==========

* new campaign by Free Press to track political ad $$

Seeking Political Ad Sleuths!
by Josh Stearns - August 10, 2012
http://www.freepress.net/blog/2012/08/10/seeking-political-ad-sleuths

Today we're launching the next phase of our ongoing work to
shine much-needed sunlight on this year's unprecedented
political ad spending.

we're announcing the Political Ad Sleuths: Campus Challenge,
a nationwide effort in which Free Press and allied
organizations will work with college faculty and students to
find out who's behind all the political ads dominating our
airwaves. [more]
http://www.freepress.net/blog/2012/08/10/seeking-political-ad-sleuths

[thanks for Nan Rubin for sharing this with Portside and our
readers]

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