My previous post highlighting my intrigue with the MSNBC video tool “Clip and Share” is also one of my “wake up call” source stories,  that get me thinking about how the church might benefit from such creative social media tools. 

My previous post talks about how the Soros story run by Olbermann last night seems to dovetail with my discovery of “Clip and Share” that they have deployed on the MSNBC site for their video segments.  There seems  to be an encouragement there for people to “take and use” to get out a message that perhaps will help fuel what Soros is asking for on an organizational/institutional level.

Now the church is more than a political organization,  but it should nonetheless be an enabler of voice,  and I can think if fewer times when this nation of ours is in need of some voices for peace,  advocacy for those whom are most hurt by this rapid decline of the country’s economic balance.  The rich are booming,  and the REST OF US are treading water,  and the gap grows.  And even INSIDE the church,  there are loud voices that are allying themselves with the disinformation of the keepers of right wing media.  Basically,  they have become convinced by that which is actually working against their own interests.  But that “American Dream” is now requiring that they fight forces that oppose the continued siphoning of the wealth upward to the tip-top of the funnel.  They are promised “trickle down”,  but all that has happened in 10 years of Bush tax cuts skewed toward the SUPER RICH is that the gap between rich and poor has grown massively.  And the creation of this “gilded age” doesn’t seem to be enough for those so benefitting.

So before I get to waxing too sociopolitical,  let me bring it back to technology.  The grassroots effort is, I think, crucial to the forces Soros wants to build to combat disinformation.  The Obama administration missed an opportunity to use that Social Media which elected them,  to continue to “educate” the public on what they were trying  to do to implement those promises.  The right wing machine, as E.J. Dionne points out,  “out sound-bit” them.  They derailed the best and most useful elements of the Health Care plan by inane memes.  And the left had no audible response,  and people were left unaware of the kinds of facts that were needed to recognize the inanity of the right wing tactics.

“Clip and Share” is an encouraging sign that such things CAN be built (and continuously improved).  It could help to build a network of fact checkers and “crap-detectors” through Twitter, Facebook, Blogs,  Webcasts,  and the gamut of Social Media.