-- Please Forward --> The Net Response By Steven Clift http://www.publicus.net Future updates: netresponse-subscribe@yahoogroups.com During this time of great tragedy now is the time to use all the tools we have available to help the families of the missing, the dead and injured survivors. We need to come together as communities within our nation and nations around the world as we respond and care for one another. You can do something right now via the Internet from your home and place of work as well as donate blood, money, and time to relief efforts. Use the Internet as a simple communication tool to provide mutual benefit and support to others in this crisis and help build the bonds required to deal with what comes next. Bringing people together and strengthening the bonds of family, friendship, and neighbors is step one, online and in-person. Step two is to use the Internet to gain insight and understanding on a global basis so we can more effectively respond and change the environment that motivates terrorism. While our governments, intelligence operations, and armies will respond with great force, we as humans can do our part one person at a time. The cornerstone of your action is the creation of different kinds of e-mail group lists. You can create a free e-mail lists in minutes from websites like YahooGroups <http://groups.yahoo.com/>, Topica <http://topica.com>, and others. An e-mail list allows you to exchange messages through one e-mail address (i.e. myfamily@yahoogroups.com) among a group of members subscribed to the list. E-mail can be private or public and lists may be set-up to deliver one-way announcements or allow open discussion. If you create a public e-mail list, send me an announcement netresponse@publicus.net that I can share with others. Take action now by creating an e-mail list for: 1. Your Family - Create an e-mail group list for your extended family. E-mail lists will help you communicate as a family group in an easy and convenient manner. Step one is to collect all of your family member addresses. You should do this whether this directly affected your family or not. 2. Friends - Create an e-mail list for friends who want to provide mutual support to each other and families of those who are missing, confirmed dead, or survivors who need assistance. Of course, any group of friends can create a list to support the needs of any shared friend in any difficult life situation or simply to make group contact easy across the country, town, or world. 3. Neighbors - Whether for the people who live on your block, your larger neighborhood or entire town, e-mail forums you should build an e-mail list in the common interest for community conversation. These forums are technically like all those global special interest discussion forums, but instead are local and general in nature. When a community is in crisis, it needs a forum that people can turn to for immediate many-to-many communication. At the very local level we need the protection of neighbors who communicate with one another and the Internet can help break that ice required to rebuild the in-person connections required to survive. I run an e-mail list for my neighborhood, so can you. If we see suspicious activity in our neighborhoods, we need the bonds to discover and report such activity to the appropriate authorities. Building trust among neighbors is a key building block for local safety and security. See my related article on Building the Online Commons <http://e-democracy.org/do/commons.html> for more advice. 4. Area Response to Attacks - One way to help coordinate tributes and the response in your country (many of those missing are citizens of many countries), state, or city, is to create special e-mail lists for communication among those seeking to aid the recovery or those who want to respond. Such forums can be created to deal with local issues such as helping traumatized children, organizing rallies and memorial services, or dealing with local discrimination and acts not in the spirit of domestic tolerance. 5. Share News, Information and Views - Through e-mail lists like the Sept11info@yahoogroups.com set up voluntarily by Andy Carvin <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sept11info> thousands of people are sharing breaking news and in-depth resources that allow us to gain deeper insights into what is happening. My own site <http://www.politicalbs.com> provides quick links to additional web-based political discussion forums and to government and media sources around the world. As the United States and its allies develop their response, the Internet will be used on a global basis to share news and information unlike never before. This and e-mail lists that you create will allow people to communicate directly and unmediated around the world. We will be able to interact directly with those in the Middle East and read their news just as they can watch and read ours. Nothing will break down the highly propagandistic mass media in some countries or even our own as military action is taken. That is not that point. The challenge for us is to use the Internet to build direct human connection among the vast majority of moderate and reasonable individuals in all countries so we can learn as much as we can about the motivations of terrorists and how to most effectively attack and cut off the support for those organizations and ideologies. However you respond to recent events, the Internet can play a useful and practical role. That said, the Internet is only a small part of what we all can and should do. Events like these help us appreciate our families and friends and what really matters in this world. By organizing online we can more quickly respond to what is next and hopefully help control our own destiny. Finally, if you are interested in ways we can use the Internet to deal with this situation, join my low volume NetResponse e-mail list and stay tuned for future updates. To subscribe send a message to <netresponse-subscribe@yahoogroups.com>. If you are technically involved in any existing relief, response, or media efforts or if you want to contribute your ideas, advanced technical and programming skills, or your technical infrastructure, join the NetResponse Technical working group by sending an e-mail to <netresponse-tech-subscribe@yahoogroups.com>.