Julie Clawson - onehandclapping

Olympic Injustice

Posted on July 13, 2009July 11, 2025

I’ve been following the news story of New Zealand Olympic hopeful Logan Campbell. If you haven’t heard, he’s the taekwondo athlete who said he was forced to open a brothel to cover his training expenses for the 2012 London Olympics. Prostitution is legal in New Zealand, but this has caused some to question if he should be barred from the sport. On one hand, I see how it would be difficult to uphold the taekwondo mandate that one always display high moral standards and respect others at all times if one is a pimp. But I also think this incident hints at some of the deeper injustices prevalent in the Olympic games.

When a follower of a discipline that stresses the respect of others finds the need to oppress other in order to pay to continue in that discipline there are issues with the system. The exorbitant costs of training athletes these days effectively leads to injustice of some sort. Either only the wealthy are able to use their talents and compete in what is far from being an equal opportunity world competition. Or athletes must sell their soul to their government to be trained, or they must oppress others to acquire the money they need. This isn’t about sports – or good sportsmanship – its about letting the privileged few succeed.

To make the economic disparity worse, just the occasion of hosting the Olympics itself results in the oppression of the poor. As cities create huge stadiums and hotels to accommodate the event, they generally raze lower-income housing developments in the process. The poor get displaced in the name of the event. In 1988, some 720,000 people were forcibly displaced in Seoul, South Korea, in preparation for the Summer Olympic Games. And some 1.5 million Chinese were forced from their homes during preparations for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. And even though Mayor Daley has said no one will be displaced if Chicago wins its 2016 Olympic bid, it is obvious that the property value increase will effectively force lower-income renters out of areas surrounding the Olympic village. But that still might be better than having Rio de Janeiro win the bid (one of the other 4 finalist cities). It is common knowledge that local businesses in Rio fund “death squads” to clean up their streets. They want the poor street kids to disappear and pay the squads to make it happen – especially before big events like the World Cup. A recent congressional study revealed that in Rio de Janeiro alone at least 180 different death squads operate. Fifteen of these groups target children exclusively and work “under the protection of the police and justice system,” according to Congresswoman Rita Camata. The investigation named 103 people–including lawyers, police and former police officers–involved in death squads that murder children.

In truth I love the Olympics. The Olympics are one of the few times I ever watch sports. I support the idea – letting the world come together to share their gifts and talents through the common language of sport. But not when it is just a guise for injustice. When it encourages the disparity between rich and poor. When it has a man selling women as chattel to fund his training. When it has cities hiding away their poor – displacing or worse, slaughtering them – in order to present a “clean” face to the world. The official goal of the Olympic movement is stated as – “to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practised without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.” But the question must be asked – are they really building a better world or just helping injustice flourish?

All the Lonely People

Posted on July 12, 2009July 11, 2025

“All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?”
– The Beatles, Eleanor Rigby

I didn’t really follow the media circus surrounding Michael Jackson’s death. I grew up as a conservative evangelical during the time when he was really popular, so I was never allowed to listen to his music and then never had any interest later on. I understand the idea of celebrity obsession, and there are a handful of celebrities whose passing I would mourn, but Michael Jackson wasn’t one of them. That said, I was struck by the news stories reporting on the fans who committed suicide upon hearing of his death. At last count some 12 fans have taken their life in response to his death. And that breaks my heart.

My initial response to hearing of these suicides was, “how could the church let that happen?” Now I fully admit the reasons for why people take their life are complicated, and that the church itself isn’t responsible for policing its members in that way. But at the same time, it saddens me that the inclusive community that should be the church failed to reach out to these people. That they could be so obsessed with a pretend relationship with a celebrity they had never met that they would end their life over it. Why isn’t the church offering a compelling, accessible, and understanding enough community that obsession over a distant idol is necessary for some people? And why aren’t we as the church doing our best to offer that community to those on the margins who may have slipped through the cracks and lost touch with reality?

Of course, I can give a dozen answers to my own questions. Raising the issues of what defines community itself, to people’s right to privacy, to the church’s own celebrity worship issues. There are all sorts of excuses and reasons why this has nothing to do with the church. And I even believe most of them. But at the same time I wish things could be different. I wish the church wasn’t an place where a few people show up with masks firmly in place. I wish people didn’t have reason to fear stepping into a church or of removing that mask and being themselves. I wish the church wasn’t more often than not just the facade of community instead of the real thing. Because if we were the real thing then maybe we could be serving all the lonely people in the world.

Good Southern Girls

Posted on July 7, 2009July 11, 2025

I’m a Texas girl – born and raised here. And although I spent 12 years living on the OTHER side of both the Mississippi and the Mason-Dixon line, it’s hard to escape that upbringing.

The unfortunate part of being a Southerner living in the Midwest is that most Midwesterners liked to pretend they have no regional dialect or accent and so can therefore make fun of those of us that did. I endured 12 years of being made fun of for saying “y’all” and for merging my vowels in “pin/pen.” The worst was my supervising teacher for my ESL teaching practicum. She would stop my lessons to make fun of me in front of my students and failed me for my incompetency in speaking the English language. Thankfully my professor didn’t think having a Southern as opposed to a Chicago accent was sufficient reason to fail me actually, she thought it was really dumb and said no students would ever be assigned to that particular teacher again…). But in all truth there are aspects of Southern speech patterns that I struggle with. Not that I’m some grammarnazi who thinks regional dialects are somehow substandard forms of English, but that these language constructions are rooted in a cultural ethos, or way of being, that I don’t know if I want to affirm.

Some might call it cultural politeness or tentativeness. Others an ingrained attitude of submission, subservience, and deference. In short, it is constructions of language that seek to lessen any offense or imperative and that keeps the needs and feelings of the other in mind. For example – using y’all to refer to one person. Saying to the friend entering your house “y’all might want to wipe your feet,” isn’t a grammatical mistake, but a way to soften the request. Making the request plural makes it less of a direct order and puts less pressure on the person.

Same thing with the double modal, which is probably the most ridiculed part of Southern English. Saying something like “you might should bring your apple pie to the potluck” ensures that anyone could politely refuse since it isn’t a direct imperative. Or to say “I might could go out with you this weekend,” is a polite response without having to offer a commitment or direct (hurtful) refusal. The double modal lessens the severity of the request or refusal, always keeping in mind the feelings, preferences, and social position of the other.

Now on one hand, choosing to care about other’s needs is a good thing. Basic humility, loving others, all that. Knowing how one’s words affect others is a beneficial thing to be aware of that can do great kindness to others. The issue arises in that the people who make use of these aspects of Southern English are African Americans and women. It is cultural habit to even within patterns of speech place themselves below others. That’s what I have a problem with. Even if we are unaware of doing it, the habits reinforce the degrading and demeaning aspects of racism and sexism.

So its a strange dilemma. I want to respect others, and consider others better than myself in light of biblical humility. But, I don’t want to do so because I am a woman and therefore must place the needs of others, especially men, before mine. It’s hard and something I struggle with. I’ve been indoctrinated that good Christian Southern girls DO NOT assert their preferences on anything – they always wait to hear what others want first. I know it’s stupid, but it’s hard to get past cultural conditioning. And its hard to fight something as pervasive as language.

So I wonder what others do. Are any readers here from Southern, or Germanic, or Asian cultures where this deference, or “one-down” sort of language is common? Does it fall along similar race or gender lines? How do you navigate the issues?

Movie Review: Food, Inc.

Posted on July 5, 2009July 11, 2025

“The industry doesn’t want you to know the truth about what you are eating, because if you knew you might not want to eat it ” – Food, Inc.

I recently headed out to a sold-out showing of the documentary Food, Inc. at Austin’s own Alamo Drafthouse. Generally, getting dinner and drinks along with my movie is my favorite “night out” activity, but in watching a film which critically examines our industrial food system, it was a bit strange. Granted, all around me I heard orders for veggie burgers and the local organic veggie platter and there wasn’t a high fructose corn syrup soda to be seen, but I was glad to have finished my (veggie) burger by the time the previews ended. Although I have sought to inform myself about the injustices in our modern food system, Food, Inc., presents the most comprehensive and disturbing summary of that system I have seen yet. It is a necessary film for basically anyone who eats food.

A film which took three years to make with a large part of its budget going to pay the legal fees defending itself against lawsuits from the industrial food companies, Food, Inc. takes a hard look at how corporations now control the production of our food, resulting in generally unhealthy, environmentally hazardous, and completely unsustainable food that in truth threatens the very well-being of our country. From the animals that are confined in inhumane cages, left to stand in their own mire, fed unnatural diets and cocktails of drugs and hormones to the impoverished workers who are treated with the same disrespect this system has sacrificed the respect and well-being of living creatures and people for the sake of profit. But Food Inc. doesn’t just stop with detailing those atrocities, it delves into the problems with government subsidies and the ways the fearmongering enforcement of genetically modified food copyrights are destroying the small farmer. People are being hurt by this industrial food system that dumps chemicals into our environment with reckless abandon and produces unnatural and unhealthy food for our consumption.

I appreciated though how Food, Inc. didn’t simply present the issues with industrial food as a clear cut, good vs. evil scenario. It acknowledged that poor workers have no choice but to take jobs on the factory farms, and that farmers have no choice but to give into the pressure to work with the huge industries. Those industries have so altered our nation’s laws and have so many lawyers working for them, that any farmer who resists joining their ranks finds themselves out of work at best, and sued penniless for simply encouraging people to not buy the big company’s products. The farmers and workers are desperate for a better system where real freedom and healthy standards exist, but for now they have to work with what they’ve got.

Food, Inc. also explores why for the average working class family in America, buying healthy food isn’t an option. It is far cheaper to buy the cheeseburger from the drive-thru dollar menu than it is to buy fruit or vegetables. That is because everything in that cheeseburger comes from corn which our government subsidizes so much that farmers can sell it below the cost of production. So the poor American eats the extremely unhealthy food because it is cheaper. But the rising epidemic of type 2 diabetes shows the hidden cost of that value meal. The poor in our country – those with no health or job insurance – are getting sick at alarming rates due to the unhealthy cheap food they eat. This is injustice of the highest extreme – but it’s all part of our industrial food system. It’s a complicated system that gives us unhealthy, unsustainable food that disrespects the earth, animals, and people all in the name of making the greatest profit for a handful of corporations. This is the story of the food we eat every day.

But in truth, I have a lot of friends who don’t want to know anything about their food. They shelter their kids from knowing the whole “circle of life” stuff, but also tell me point blank that they don’t want to know the story behind their food. In their mind, what they don’t know won’t hurt them. Unfortunately, as Food Inc. shows, that isn’t always the case. I wasn’t expecting this film to be a tear-jerker, but hearing a mom talk about how her toddler son ate a hamburger and was dead in 12 days had me weeping. This mom, was the typical middle-American Republican mom on vacation, but the hamburger they bought their son on the way home was tainted with e. coli 0157:H7, a deadly antibiotic resistant bacteria common in factory farmed cows. These cows, fed unnatural diets of corn develop diseases (like e.coli) and are treated regularly with antibiotics, which leads to drug-resistant strains like this one. This mom has become the unlikely activist for food safety. The meat company who sent out the tainted meat knew it was tainted and didn’t issue a recall until two weeks after her son was dead. As she puts it, all she wants is an apology from the company and a guarantee that they are doing everything possible to prevent it from ever happening again. Instead she finds the companies fighting for more lax food safety laws and herself under threat of a lawsuit under the “veggie libel” laws for discouraging people to buy meat products. Yeah, look up these laws – express fears about the safety of your food and you could be sued for causing these companies loss of revenue. So much for free speech, much less safe food. It’s hard to know the truth if you are not allowed to talk about it.

But for all the doom and gloom that Food, Inc. rightly covers, I was grateful that it didn’t end the story there. Instead of throwing up it’s arms and admitting defeat or even insisting that we all go join some intentional community/ hippie commune immediately, Food, Inc. details the practical ways we can start changing the system from within. It profiles the organic dairy farmers who although they had boycotted Wal-Mart all their lives, were now selling their product to the them. Some may call them sell outs, and they are under no illusion that Wal-Mart jumped on the organic bandwagon out of the goodness of their hearts, but to get a store with a distribution as huge as Wal-Marts means significant amounts of pesticides, fertilizers, and antibiotics are kept from polluting our ecosystem. That’s a really big deal, and one of the main reason to buy organic to anyway. Working within the system, even if it is with Wal-Mart, makes progress happen faster and on a much larger scale. Similarly, the movie concludes with the reminder that we can each make a difference every time we go to the store. The point isn’t to abandon the food system, or stop buying food, but to simply demand healthier, sustainable food. We can choose to vote with our pocketbooks for the type of food we want to support. Do we want to support the food that oppresses animals, workers, and the environment or the food that does its best to care for all those things? We have that choice, we just have to be willing to make it.

Food, Inc. opens across the US during Summer 2009. Check the Food, Inc. website to see if it is playing near you.

Independence Day Heroes

Posted on July 3, 2009July 11, 2025

It’s been said that July 4, 1776 was an Independence Day only if you were a white, property-owning male. For the women, the black slaves, and the Native Americans all that changed was who controlled them. So while we spend a day blowing things up to commemorate white men (sorry, couldn’t resist the picture) who brought freedom to other white men (not that they don’t deserve freedom too), I thought I might highlight a few unsung freedom fighters. No, they didn’t kill anyone, blow things up, or wear a uniform – but they helped bring significant freedoms to the most oppressed in our country. These are my Independence Day heroes.

Sarah and Angelina Grimke – sisters born to an “aristocratic” Southern slaveholding family, who after converting to the Quaker faith became abolitionists and women’s rights advocates. They were among the first women to take a public stand against the oppression of women and slaves. Angelina lectured to legislative groups and Sarah wrote An Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States (1836), urging abolition, and Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman (1838). Theirs was faith in action, bringing freedom to those denied a voice.

Ruby Bridges – for the sake of a better education for all this six year old became one of the first black kids to attend an all-white school. Even though she received threats, her father lost his job, U.S. Marshalls had to escort her to school, and she ended up being the only student in her class with the help of her family, her teacher, and psychiatrist Dr. Robert Coles, she stuck it out. And started our country down the path of freedom of (good) education for all.

Romeo Ramirez – the first American to be awarded (in 2003) the Robert F. Kennedy Human Right Award. Ramirez moved to Florida from Guatemala at age 15 in search of work. What he saw in the citrus groves and tomato farms — forced labor, armed guards in the fields, economic servitude — turned the slight, soft-spoken farmworker into an organizer and activist. He joined a group called the Coalition for Immokalee Workers, went undercover, testified in federal court, and helped put three labor crew bosses behind bars for the next decade. He is the face of those seeking freedom for the modern day slaves in our midst.

Who are your heroes? Who do you look up to in the fight to free others from oppression?

Me Culture

Posted on July 1, 2009July 11, 2025

So last weekend I went to go see Food Inc. (I’ll get a review posted about it one of these days…). It was an amazing, and disturbing film, but part of the experience was seeing it at the Alamo Drafthouse here in Austin (which imho, is the ONLY place to see movies in town). Before the films they show, the Drafthouse people show clips from other related movies. So, for instance, before Twilight we saw clips from really cheezy old vampire movies or before Star Trek there were clips of trekkies and SNL sketches about Star Trek. For the most part, those clips are always the epitome of the strange manifestations of that genre or theme. So at a movie about the industrial food system, we were treated to some pretty scary propaganda pieces and commercials put out by that very food system.

But watching these commercials from 20-50 years ago was disturbing. They were so far fetched, it is hard to believe that anyone ever thought that they might be persuasive in any way. There was one about fortified white bread that was presented as a documentary – explaining for fortified bread has improved nutrition so that children who eat white bread are smarter and better athletes. Or the McDonald’s commercials presenting a parade of uniformed, pretty, white women singing about how much they love serving a stereotypical small town. It was all about these companies providing helpful services that will improve our lives. Well, I don’t think anyone is stupid enough to believe that processed junk food has improved anyone’s life. And as the film shows, that sort of food is actually destroying our health, our environment, and our country.

So it was amusing to then pay attention to the junk food commercials for the next few days (which, btw, are all food commercials. natural, healthy foods don’t have advertising budgets). Every single commercial was about treating ourselves – giving ourselves the break we deserve. No veiled lies to get us to believe that processed junk helps people, but simply the appeal to self-centered “it’s all about me” mentality. And I know how stupid it is to complain about commercials, but they have big money going into determining what people want to hear. Forget building community, or improving lives – that’s so 1978. Now its all about self-centeredness.

It’s hard not to get cynical when confronted with that attitude. There are people I start discussing my upcoming book on justice with, and I get a blank look in reply. I’ve even had people ask, “why should caring about the needs of others be my concern.” Or I stumbled across this book recently, which decries the evils of environmentalist who are “demanding that you turn down your thermostat, stop driving your car, or engage in some other senseless act of self-denial.” Apparently trying to save the earth must be fought because it threatens “the entire American way of life” and envisions for us “a grim future marked by endless privation.” Well, duh, of course it does. But apparently for some it is far better to be selfish jerks than to have to give up anything to help others. I know this isn’t widespread, but some days it sure feels that way.

But maybe 20-30 years from now people will watch our commercials and ask “how could people be so selfish and stupid.”

Thoughts on “A Jesus Manifesto”

Posted on June 25, 2009July 11, 2025

I have to say that I’m disappointed in Frank Viola’s and Len Sweet’s latest internet push “A Magna Carta for Restoring the Supremacy of Jesus Christ, a.k.a. A Jesus Manifesto for the 21st Century Church.” Besides the crazy presumptuous title and slight affront to jesusmanifesto.com (which Mark has addressed nicely), the document really seems to be a step backward for the church. In essence “A Jesus Manifesto” calls Christians back to a Christ-centered faith. Which, in general, is something I heartily support. And, in fact, there is much in the document that I completely agree with. But when they say stuff like “What is Christianity? It is Christ. Nothing more. Nothing less.”, I start to have problems.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a Christ-centered faith. And unfortunately those of us who are uncomfortable with the document are now being accused of wanting to ignore Christ or question his divinity. So let me say upfront, that is not the case. Christ is central. Period. But the assertion that Christianity – the movement of the followers of Christ – is nothing more or less than the person of Christ just really seems to miss the point.

The attack and reason for the document springs from the talk about the Kingdom of God and social justice within emerging missional communities. Viola and Sweet insist that such talk turns Jesus into an abstraction and tempts us to ignore the person of Jesus. They say “Jesus Christ was not a social activist nor a moral philosopher. To pitch him that way is to drain his glory and dilute his excellence. Justice apart from Christ is a dead thing.” I’m sorry guys, but Jesus was both of those things. He can’t be reduced to those things, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t embody those things as well. To say that is all he was would yes, drain his glory, but to say he wasn’t those things too denies reality. What is going on here is really a discussion of which image of Jesus we want to embrace – a niche Jesus of one extreme or another or the full Jesus. More on that in a bit.

My main problem with the document lies in their assumption that those of us talking about justice and the kingdom are doing so apart from the person and power of Jesus. That’s just plain and simply not true. But it has become the favorite straw man argument for the opponents of the emerging missional community. I think in many ways it is based on a misunderstanding of us that projects the theology and history of the classic liberal social gospel movement onto the missional movement. Len Sweet even admitted that the document sprung in part from the lessons he’s learned from teaching a class on the history of the Social Gospel movement in early 20th century America. And while that movement was influenced by theological discussions that questioned the divinity of Christ and sought to find the “historical Jesus,” it is unfair and inappropriate to assume the same thing of the emerging missional movement.

I don’t know how many times we have to stand up and say that caring for the Kingdom, seeking justice, and loving others is all about choosing to focus more on Christ. As Christians we believe in him and follow him. He said, if you love me you will obey me. Not “if you love me, you will worship a ethereal, conceptualized version of me that is disembodied from action and the world I came to save.” When following Jesus becomes simply about doing works or simply about standing in awe of a divine person then we’ve got problems – and a Jesus that has nothing to do with the Jesus of the Bible. Those images of Christ are dangerous, but what I see the manifesto doing is attacking a (projected) incomplete image in favor of another incomplete image.

While Viola and Sweet may personally think that following the commands of Jesus is part of what it means to be a Christian (although they say it is just about Christ), to tell others that talking about the commands of Jesus takes the focus off of Jesus is unhelpful in the extreme. I grew up only hearing about the person of Jesus. Jesus is divine, he did miracles, I am to believe and worship (be in awe of) him. Nothing more. Ever. It is naive to believe that just by presenting this Jesus, people will start doing all that he commanded if those commands aren’t allowed to be talked about. For instance, my daughter attended one night of a neighborhood backyard bible club this week. Her lesson was on Jesus serving the poor and healing the sick. The takeaway was that Jesus did miracles so therefore we have to believe in him. No mention at all of the “go and do likewise” aspect of being a follower of Christ. At this same club, the leader presented the Wordless Book, but after doing the Gold (heaven), Dark (sin), Red (Jesus), White (substitutionary atonement) pages she turned to the Green page and couldn’t remember what it was for. (the green page, btw, is the grow in one’s faith page). It was the perfect representation of a faith that focuses on the need to believe in the person of Jesus to the exclusion of following Jesus. This is the faith I grew up with – one that cares a lot about the person of Jesus but which doesn’t even talk about following his commandments. An impotent faith that essentially tells Jesus that we don’t love him enough to obey his commands.

It is because I love Jesus that I talk about and pursue justice and the kingdom. Even Viola and Sweet mention that “the teachings of Jesus cannot be separated from Jesus himself.” I just wish they wouldn’t falsely accuse us of doing that. And I wish they wouldn’t encourage these dichotomized versions of Jesus by criticizing the actual following of his commands. It is a step backward into the faith my daughter witnessed the other night at the Bible club, and truly unhelpful to the church in the long run. I love Jesus, but I want nothing to do with a faith that is disembodied, disconnected, and impotent. I want to believe in, worship, and follow Christ (since those are all technically one and the same). I’m sorry, but a real Jesus Manifesto wouldn’t be about such a one-sided incomplete image of Jesus. No – it would present Jesus in the fullness of the gospels and not be afraid to tell Christians that following Christ involves a heck of a lot more than standing there slack-jawed in awe of him. I’d love that message to get out to the world, but this, “A Jesus Manifesto” was simply a disappointment in that regard.

Stories That Mean Something

Posted on June 23, 2009July 11, 2025

So for the last month or so, Mike and I have been watching the Firefly DVDs. Now that we’ve seen them and the movie, we can now join in on the “what a fantastic show, what idiot cancelled something that good???” outcry. I like good stories – stories that go deeper than mere entertainment, that take the time to explore the human condition. Stories that ask questions and in doing so run up against the mysteries of the universe.

Of course, most of these good stories fall into the SciFi/Fantasy realm. There is something about that genre that allows for the unknown to be explored and tested. And there is something about those of us who are drawn to those stories that allow for them to be lengthy tales. Part of the magic in something like Lost for example is the convoluted drawn-out path the story has taken. Having cut our teeth on epic tales like Lord of the Rings or three part stories like Star Wars, we want worlds we can enter and stay for awhile. That’s why I think Deep Space Nine is my favorite Star Trek series – we got to see a continuing story of a community unfold. So it was sad to get caught up in the Firefly story and have it cut short before it even really began.

But it made me wonder why so many of us within the emerging church are caught-up in these sorts of stories. During the spring it seemed like every person on my twitter page was watching Lost as the mystery unfolded and deepened. I wonder if in part it is our affinity for these ever-developing stories that brought us to the emerging conversation in the first place. Too many faith communities act as if the story is over – as if the story of our faith was merely a static event of the past that holds no mystery or wonder for us now. That sort of story isn’t engaging or alive and can only be entered into in the most perfunctory of ways. But those of us who had an inking that there is some sort of epic tale unfolding around us and who believe that God in all his mystery is still at work in the world wanted to join our friends at a campfire and tell better stories. And we find ourselves watching together the good stories like Lost, or Firefly, or Lord of the Rings, or The Matrix because in them we see glimmers of the stories we want to affirm we are a part of. Or as Sam says in Lord of the Rings, “Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why.”

So what stories hold the mystery for you? What are the good stories you watch or read that go deeper than just entertainment?

Twitter, Truth, and Revolution

Posted on June 18, 2009July 11, 2025

I have been doing my best to keep up with the ongoing events in Iran. I don’t know enough to truly understand the nuances of the election or the political science behind it all, but like many others, I’ve been caught up in the human drama of it all. Photos like this one literally brought tears to me eyes. Knowing the plight of women in Iran, and hearing even limited stories in interviews or from the book Reading Lolita in Tehran, connected me on a visceral level with all that this picture symbolized. And those of us following the hundreds of tweets a second with the #iranelection tag can’t help but be overwhelmed at the role social networking is playing in this revolution.

But that of course begs the question of the validity of using Twitter as news source. Just follow the hashtag for a few minutes and anyone can see that there is a lot of confusion about what is really happening. One person can say something and it gets re-tweeted hundreds of times regardless of whether or not it is true. And while we have all witnessed the ability of other open-source projects like Wikipedia to self-regulate, this Twitter revolution is too intense and caught up in the moment to do so well, if at all. So other media outlets are left trying to sort fact from fiction and have found themselves then attacked when they question some of the more emotional aspects of what is going on. Like – Was there really election fraud? How many protesters are actually involved? Were the election results really leaked? For those caught up in the momentum of the moment, those questions challenge the very thing they are fighting for.

So in watching this unfold, I have to wonder how much truth does matter when it comes to something like revolution. If the truth is that Ahmadinejad won fair and square and that there were only a small group of protesters, does that truth matter if the lies that were spread ended up being the catalyst that spark change on a massive scale? It seems to me that in situations like these, the details matter less than the cause. If the viral spread of information on Twitter – albeit unsubstantiated possible misinformation – ends up pushing people beyond the tipping point in the fight for freedom, can we really call that information bad?

These are just the thoughts that run through my head as I watch this whole thing unfold. I don’t know where it will lead, or if it is truly a revolution of any sort. But at the same time I can’t help but wonder how differently other fights for freedom like Tiananmen Square or even the Holocaust would have gone if the passionate yet unsubstantiated spread of information through Twitter had been around then. Would enough people knowing about them and getting angry have stopped them? Or for that matter why isn’t there the same passion and endless Twitter campaigns for other freedom issues like human trafficking?