Bill's Altruistic Response

Bill, who runs Thoughts on the Eve of the Apocalypse, sent in this response to Left is Right's recent post, Altruism is Out of Focus:

Hi Mike, I had trouble using your commenting system (it kept cutting me off at 1000 characters), so I figured I'd email you my brief, unorganized response to your post: I'm a little late on commenting here, but I wanted to thank you for the post. You articulate well the thoughts and frustrations I've been grappling with recently, as well. Obviously, blogs are not going to change the world on their own. First of all, this is a medium dominated by privilege, and blog voices only reach a fraction of the populace, be they in the US or elsewhere. What I ultimately desire from my meager effort at blogging is for my readers to feel encouraged to investigate stuff on their own and do something about it, either by speaking up, sharing what they've found with others, or by doing something requiring more of a commitment. My goal is to share a sort of critical spirit that I hope others find contagious. The world is not going to change over night. As much as I'd like to see some sort of revolution, we should not give up doing what we're doing. Victories are probably not going to come with some swift blow to the system, but rather with the continued efforts of people that can draw out new strategies for confronting the injustices they see everyday. For this process to have any chance of succeeding, networking is crucial. And blogging is a great way of accomplishing this. Could we and should we take things beyond the blogs? Of course. But above all, we need to keep our eye on the ball, criticize ourselves and others where it’s warranted, and work to change the things that we find wrong with the world, however we can. There’s no science to this. Thanks again for the post. Bill