Recently the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice asked me to write an article for them with my ideas of how grassroots activists could better use the Internet for real change. As a member of the group, I was happy to tackle that assignment, and here are my thoughts.

Barack Obama owes his election in no small part to his brilliant use of social networking websites, email, cell phone texting and blogs, all utilized in unprecedented ways by his campaign staff to promote, organize and fund his unlikely victory. He employed techniques pioneered by online groups such as MoveOn and took them to an entirely new level. Thanks to Obama's use of the Internet, politics in America will never be the same. It's crucial that peace and social justice activists at the state and local levels understand and harness these new technologies in organizing for fundamental social change.