At The Adventures of Chester there is a post about the options for (the world) dealing with Iran. There is something bloggers can do to help. Collectively bloggers can and have made an impact in positive ways. Iran is another hotspot that must be dealt with soon. If you don't know why then get educated quickly. If you want to get involved Chester has some ideas including becoming a blog pal with an Iranian blogger.
Conclusion: If we, being the blogosphere, are going to have any blogging role in supporting dissidents, protests, and rebellion in Iran, then we need to lay some groundwork now to build some communication channels that will come in handy later. Some ideas:
US-Iranian partner bloggers: Sort of a pen-pal program for bloggers in the US and in Iran. Establishes a communication link. Casual interaction like this could be very useful at building speedy communications over a period of time.
Redundancy in communications links: if the government is going to shut down ISPs, we need some workarounds to get the stories out. Otherwise, the lights will be out here in the blogosphere, and we'll all be prisoners to whatever the networks and NPR toss up there. What about:
-phone cards so folks can call in stories from land lines in Iran? Would the government shut all of those down too?
-setting up networks of bloggers in neighboring countries (Iraq? Afghanistan? the Gulf States? who could receive phone calls from Iranians, then turn their reports into blog posts?
-old school: HAM radio operators?
-if we really want to get a little crazy, sat phones? This is not only expensive, but hard to choose who to get them to, and probably risky for the Iranians to have them.
If you want to get involved I suggest communicating with Chester first. Bloggers in Iran have been jailed and I'm certain that we would not want to be the cause especially if we have built up a rapport with a blog pal...
Be careful out there.
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