(2005-06-03) Blaser Political Annoyance

Britt Blaser notes that political insiders/incumbents are served by how annoying it is to get involved in politics. The problem with party meetings is their accidental cynicism - they seem purpose-built to attract only those who like party meetings: people with too much political ambition or not enough real life... Matt Stoller has concluded, like so many others who are drawn to the tech side of politics but who have faced the reality of actually doing politics, that the newly energized people just have to develop the will to go to party meetings. I'm more cynical. I've concluded that "real" Americans (i.e., people with a life) never will do the local party thing and so we need to develop a robust and seductive Back Channel (Route Around) for governance so that, as in the run-up to the American Revolution, a new population emerges, taking over politics by using technology as disruptive as Ben Franklin's press was in his day.

Back in March he said My silence embodies my frustration that our collective dialogue isn't going anywhere. We talk a lot, but we don't conclude a lot. Inconclusiveness seems to be the cardinal virtue of the blogosphere. "Let's all talk but, ferchrissake, let's not bring anything to a vote!" I guess that's the nub of my prosaic malaise. The talk goes nowhere and that's unsatisfying to me. Progressives' talk didn't go anywhere in 2004, but that seems not to have intruded on Progressives' collective confidence in ownership of the vault holding all the answers. It makes me crazy that progressives share a self-anointed confidence even though they're not even on the radar of the American voter. Until the voice of hundreds of thousands of voters can be aggregated into a specific, auditable commitment, blogs will continue to be entertaining but toothless. Sorry, that's just the truth.

Jun30 update lays out more of a vision-scenario resulting in support for a City Charter Amendment (Referen Dum) (for Municipal Wifi). First mention I've seen of term Granular Capitalism: He's learned that Granular Capitalism applies Capitalist principles to tiny businesses operating on a global scale, all with free entry to markets that multinational firms previously defended as their own. (SmallWorld)