Government as the SuperBlog
Every time I attend one of those neighborhood board meetings, or other government forums, it’s obvious that it’s a dying breed rather than the future of government. Most there are of advanced age -- rather than the next generation of our leaders.
But the most distressing thing is that the entirety of the forum seems to be consumed in arguments over who is in charge and who is out of order. It’s really quite sad -- to see what many people’s idea of what government is all about -- the arguing, the bickering, the struggle for dominance -- while the audience in attendance wonders if they must be crazy to continue to attend such futility. That’s not what government should be all about -- but unfortunately, is what it has become. It is a dysfunctional relationship.
Could such forums become better -- or are there other possibilities that would better serve in this time and age? We could run these forums more productively by establishing a government superblog -- by which we could discuss anything, as well as provide for many government/societal functions that are presently costly as well as problematical.
The real lack in most people’s lives these days is not a lack of actual resources (food, shelter, clothing, etc.), but is the lack of information that enables them to feel that they are well off. In the new world of information, the person who is prosperous is one who thinks he is so -- because he has access to the information of the resources, as he actually requires it. Wealth is no longer just having a hoard of information and treasures that one has no use of. The new wealth is actual usefulness -- and not merely possessions in themselves, which of course, is the old concept of wealth, power and status.
But if one has what he needs, as he needs it, that’s all one needs. The amazing revelation is that one can only use so much -- what he is actually using. The rest used to give one a sense of psychological comfort in knowing he had his own personal stockpile of a certain resource he could tap for the appropriate moment -- which usually never came.
This bunker mentality is disadvantageous and counterproductive. One doesn’t need a standing position of status as long as one can act as a leader, as he desires to -- and can command that attention as he desires it. But he doesn’t need to remind others constantly of that status and dominance -- which is what the old government/political forums largely do. In many cases, that is the only thing they do -- reinforce the pecking order.
Even the newspapers serve this function -- of maintaining their control of the discussion, with selective reporting and editing. In an earlier time, people were less aware of that control but when there is actually a free press (Internet), the contrast becomes more evident. Schools and universalities have also been granted such monopolies of information control -- but now we know that far more is happening than we see through those institutions also. Instead of revealing the information, they limit the amount of information available -- by controlling it.
We now have the possibility and capacity of allowing all the information from all the citizens and sources -- as much as they would like to contribute to it. That is the government as the Superblog. It is the total contribution of the constituency -- hopefully and increasingly, to govern themselves.
posted by Mike Hu @ 5:01 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
When the newspapers report an 8% decline in readership/subscriptions, it's not a random 8%. It is 90% of their best and most discerning readers -- as will be the next drop. The only audience they're holding are the most dysfunctional segment of the market -- those who still think the mainstream media is fair, impartial and unbiased. There doesn't seem to be anything they can do about it -- because the union rules make it impossible to get rid of anybody, and those with seniority aren't going anywhere. They'll write until they're way past senility -- while all the interns get exploited and then let go.
That's the problem in the media, schools, universities, every dying union industry. There's no rule that unions can't reward merit and ability. They have chosen to reward seniority and tenure -- which weakens them in fields demanding creativity and innovation.
When computers first became popular, journalists thought they were a godsend because they could store and reprint all their seasonal articles without them having to write anything new again -- just like university professors giving each year, the same lectures they've given every year -- as a testimony to their unchanging knowledge of the truth.
In today's world, you have to be learning something new each day -- and not simply repeating everything you knew coming out of college as the immutable truth. And that's what many of today's liberals are like -- and why they revere the liberal/leftist ideologies of their salad years. They think that's how one retains their youthfulness -- rather than continuing to grow beyond what they learn in schools as the unquestionable truth.
Thus the liberal tradition has become a defense of that status quo -- and no evolution beyond. The world's passed them by. Almost everything clearly thought out and well-written, is a challenge and threat to that status quo -- that has no defense anymore but their intimidation tactics to get everyone back in line and in the fold of the old world order in which they're at the top of the scale.
It’s the same with the mass transit strikes: when they go on strike, they lose 10% of their ridership, but it’s not a random 10%, but the most able segment of that population -- willing and able to investigate alternatives. That’s the 10% that determines changes -- prior to everybody else moving in that direction also. The mass media will report on what the stagnant 90% are doing -- when what we really want to know and would be immensely useful, is where the leading edge is going and exploring.
You probably can only get that kind of information on a blog because that’s where those ideas will be -- and not just the conventional, ready to fade into obsolescence. It’s like the gas cap announcements that prices will go down 10 cents next week -- causing everybody to defer their purchases so that there are lines and then shortages. Rather than driving around for the longest lines, one might be better off using a random pattern of purchases -- to beat the market.
The reason Hawaii is usually about ten years behind the times is because of this suppression of alternative information -- largely influenced and controlled by the special interest groups. It’d be prohibitive to create another conventional media source to provide that alternative -- but I don’t see why government can’t provide that medium for the marketplace of ideas that is much more expansive than anything imagined before. One could run a carpool program out of a statewide blog. Etc.
Miers' only crime seems to have been thinking the President is one of the great leaders in American life, and not being reticent in expressing that sentiment -- an experience most mainstream media journalists have never experienced being said to/about them, and thus cynically concluding, she only said it trying to advance her own career ambitions -- as they would. Maybe she's not like them but is instead sincere and genuine -- something these columnists could never dare to imagine.
What is disturbing is this knee-jerk rush to prejudice fomented by the demagogues of every stripe. Prejudice is prejudice, no matter what noble calling one claims it serves.
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