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Cell Phones and Broadband 'Net Win in S. Korea
McLuhanesque writes "The Globe and Mail has an interesting column on how text messaging and the use of effective broadband internet content helped propel an obscure lawyer, Mr. Roh Moo-hyun, from a perpetual also-ran to become South Korea's new president. 'With the world's highest penetration of high-speed and mobile Internet services, South Korea is at the cutting edge of technology that is transforming the political system, making it more open and democratic. It could be a preview of the shape of Western democracy,' the article says."
Just someone has to tell the koreans that 86 hours straight is a little on the excessive side. Even if you are camping....
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
South Korea, through capitalism and foreign trade, has built itself into an industrial and technological powerhouse. Flip over any electronic device, and it was probably made in Korea, Taiwan, or Japan. Korea today is in a similar place to Japan in 1980--trying to gain a good name in Western markets. No one drove Hondas in 1980, and Hyundais aren't too popular today. I bet, though, that in 2010 there will be Korean cars all over American streets. (Not European streets, tho. The only really successful Japanese car maker there is Mitsubishi, and that's because they build Mitsubishis in Europe, often alongside European makes, i.e. Volvo S40/Mitsubishi Carisma).
Now look where North Korea is... trying to build nukes and pissing off everyone in the world except bin Laden and Hussein.
You tell me which is the better system.
didn't Al Gore use the internet in his campaigns? He did invent it didn't he?
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
One interesting aspect of this kind of election is that it starts to resemble the viewer-elections we see on reality shows. We are starting to see something that looks like instant democracy. Now, what's cool about this is that it breaks the back of the traditional political system.
The problem is that it breaks everything else too. With instant voting, the US would have nuked Kabul hours after September 11th... totally missing those responsible and slaughtering millions of (relative) innocents. Latency in the system is there for a reason.
I've noticed that those famous and/or powerful people who are not corrupt are invariably those elected by rapid popular vote, namely superstars of pop, sports, and so on.
There is one lesson that Tony Blair and New Labour learned too late: it is easy to be incorruptible when you have no real power. That's why, in Opposition, they could be "whiter than white", but as soon as they were in power, the scandals came rolling in. If the celebrities you mentioned had any real influence beyond entertainment, they would be at least as corruptible as anyone else.
Hint: any celebrity that has endorsed any product has a price.
A long, slow election process just gives all parties time to negotiate with interest groups. Slow elections generate corrupt politicians, and the semi-permanent election process we see in certain countries just creates completely corrupt political parties.
The weaker the government, the better it is for everyone. There's only really a problem if government is both strong and corrupt.
Electing politicians like this is going to annoy the established political parties. It's also going to raise a generation of politicians who have popular support but no real political network. But it's hard to see what the impact of this will be.
Populism requires short-term thinking, and is invariably a disaster in the long run. Argentina's economy lies in ruins because of the populist decisions made by Peron (don't blame the IMF, they wouldn't have even gotten involved if Peron hadn't started Argentina's economy on the downward spiral, altho' they certainly haven't made anything better).