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Disintermediation and Politics
code_rage writes "Everett Ehrlich (capsule biography) writes an article in the Washington Post that examines Howard Dean's effective use of the internet to create a political organization. He says that Dean has created a 'virtual' party that has taken over the only remaining asset of value, the brand name of the Democratic party. His analysis refers to the theory of Nobel-winning economist Ronald Coase: that the size of an organization is determined by the cost of gathering information. Ehrlich's article makes some predictions about the effect that Dean's strategy will have on the political system." In a related story, there's an mp3 interview with Dick Morris, along with a couple of (appropriately) blog posts about it.
The Dean candidacy is likely to cause great damage to the party come November 2004.
Dean, a far-left candidate, is campaigning to the far-left in order to win the nomination. He has given little thought to the "middle": a group which is necessary to win the election. He has Bush landslide written all over his face.
I am not necessarily a big fan of Howard Dean, but I love what he is doing to political fundraising and grassroots organization. His campaign team's efforts have really reversed the equation and empowered the small-money donors to make a difference. I think it is much better for the American political system for a candidate to raise $100 from 2 million donors than $200 million from some very large donors and interest groups. It's bottom-up campaign finance reform. Once again a technological and social solution can do what convoluted legislation cannot.
Just as JFK utilized the nature of the televised debates to triumph over Nixon, Howard Dean will attempt to use the power of the internet in order to take the Democratic nomination.
Just a prediction.
I don't consider somebody who resorts to libel and slander to get her point across as somebody who is a "strong woman". I don't think anybody who hates another group of people because their views and opinions differ from her is "strong" or "mature" or any other adjective you could use to describe anybody from either gender who can behave in civil society.
I sure hope it doesn't mean the death of the two party system.
Why? A multi-party democracy can still produce strong governments. In my eyes, a two-party system is only one party away from being a single-party dictatorship, especially when the minority party is very weak; the current situation in the USA is a good example of this problem with two-party systems.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
This isn't any different than how the NeoConservative movement hijacked the Republican party in the 1980's (under the threat of Soviet Nuclear Annihilation), and how the Christian Wackjob movement hijacked the Reform party in 1999 (under threat of the previous Reform party being the only alternative for rational sane Americans).
Dean's hijacked the Democratic party on the basis of the Anti-Plutocrat movement. More power to em. If the internet was a key vehicle for that, I'm not really suprised, but since the internet exists for all people, that sword cuts both ways.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
How will it help moderate, hum-drum politics and politicians (probably > 90%), or even interesting politicians without a drum to beat? It won't.
That's correct. Politicians who rose through the ranks based on their connections with party-elders and got into office due to the intertia of the voters are, in fact hurt by the internet. They will be vulnerable to politicians who are able to create networks of loyal rank-and-file supporters who "believe" in their candidacy.
The radical change is that politicians who depend on the inertia of voters are suddenly vulnerable.
Dean's improbable sprint to internet cash-and-glory will only get him so far. And then the incredibly labor intensive huge Democratic machine will have to take over.
If you look at Dean's main Website and official blog you'll notice that it's not just fundraising that's going on. There are 150,000 people involved in Dean Meetups and thousands more have already sent over 100,000 handwritten letters to voters in New Hampsire and Iowa. Plus there are scores of independent websites discussing and promoting Dean from various perspectives. He's got more troops on the ground than the Democratic Party - particularly if you count the union troops he's already recruited as his and not the Democrats', per se.
What Dean's doing isn't taking over the "Left Wing" or even the Democratic Party so much as it is taking over the middle of the road. He's steamrolling right down the center with a good dose of traditional American common sense (although his invocation of Thomas Paine is a bit lame, at least it's an error in the right direction). He's redefining what the center of the road means.
And this whole thing about his - and his fans' - "anger" is just off the point. George W. is an idiot, and he's calling the Emperor naked and saying clearly that we should replace him with all haste. People aren't angry at Bush so much as disappointed and disgusted because Bush doesn't live up to the Main Street American values that Dean invokes.
The cynicism of the corporate-owned press is that we don't have any values to speak of beyond consumerism and the money to support our "American way" habits (and their advertisers). According to this cynicism all politicians are a bit false, so calling them naked is a bit beside the point. Dean's not a cynic, not false, and is using the Net to communicate directly with others who love America and see higher ideals as once again attainable by it, rather than a continued slide into blustering corruption.
He' proving the Republic still has some blood in its veins. He's no Thomas Jefferson (alas), but could well become the best US president since FDR.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I'll bitch, cause I think we should have finished the job in Afghanistan. Instead we diverted forces over into Iraq, and it hasn't gained us anything. That's what I was saying back last year, it's what numerous other people were saying, it was what General Clark testified before Congress saying. The choices weren't "Invade Iraq" or "Let terrorists take over", we had other options. Don't listen to the Republican spin.
Look, ultimately we were going to have to deal with Iraq because sanctions don't work. But Colin Powell admitted in 2001 that we had Hussein under control and there was no threat of weapons... link
But really that's all water under the bridge now anyway. We're in there, we've got to fix it. I don't like what's happening over there, and I'll be damned if I let the prick who created this mess be rewarded with reelection.
Man, is that a strawman if I ever did see one.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Just compare the planning for the NATO interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo with the near total lack of planning for the intervention in Iraq. One example is to compare the large number of civilian police that were lined up and waiting to move into Kosovo immediately after the conflict. There were no pre-war efforts made to recruit international civilian police for post-conflict Iraq.
And no, this isn't a case of 20/20 hindsight. I spent 6 years in a U.S. Army Reserve Civil Affairs Bn. The professionals in the Army who know how to plan for and handle post-conflict problems were simply ignored by Rumsfeld. The outcome was frightningly obvious to those of us who have done this sort of work professionally. The Bush Administration is paying the price for their hubris.
FreeSpeech.org
Sorry, but, all hardcore evangelical Christians are not religious right.
Not all but surely most.
Speaking as a formerly agnostic follower of Jesus who grew up with no religious background at all, I'm confused by the way practicing Christians seem invariably to be conservative in their politics. I can't really find a way to reconcile the pull yourself up by the bootstraps brand of Rush Limbaugh conservatism with the teachings of Jesus or the canonical books of the New Testament.
In truth, the Gospels show that Jesus came most sharply into conflict not with the big partyers (sinners), but with the Orthodox Religious Right of the day, the Pharisees, over their imposing morality onto others, and their attempts to side-step their responsibility to care for others' well-being.
Also, the First-Century Church, was strongly socialistic. Compare Marx's dictum, From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, with Acts 2:44-46 (NIV), All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.
I've found that intimating that Jesus was socialistic in His politics will probably get you into a nasty row with most church folks; saying that He was a Communist will virtually guarantee it.
But I really don't know why.
It's easier to wear the spandex than to do the crunches. --David Lee Roth
"Muslims hate the west because their culture has stagnated by their own choosing for half a millenia."
Uh, no? Don't bother strawman-ing the issue, that's not the reason.
Muslims dislike the West because the West wasn't the nicest to them. The British ruled India and portions of the Middle East, and weren't the nicest to the indigenous people. France had similiar, I believe. We really didn't care bout Iraqis for most of this century, in pre-Gulf war times the Europeans divided up the land and separated them into separate countries, nationalism and all. The West, including the US, propped up dictators and non-democratic governments in these countries, which angered the people. Look at today, the democratically-elected Islamic government in Algeria was overthrown by military dictators, and many criticize the US and France for their tacit support of it.
The West had other things that alienated people. First, the West snubbed all non-Western people as savages, basically. They didn't have "modern philosophy", or our morals, like secularism or Christianity. The West had this nasty way of imposing their culture on others, like the British pushing English on their colonies, or France forcing Algerians to learn French and study French literature. The West didn't like the Muslims, myths from the Crusades are STILL propagating in some literature I've read.
Currently, Muslims in general dislike the US for its unconditional support of Israel and its injurious manipulation of other countries for its own sole interest. However, I should point out that the Muslims really weren't bothered by the US pre-9/11. 19 foolish people really stirred things up, but if you didn't know, the terrorism was widely condemned by every country (including Afghanistan), except Saddam Hussein's government. Imams, Mullahs, and Ayatollahs all over the world condemned the act, and prayed for the victims. Iran had public candlelit vigils on the streets, there were public anti-terrorism demonstrations in Bangladesh and Indonesia.
Post-9/11, things got a little different. The US invaded Afghanistan, which upset some, but many said it was a natural consequence of 9/11 and revenge. Even television preacher Sheikh Qaradawi said that he could understand why the US was invading, and he said it was legitimate. But honestly, the threat of terrorism didn't really get worse, Muslims all over the world still said they didn't support Al Qaeda, terrorism, or Bin Laden. Sure, they got angry when Christian evangelists made statements that insulted Muslims, but Bush denied it was a war on Islam, so it never boiled over.
What really Fubar-ed the whole thing was this war on Iraq. The US government did things that infuriated the Arab world and Muslim world at large. I don't have to go into why, but it really turned the tide. People now refuse to support the US; everyone, including me, feels that the US government is untrustworthy. Who else can they turn to? Bush's actions became a top recruiting tool for terrorists. Turn on a TV and watch soldiers raid homes, drag women out of their homes not fully clothed, harrass old men, hear about how civillians died every day, it's all making people support other groups.
"Their priests tell them they are the good, the faithful, the chosen, and yet they are the poor, the weak, and the oppressed. How can this be?" Two things. Respite, and there's a hadith "God will allow a fair government to survive, even if it isn't Muslim, and God will cause an unfair government to fall, even if it is Muslim." They declined, and lost it.
"Of course the truth is comical. They're the most corrupt, the laziest, the most decadent." Blah blah blah.
Totally different culture there. Germans today deeply regret Nazism, and Japan wised up. Your "Feudalism" theory doesn't make sense, please elaborate because I don't understand what you mean.
Israel? Do you really want to open up a can of worms here? Fine, but I warn you, this will be lengthy.
But a bunch of farmers with a hodge-podge of weapons were too much for the surrounding muslim pussies to even imagine tolerating. So they attack the recently declared state. And predictably loose. Now Israel is this great evil because they've defended themselves and bought land from people who sold it to them.
You're reading this from the Zionist view? Did you know that the Jewish settlers carried out terrorism against the Palestinian people who were already there? David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, actually had a wanted poster with his name on it, for terrorism and attacks against the Arabs, in his effort to push for a "Jewish state." Israel didn't buy Palestinian land, instead it was stolen when people fled their homes during the war, and weren't allowed to return. There are eyewitness accounts of Israeli soldiers driving them out, killing a few even. I'm not going to get into blame, my point is that the Palestinians were driven out, not voluntarily as your post alleged. Israel demolished some homes, moved Jewish immigrants into others. The Palestinians are understandably upset, they don't get their homes back and don't get an apology or compensation either. This isn't like ancestors losing land, but people who are still living. This could evolve into a giant rant, but I'll cap it off here.
The arabs lost and blame the US for their own weaknesses
Really? Who has ever publicly blamed the US for Egypt losing the six-day war? Who has blamed the US for Israel's refusing to make peace? I recall Clinton leading a peace accord with Netanyahu and Arafat, both shaking hands. I've only heard criticism for the US' current support of Israel, not for "Arab weakness".
The only reason Israel has US support is because the muslims murder civilians specifically.
I think you are blind. You didn't know about AIPAC giving MILLIONS in campaign contributions? That every candidate for decades has sided with Israel to court the Jewish and evangelical votes? If that as you said is the sole reason, then why does nearly the entire UN condemn some Israeli military actions? Why does the UN complain that Israel is in violation of refugee laws? The UN has condemned terrorism on both sides.
Fuck the Muslims. Give them a taste of their own morality. It's ok to kill me because you don't like me, fuck you, eat hot thermonuclear death. Reciprocity is a bitch. Clearly if civilian populations are fair game, the civilian Muslims populations are NO exception.
Sheesh, you really have to strawman the issue here, don't you? First off, Islam does NOT condone murder, ok? Second, don't say Muslims when you only mean Arabs/Palestinians, of which I am neither. It's completely forbidden to murder anyone or attack civillians. The terrorist attacks have received worldwide condemnation from scholars, Imams, Mullahs, Maulanas, Muftis, Sheikhs, you name it. Terrorism is completely against Islam, are we clear on that? I am a Muslim, and I will help you hunt down any scum that kills children. It's not as easy as you think, Terrorists, Baathists, and the Taliban don't exactly walk around in broad daylight, despite what you think.
I'll never forget the CNN foot