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The Web Fueling A Crisis In Politics?
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC is reporting that Tony Blair's outgoing chief strategy adviser fears the internet could be fueling a crisis in the relationship between politicians and voters. 'Mr Taylor said Mr Blair's online grilling from voters — and other initiatives such as environment secretary David Miliband's blog and Downing Street's new online petition service — showed the government was making good progress in using the Internet to become more open and accountable. But he said more needed to be done by the web community in general to encourage people to use the internet to "solve problems" rather than simply abuse politicians or make "incommensurate" demands on them.' 'But rather than work out these dilemmas in partnership with their elected leaders, they were encouraged to regard all politicians as corrupt or mendacious by the media, which he described as "a conspiracy to maintain the population in a perpetual state of self-righteous rage." Whether media was left wing or right wing, the message was always that 'leaders are out there to shaft you.'" Some credit was given to the Internet for high voter turnout in this month's elections ... how is that a bad thing?
Well give us something to make positive comments about then...
Seriously, transparency within the government for example, will cut down on a lot of wasted money as people become outraged at where their money goes.
That might be a bad example - just causes more rantyblogs...
I think like most endeavors, potential leaders start off trying to help to people but as time goes on they are either corrupted by the power they are given or become disillusioned by the corruption that already exists...
There are "some" politicians that can resist and for the most part do a really good job, the problem is they are in the minority and end up having no "real" power to effect change.
Is it any surprise that people in power are unhappy when they no longer control public opinion? When the people have sources of information that run counter to the corporations that control both government and the media?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
"Whether media was left wing or right wing, the message was always that 'leaders are out there to shaft you'."
Sounds about right to me... When a new laws are passed that mandate life in prison or the death penalty (for countries that do that) for taking political bribes, THEN I'll start looking at them more objectivly. It *should* be next to impossible for those in power to abuse that power to the detriment of the people who elect them... But the way the system works now, it's almost impossible NOT to become corrupt.
But he said more needed to be done by the web community in general to encourage people to use the internet to "solve problems" rather than simply abuse politicians or make "incommensurate" demands on them.
Incommensurate demands? Like what?Honesty?
Free Speech?
Free Internet?
Please the only thing politicians want to do with the internet is censor it, own it, and tax it.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Because the traditional methods of influence and control are not standing up to what the web has made available. It's an easier and more effective mechanism for criticizing your leaders, as well as organizing against them.
Bottome line: you have slightly more control now, and the leadership does not like that a bit.
>>"They wanted "sustainability", for example, but not higher fuel prices, affordable homes for their children but not new housing developments in their town or village. "
A lot of the political posts on this form fall into this category. Nobody in the US wants coal-fired power plants, but they don't want the price of electricity to double. They want energy conservation, but they want their server farms burning enough electricity to power 10 homes. On and on....
High turnout is bad for the right wing.
Um, exept in the previous election (here, I'm referring to the US), when it was the Republicans' ability to create a high turnout that was credited with much of their election success. Your statement assumes a steady state of context, which is nonsense.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I'm to the point that I don't think a politician can get on the ballot without being corrupted. Campaigns are expensive in comparison to the salaries politicians earn- VERY expensive (like it will cost you an average of $500,000 to get a seat that will pay you back, if you're lucky, $60,000 in salary over two years before you have to campaign again). That just invites corruption from the start- before a politician is ever elected he's already been bought by one or more special interests.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"simply abuse politicians or make "incommensurate" demands on them.'"
translation: criticize politicians for abuses by the politians and demand that they actually act in good faith in regards to keeping the public trust.
Where were you when the voynix came?
I don't think any media conspiracy or otherwise is necessary to induce rage and contempt for politicians from the public. Just looking up at any street corner to see the CCTV cameras of the state watching you (what's the ratio these days? something like 1 camera per 7 people* in London?) would be plenty enough to enrage me. Or how about Blair's lapdog-to-Bush style of international relations? The concessions to the US on international plane traveler privacy laws? Forcing a massive upgrade to passports that turns out to be flawed and insecure? I mean, hell, I'm not even a British citizen or even traveled there for that matter and these things have me pissed off!
;)
Let's face it, the internet can be used to help the public suggest changes and work with their representatives to improve the situation. But is it any surprise that the overwhleming volume of comments and the like are nothing but complaints? Maybe when some of the glaring abuses of government and invasions of privacy start to be addressed people will be more willing to calm down and discuss things with a focus on solutions. I agree, suggesting solutions and working to fix things is a better idea than just ranting and making unfeasible demands. But then again maybe if the government had listened to salient points of contention in the first place, or put people's privacy, rights, and well being ahead of politics then it wouldn't be so bad right now.
* I don't claim this figure to be accurate, might be off by an order of magnitude, take it with salt.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Dear Matthew, (can I call you Matthew?)
Your government is elected by a minority of the electorate using a system that gives it an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons. Your Members of Parliament say their first loyalty is to the Party and the manifesto, not to the electorate. You ensure almost all votes are whipped through Parliament with fearful penalties if an MP disobeys the Party line. You have changed your Party conferences so that votes by the members have no bearing on policy making which is performed behind closed doors. You refuse freedom of information requests that would allow the electorate to see that policies are enacted according to regulations. You take money from multimillionaires and do not declare it to the authorities; coincidentally, all of these donors then become members of the House of Lords where they become law makers. You pass legislation that require people to get police permission to protest outside of Parliament. You rip up ancient laws that regulate the power of the State over the citizen and propose to take more for yourselves. You politicise the intelligence service, getting your spin doctors to sell a war planned in collusion with a foreign power.
You shouldn't be so much wondering why voters feel alienated, as be amazed that we haven't dragged you out of Downing Street and strung you up outside of Parliament.
Unfortunately, in the US, a relatively recent effort by politicians to organize and fight media oversignt was highly successful. Most people still do believe in an inherent liberal bias in mainstream media, since it was the conservative party that was the promoter of this thinking at the time. (The exact same arguments can and have been raised by liberal interests at various points, but not with as much success. Studies on bias in the media are completely inconclusive, either proving or disproving it, largely depending on who is funding the study. I tend to believe that the media is just inherently anti-government, regardless of party, because of its duties as the fourth estate.)
Nowadays if the media isn't sacrificing objectivity or factual information to provide a "more balanced" product, it is either completely asleep at the wheel, or purposefully distorting information in the other direction...yeah Fox News, I'm looking at you disapprovingly right now. Is it any wonder that there has been a migration of the press to the internet, since there are so many legitimate complaints against the mainstream media these days? This is nothing more than a deliberate (and smart) strategy by government to further shield itself from scrutiny.
Abusive politics is, I am afraid, the wave of the future. The folks in the UK just aren't accustomed to it yet.
I remember reading one UK analysis of the midterm US elections in which the commentator remarked on the difference in the level of civility in the US election. He said something to the effect that, "If elections in Britain are a walk in the park, in the US a candidate must carry the One Ring to the Land of Mordor".
It has been long said that freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one. With the blogosphere, any knuckle scraping blockhead can set himself up as a news source. This pretty much means that whispering campaigns have become shouting campaigns.
There is good and bad in this, but trying to contain the bad is worse than returning to the status quo. And wishing the situation would be other than it is is pointless.
Instead, we should try to make the most of the developments in communication, by giving people something worthwhile to talk about. Let's really make our government transparent.
I'll give you an example of non-transparency. Recently, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction was secretly abolished. The way this was done was that the provisions extending the office were secretly stripped from the authorization bill at the last minute. Thus the Senators who voted for the bill had no idea that it was changed.
When word of this got out, the senate reversed itself on a voice vote. But it raises questions: how many other things are put in and taken out this way? Do we really want anonymous committee staff have ths power?
Why not make a legislation tracking system where every addtion or deletion from a bill is digitally signed by the person doing it. A Senator voting for a bill could call up a list of differences between the bill he is voting on and the bill as it was last week. Then make the entire history of every bill available on the Internet.
The principle I am working from here is this: it is a good thing that people want to talk about politics. What is bad is that they are not talking about substantive things. So: given them something real to talk about. Let them scream and holler, but at least give them the information they need to do so usefullly.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
...is that the web makes EVERYONE who buys in feel like they are "informed voters" no matter how misleading and self-serving the web resources they access may be. Higher voter response is NOT a good thing when the majority of the mobilized voters are voting simply based on emotional reactions rather than looking at the real issues and analyzing the impact of a vote for a candidate or issue. On the left you have people reacting to information stating that voting for issue or candidate X is a vote against the environment. On the right you have people reacting to the "OMG teh gheys want to get married and it will make my marriage worthless" propaganda without thinking about how it really affects real people (yes gays are real people). For the third parties, they all have their echo chambers telling them that "this is the year that the third party candidates will take the world by storm"!!! So everyone votes for or against things without really understanding the implications.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
...I think there is something to learn from Mr. Taylor's comments. Squeaky wheel syndrome: its easy to focus on what's not working and forget about the things that do.
Roads get paved, mail magically shows up, and this mysterious place called the library buys books so we don't have to. If something unjust happens to us, there is generally a method of recourse.
How much of these services we need can be debated, but its pretty great in general.
Elected officials definitely seem like the worst offenders, and something needs to change, I agree. But there's a whole underbelly of people in government who take their job fairly seriously and do a lot of really beneficial things, all to our benefit.
A better idea- publicly funding elections. All politicians who meet the filing requirements (signatures, etc) get the same amount of funds. They are not allowed to spend more, of their own money or of others. Unused funds are returned. Breaking either of these is a very long jail sentence without parole. Its not perfect, but it would be a damn site better than what we have now.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
"The BBC is reporting that Tony Blair's outgoing chief strategy adviser fears the internet could be fueling a crisis in the relationship between politicians and voters. 'Mr Taylor said Mr Blair's online grilling from voters --"
No it's you politicians fueling the crisis by lying to us about WMDs in Iraq, by removing peoples right to peacefull public protest, by scaring us with fake terrorist reports, by falsely claiming there is huge public support for ID cards when we all know it's your best buddy in Washington is behind it. Bush orders Tony to go to war and Tony does what he's told by the US president as all UK PMs have done since WW2.
davecb5620@gmail.com
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Now, that sounds snarky and cynical.
I challenge leadership to:
- Point out where the opposition has been correct
- Admit uncertainty and mistakes where obvious
- Give speeches that are written for an educated audience. If the nintendo generation finds itself feeling disadvantaged by coherent speech, it's simply going to have to take a hint and learn something for a change. Edify me, leadership.
- Consider a planning horizon beyond 2008. Notwithstanding the apocalyptic wishes of some, there may be a sunrise beyond the next election. Really.
OK, back to being snarky.Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
I'll go ahead and say it in the face of being considered "pro-corporation" but how else are corporations supposed to solve the problem?
The corporations shouldn't be allowed to solve the problem at all- individual people should instead. We've given the corporations entirely too much power.
In a slightly more controversial/real situation. You are a corporation that disposes of toxic waste. While nobody would argue that having legislation that encourages lessening the environmental impact of industry processes is a good thing. If your industry is affected, then that additional legislation adds additional costs. Does that mean that you should resist the legislation? If you do, are you evil (for supporting the "destruction of the environment")? If everything was black and white, laws and life would be a lot easier. But as the saying goes there are two sides to every coin.
I say the living, breathing human citizens should have *SUPERIOR* rights to the invented imitation corporate citizens. And that merely giving corporations a form of personhood invites such evil.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
If, by "ex-cons" you mean "felons," then you should understand that allowing them to vote is election fraud. Until the law changes in most places, activists trying to get felons somehow into a voting booth are the ones committing the crime.
"Most places" allow "ex-cons" to vote once their prison sentence and any attached probation is up. Florida, however, is not among "most places", but using an incorrect felon vetting list even after you've been notified that it's wrong is certainly not ranked up at the top of the guide to running a clean election.
Shame the thousands of people who were disenfranchised because they were incorrectly labeled as felons didn't all get up and sue the living daylights out of them for slander. Terrible shame we have to whip out the lawyers to get anything done right these days.
The problem with your proposal is one you see today.
"Once qualified by signature count to run, govt supplies X dollars from the pool, which you can use any way you like. Every candidate gets the same amount."
The problem here is that a 2nd party, say a PAC or the party's national committee go out and raise their own funds for your election. They can say they have the right of free speech to advertise on your behalf. This ultimately is the same as if you'd gotten the money yourself. "Support our project and we'll give $X dollars to the 'Citizens for You' PAC"
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Read again; I already said only candidates can spend money on political ads, and only from the pool. So this problem would not arise. No political parties, no PACs. Individuals must speak up for what they stand for as legislators. Voters vote on that account. No other political advertising is allowed.
Regarding the 1st amendment issues, this is a job requirement. Just as a military scientist can't speak of what he's doing outside of specific, controlled circumstances, people wanting the job of legislator must also see to it that they conform to the job requirements regarding what they are doing and what the plan to do. Voting records would be public; so we know what they're actually doing and can compare that to what they said they would do. This has more value if we allow repeated terms; do what your constiuents want, and the odds of re-election go up. Job performance should count. it doesn't really count, if we limit terms. As far as the news goes, they get to report who wins an election; no more, no less. No opinions. How did we ever let one or two people get into the position of shoving their opinions off on the entire populace, anyway? We end up with choads like Rush Limbaugh spouting off and the ignorami sucking it up like it was mother's milk...
PACs and political parties have mutated into harmful organisms, whatever positive aspects they may have had in the past are long gone, IMHO.
Anyway... it's just an idea. I have a few others (not mutually compatible) and any discussion about this is healthy, agree or disagree. All I know is I'm really, really unhappy with how things work now. I can't even find anyone I'm willing to vote for under the current system.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You can back your candidate three ways: 1, you can sign for him or her so they can have a better chance to be a candidate instead of a wanna-be. 2, you can vote for them so they have a better chance to actually win the office; 3, you can talk to anyone you like about your ideas as long as you don't spend money, use a "free" information transfer medium you have unequal access to, or cause money to be spent. In other words, your "backing" is limited to the same degree of backing any other person would have. No, you can't leverage your backing with money. I'm trying to equalize your opinion's degree of expression so that the weight it has over another opinion is based on its relative merits, not the number of times more you got it on TV, I'm also trying not give you the means to lord it over everyone else using money as a lever, as the current system does. In the process, I'm trying to do the same thing for the candidates.
In other words, if I can get enough signatures, and so can you, and we have radically different opinions, but equal exposure of those opinions, then what is left? Only one thing: For the voters to decide which opinion is better based upon its perceived merits, instead of being only able to remember one because one is backed by a lot of money, and the other isn't — a factor that has absolutely no relationship to the quality you refer to elsewhere, that of actually being good for society.
Regarding your rights here, could you please point me to the section of the constitution you are referring to? Are you speaking of the 10th amendment reserving of unmentioned rights, or of something more specific?
Actually, if you forbid them to spend money and advertise in any venue, they have nothing left to do as near as I can tell; no need to make them illegal, they'll just go away when they have no more harmful paths to function in. People will have to make their own decisions. Shocking idea, I know. :)
No, by all means, peaceably assemble citizens for political discussion all you want. Just don't bring any active legislators (job condition), don't advertise, don't spend any money in promoting the event. That puts you on the same playing field with any citizen who lives under a bridge. You can assemble. You can speak. That's all you can do. Same as everyone else.
Yes, you're quite welcome. The idea is that every candidate should be equally heard. You don't give to candidates, you give to the pool. The pool is equally distributed, with govt padding as and if required to meet some minimum standard. Even handed support of getting one's message out is what happens. So what's the problem? Apparently I'm missing something here?
I really don't know what you mean. What do political parties have to do with ponies or whatever pony means in this context? Are you talking about paybacks? The idea is to eliminate them, you know, not to encourage them.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.