As one of the few native Muskogee left in Southwest Georgia, I can attest to that. The local museum here is named Thronateeska, after our capital that was located in my home town, yet it has nothing about the Muskogee and the cities history starts with white settlement and most of the exhibits are from the late 19th early 20th century concerning plantation work and the Flint River.
Most of our people were transplanted to Oklahoma, and our history in our native land is all but wiped out.
I too have tried to get people involved on the Internet and people seem to just think that this sort of thing is just too far out of reach. Logistically, however, I do believe it to be possible for an Internet based candidate to get elected to office. And not just the Presidential office, but Congressional seats and local government positions.
The problem is that people should have started at least a year ago. But there still could be time, if we acted soon.
If people could only imagine someone in office who would directly speak with his constituency over message boards and blogs in real time when he's making decisions. Someone who would protect the freedoms we enjoy over the Internet, and really upgrade the democracy for the 21st century.
I too am very curious if this is feesable in any way. Maybe there's a place where people of like minds would care to discuss such projects.
Most of my ideas are less technically ambitious, but would benifit greatly if anything like this would launch and become successful.
And even if none of this would happen, I have a few other ideas people may be interested in dealing with independant media and furthering democracy through use of internet based technologies.
Almost everyone who'll read this article will probably think to themselves "Pfffft, already knew that." But I've always found after years of following our government's political history that this single fact is the one core cause of every failure we as a people have had since the Civil War, yet no one does anything about it.
This sort of thought process hinders the ability for the people to choose good leaders, and in turn elects people who are incapable of the sort of even minded judicious decisions needed in all branches of the government, at all levels.
You don't have to go far to see how this has lead to a lot of the problems we have today. But if you look deeper you see were we've created a political culture that makes logical decisions of any manner of governance pretty much impossible. If you look around, no one is happy with our government, the word politics conjures negative emotions and images of people arguing. This isn't how a democracy should view itself.
To put it in blunt terms, our government really doesn't work anymore and hasn't functioned properly for decades if not more.
Think about it, our governmental structure was made so that it could:
a) Be a balanced and fair system that follows the voice of the people.
And....
b) Be capable to dynamically deal with the issues of an uncertain and every changing world.
Now you have to ask yourself, is this what you think, or even hear about when you discuss the state of the union?
No, why? Because people feel their voice is never heard and they have no say in their own democracy. The whole thing is ran by political party bosses and large companies.
And what about our government ability to be dynamic? Again the answer is no, just read this news page about that. Why? Because we only have 2 phases of government, one on the left and right, and because we boil down today's complex issues into a D.C. version of Red vs. Blue, political leaders care little about the realities of any given topic and pass legislation in a way that subverts effectiveness of the system as a whole, by taking a side and trying to slug out the other side.
And none of this government infighting helps pass any legislation, nor does it aid in judicial review, or does it help discuss important social issues. In fact it does the opposite, it impairs all of that and muddles down our country in what I call a prolonged Civil War. Its effectively like Lincoln didn't do anything, and instead of battles next to rivers with guns we have battles on T.V. with bills. All that does is use up resources and destroys the integrity of the union. The issues are just different, and sometimes only slightly, and no one cares what the future impact of any given law has on our country, just if it undercuts the opposition on another key issue.
I think the only real solution isn't with another 3rd party, but by supporting various independent logic minded individuals that seek office, and the only real way to do that and make a dent in the choke hold parties have on the government is by hitting them with the only thing they don't know how deal with (in party by their own inability to be dynamic).... Technology.
I've always wanted to create a centralized place on the web, where politicians could come, register, and like a blogger allows them to post regularly in address and has a forum that anyone can ask questions or post comments, have polls ect.
It doesn't sound like much, but if it became the central place where people came and watched and interacted with their representatives, they would have to directly deal with their constituencies, actually answer questions and people could really see how someone measured up against what they said they would do and what that does. As apposed to where they just make one sided speeches and argue amongst each other on T.V. and the people feel pretty uninvolved and out of the loop.
Kind of like the theory behind Wikipedia being accurate and factual except for in government. Which is more or less how it should be, shouldn't it? You know, our voice being the driving force behind the nation.
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As one of the few native Muskogee left in Southwest Georgia, I can attest to that. The local museum here is named Thronateeska, after our capital that was located in my home town, yet it has nothing about the Muskogee and the cities history starts with white settlement and most of the exhibits are from the late 19th early 20th century concerning plantation work and the Flint River. Most of our people were transplanted to Oklahoma, and our history in our native land is all but wiped out.
I too have tried to get people involved on the Internet and people seem to just think that this sort of thing is just too far out of reach. Logistically, however, I do believe it to be possible for an Internet based candidate to get elected to office. And not just the Presidential office, but Congressional seats and local government positions. The problem is that people should have started at least a year ago. But there still could be time, if we acted soon. If people could only imagine someone in office who would directly speak with his constituency over message boards and blogs in real time when he's making decisions. Someone who would protect the freedoms we enjoy over the Internet, and really upgrade the democracy for the 21st century.
I too am very curious if this is feesable in any way. Maybe there's a place where people of like minds would care to discuss such projects. Most of my ideas are less technically ambitious, but would benifit greatly if anything like this would launch and become successful. And even if none of this would happen, I have a few other ideas people may be interested in dealing with independant media and furthering democracy through use of internet based technologies.
This sort of thought process hinders the ability for the people to choose good leaders, and in turn elects people who are incapable of the sort of even minded judicious decisions needed in all branches of the government, at all levels.
You don't have to go far to see how this has lead to a lot of the problems we have today. But if you look deeper you see were we've created a political culture that makes logical decisions of any manner of governance pretty much impossible. If you look around, no one is happy with our government, the word politics conjures negative emotions and images of people arguing. This isn't how a democracy should view itself.
To put it in blunt terms, our government really doesn't work anymore and hasn't functioned properly for decades if not more.
Think about it, our governmental structure was made so that it could:
a) Be a balanced and fair system that follows the voice of the people.
And....
b) Be capable to dynamically deal with the issues of an uncertain and every changing world.
Now you have to ask yourself, is this what you think, or even hear about when you discuss the state of the union?
No, why? Because people feel their voice is never heard and they have no say in their own democracy. The whole thing is ran by political party bosses and large companies. And what about our government ability to be dynamic? Again the answer is no, just read this news page about that. Why? Because we only have 2 phases of government, one on the left and right, and because we boil down today's complex issues into a D.C. version of Red vs. Blue, political leaders care little about the realities of any given topic and pass legislation in a way that subverts effectiveness of the system as a whole, by taking a side and trying to slug out the other side.
And none of this government infighting helps pass any legislation, nor does it aid in judicial review, or does it help discuss important social issues. In fact it does the opposite, it impairs all of that and muddles down our country in what I call a prolonged Civil War. Its effectively like Lincoln didn't do anything, and instead of battles next to rivers with guns we have battles on T.V. with bills. All that does is use up resources and destroys the integrity of the union. The issues are just different, and sometimes only slightly, and no one cares what the future impact of any given law has on our country, just if it undercuts the opposition on another key issue.
I think the only real solution isn't with another 3rd party, but by supporting various independent logic minded individuals that seek office, and the only real way to do that and make a dent in the choke hold parties have on the government is by hitting them with the only thing they don't know how deal with (in party by their own inability to be dynamic).... Technology.
I've always wanted to create a centralized place on the web, where politicians could come, register, and like a blogger allows them to post regularly in address and has a forum that anyone can ask questions or post comments, have polls ect.
It doesn't sound like much, but if it became the central place where people came and watched and interacted with their representatives, they would have to directly deal with their constituencies, actually answer questions and people could really see how someone measured up against what they said they would do and what that does. As apposed to where they just make one sided speeches and argue amongst each other on T.V. and the people feel pretty uninvolved and out of the loop.
Kind of like the theory behind Wikipedia being accurate and factual except for in government. Which is more or less how it should be, shouldn't it? You know, our voice being the driving force behind the nation.
Maybe those days have long passed.....