What this country needs...
What this country needs is not any particular leader, what it needs is a way to inject political action into the lifestyles of modern Americans. I think people would be more interested in politics if they felt conversations on facebook, myspace, youtube, or this site actually influenced politics and their politicians directly. It is easy to feel like these discussions are just "preaching to the choir," or "arguments that go nowhere."
Part of this is the mind set of the people. People need to and are beginning to take off their blue/red goggles and look at political issues as just that, issues. Kathleen Parker(The link is well worth reading), a conservative columnist, wins the trophy for creating a diverse less-partisan dialog and for exposing fascism in the minds of Republicans. She supported Paulin until her interviews show her Paulin had no substance to her message. She then asked Paulin to resign as vp candidate, and was subsequently sent death threats by her readers. She has since gone on a crusade to show her conservative viewers how Paulins language invokes racism, and hate in those who unconsciously harbor it. Her articles about Palin are more enlightening then any I've heard because she knows how her fans think. She was one of them.
Secondly, people need to begin a critical dialog where the opposition is listened to. For this to happen on a large scale,this requires a good discussion forum software. Slashdot.org, is a good example, and their framework is open source. They allow each person to rank each comment once, and then adjust what rank level they want to view. This allows people to quickly skim the "highlights" of a huge discussion and filters out the inevitable trolls. This does open up the possibility of squelching unpopular, but valuable opinions. I don't really know a good way to prevent that other then getting an audience where the majority is open minded (see first paragraph).
Thirdly, we need a way to convert our opinions directly into political action, without a PAC babysitting us, and picking and choosing which issues are "important." This system needs to be able to be integrated into any Internet interface you prefer, be it facebook, myspace, salon, livejournal, youtube, igoogle, etc. This system needs to also plug into the state legislature sites, yanking proposed bills, politician voting records, etc. The system needs to work on all levels of government and custom tailor its information so you only see information about your state/country/district/city's political banter. People also need to be accountable for their comments. When you approve a measure or proposition, that information should be able to generate a petition that can be handed over to a representative by a lobbyist. There should also be a way for political representatives ti respond to our opinions and defend their positions. In this way politics would become an open dialog between the people and their representatives. My friend is working on such a system. Its fully operational right now in Hawaii, but would need to be ported to other states. Check it out: TrustFreeDemocracy.com
Part of this is the mind set of the people. People need to and are beginning to take off their blue/red goggles and look at political issues as just that, issues. Kathleen Parker(The link is well worth reading), a conservative columnist, wins the trophy for creating a diverse less-partisan dialog and for exposing fascism in the minds of Republicans. She supported Paulin until her interviews show her Paulin had no substance to her message. She then asked Paulin to resign as vp candidate, and was subsequently sent death threats by her readers. She has since gone on a crusade to show her conservative viewers how Paulins language invokes racism, and hate in those who unconsciously harbor it. Her articles about Palin are more enlightening then any I've heard because she knows how her fans think. She was one of them.
Secondly, people need to begin a critical dialog where the opposition is listened to. For this to happen on a large scale,this requires a good discussion forum software. Slashdot.org, is a good example, and their framework is open source. They allow each person to rank each comment once, and then adjust what rank level they want to view. This allows people to quickly skim the "highlights" of a huge discussion and filters out the inevitable trolls. This does open up the possibility of squelching unpopular, but valuable opinions. I don't really know a good way to prevent that other then getting an audience where the majority is open minded (see first paragraph).
Thirdly, we need a way to convert our opinions directly into political action, without a PAC babysitting us, and picking and choosing which issues are "important." This system needs to be able to be integrated into any Internet interface you prefer, be it facebook, myspace, salon, livejournal, youtube, igoogle, etc. This system needs to also plug into the state legislature sites, yanking proposed bills, politician voting records, etc. The system needs to work on all levels of government and custom tailor its information so you only see information about your state/country/district/city's political banter. People also need to be accountable for their comments. When you approve a measure or proposition, that information should be able to generate a petition that can be handed over to a representative by a lobbyist. There should also be a way for political representatives ti respond to our opinions and defend their positions. In this way politics would become an open dialog between the people and their representatives. My friend is working on such a system. Its fully operational right now in Hawaii, but would need to be ported to other states. Check it out: TrustFreeDemocracy.com