I have always suspected the notion blogging will lead us into a wonderful future of ‘participatory democracy’ was one of those ideas which withers away to nothing under closer scrutiny. Sure, we can ‘fact check the asses’ (as Ken Layne put it) of the established political/media classes but that only makes us bloggers ‘participants’ in the sense that calling the cops when the party next door is making too much noise makes you a ‘participant’ in the next door’s party.
heh. i like that image of bloggers as raining on the parade of the powers that be’s noisy party. i do not just want to see their asses fact-checked, i want to see them kicked!
Here you go, Panda:
Journalists Reveal Ignorance, Inaccuracy
I still think it will, but very slowly. Watch the Adam Smith idea about lifelong earnings, taxes, and direct gov’t benefits. Also watch more discussion against “corruption”. In fact, the corruption of wanting to use Other People’s Money, is the heart of the problem of democratic taxation.
First, make it more transparent when it IS other people’s money. This is slowly happening.
Second, offer alternative user fees for services. Libs could do better, I think, by showing how private retirement savings can do a better job in retirement, for most folk, than gov’t ponzi schemes.
Or how colleges could be funded by peaceful loans, rather than gov’t. Blogging, as part of transparency, can become important. Imagine every elected official having a “blogger” write every day on what they did.