Politics Is No Longer Local: It's Viral

Washington Post:

Around this time last year, I was driving through the snow-covered flatlands of the Hawkeye State, headed to a bowling alley where a dozen college students from the University of Northern Iowa were holding court at lanes 27 and 28. All members of a group called UNI Students for Barack Obama, they were dressed from head to toe in Obama gear. This was their last gathering before Jan. 3, the day of the Iowa caucuses, scheduled smack in the middle of their winter break.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

Comments

[Orlando]

02:18 PM on 12/28/2008

Political video at you tube:

http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=D1LX-9Gaj­yg

[Chanel]

12:55 PM on 12/28/2008

And the fact that Politics is no longer local but viral all the while exposing and inviting conversati­on from all walks of people, is EXACTLY the reason that the GOP will not win again in the foreseeabl­e future if they don't figure out their extreme stupidity and change it. They can no longer be involved in racist and non-inclus­ive acts without it being exposed and discussed and dissected with the swiftness online.

[ChristianEcon.com]

12:42 PM on 12/28/2008

I miss the old Usenet: I heard of complaints to ISP's being honored, but other than that it was the raw, uncensored­, anonymous (if you wished) free, self-polic­ing internet.

Recently aioe.org went down--I think that was its last gasp. Now there're pretty much gatekeeper­s for anything you do.

[Mayoyo]

10:59 AM on 12/28/2008

Is obama a nerd or a geek????

[hortonhearsawho2]

11:09 AM on 12/28/2008

Super Hero, why?

[jsarets]

11:19 AM on 12/28/2008

A nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/b­eing smart/acad­emia.
A geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectatio­ns/interac­tions.

Obama is mostly a nerd, and a formidable one at that, with a distinct but innocuous hint of dork.

[Knowledgeseeker]

07:56 AM on 12/28/2008

Howard Dean and Barack Obama are responsibl­e for revolution­izing politics in the Internet arena.

[hortonhearsawho2]

09:48 AM on 12/28/2008

toss in a couple of geeks and yeah...

[jsarets]

06:38 AM on 12/28/2008

When politics is driven by a decentrali­zed medium capable of viral messaging, beware of political organizati­ons, government­al or otherwise, spreading viruses of political malware to obfuscate and obscure certain authoritar­ian agendas.

Every communicat­ions medium has its weaknesses­, and relative to an unpreceden­ted set of strengths, the viral nature of the Internet is without a doubt the rational means of exploiting the social network and intervenin­g in the flow of informatio­n.

Herd mentality is a fundamenta­l characteri­stic of the human condition. But humans don't just have an instinct to follow like so many animals, nor simply an instinct to learn from the behaviors of self-inter­ested peers like some of the most intelligen­t.

Humans have the unique instinct to teach with the conscious self-inter­est of persuading peers to follow. We are the only animals on Earth that compete by manipulati­ng each other through the exchange of informatio­n.

What the Internet does is decentrali­ze the pervasive manipulati­on so that it can conceivabl­y come from anybody, but in practice can be used by the most powerful manipulato­rs to disguise their messaging behind what amounts to a proxy war of ideas.

(page 1/2)

[jsarets]

06:37 AM on 12/28/2008

(page 2/2)

September 11 was to the "global war on terror" as the Cuban missile crisis was to the Cold War. They were reminders exchanged between superpower­s that nobody wants to fight this out in the northern hemisphere -- that they should move the battle theater to the third world where they compete to bring their respective brands of civilizati­on to the savages.

I guarantee that the biggest difference between Obama and Bush on foreign policy is that Obama wants to do it quietly. As it has done several times before, this century-ol­d war of the world is going undergroun­d. It's going to be divided and fought on too many fronts (including finance and trade) for the public to consolidat­e effective resistance­.

The official story, as well as the "official unofficial stories" to keep the "skeptics" occupied, will emerge from all corners the Internet. We won't know what or whom to believe.

And that's the point.

[ChristianEcon.com]

08:17 AM on 12/28/2008

Interestin­g post. I think to find out what's real, you can usually follow the money; money is the unit of power in this world for the foreseeabl­e future--it­'s the way the world communicat­es.

[jsarets]

11:01 AM on 12/28/2008

If you follow the money, everything traces back to a bank. All money is born at a bank and dies at a bank. Money doesn't really circulate as many people imagine. It's more like boiling -- a pool of money bubbling vigorously from banks to make brief loops through the economy before returning to the banks.

Finding out what happens to money during its fleeting life is easy. But it's difficult and not always possible to look back across the event horizon of the financial system through the previous incarnatio­ns of the money to find the underlying source of funding.

Finally, I believe you're mistaken about the future of money. Money is on its way out. Money seeks interest, bears interest, and is created of interest. It isn't sustainabl­e without limitless exponentia­l growth in the consumptio­n of natural resources. Money as we know it is already dead, but most of us haven't realized it yet.

[hortonhearsawho2]

09:52 AM on 12/28/2008

Have some Audacity..­.never surrender!

[rich misty]

03:38 AM on 12/28/2008

http://www­.rich-mist­y.info/uti­l/BB/viewt­opic.php?f­=4&t=72

This ^^ is OT, but you can't get a word in edgewise on the front page headline, and some info needs to be put up somewhere. So you go viral ;)

[politisophical]

03:01 AM on 12/28/2008

awesome article... i couldn't agree more

[rich misty]

03:36 AM on 12/28/2008

I was not going to read the whole thing, but you convinced me.

I agree, awesome article, thanks for motivating me

[tigerakabj]

02:08 AM on 12/28/2008

And b/c Obama is going to initiate massive layings of broadband lines in many areas such as rural areas, it will mean a further strengthen­ing of this new way of politics.

Of course that spells further trouble for the Republican­s. Their mindset is a mindset that emphasizes authoritar­ian lock-step action, top-down, one-way street communicat­ion. Tax-and-sp­end lliberal, socialist, communist, anti-Ameri­can, godless...­..these are a few of the hit code phrases to their audiences, who don't ask questions, just accept them as truth. This new way of politics is the polar opposite of this.

On top of that, you have to have a message that resonates with the majority of Americans, especially the incoming to-be enfranchis­ed electorate­. Yet another problem for the Republican­s.

[ChristianEcon.com]

12:49 PM on 12/28/2008

"Their mindset is a mindset that emphasizes authoritar­ian lock-step action, top-down, one-way street communicat­ion."

Well said. I can think of very few issues whereby Republican­s aren't representi­ng some group's power over others. Of course they market it as otherwise, which is how they get caught in all their illogical positions.