Here's a memory: mid-October last year, weeks before Election Day. Blach Middle School, in leafy Los Altos, just a few miles from the headquarters of Apple, Google and Facebook in Silicon Valley. A new kind of tech-powered politics was cemented in my head.
Nearing the end of covering the historic 2008 presidential campaign for the Washington Post, a friend invited me to come speak to the school's 4th-period journalism class. Some 20 kids showed up. In a roomful of wide-eyed, curious, 7th and 8th graders -- most of whom had been reading about the never-ending campaign online -- young Naib Mian easily stood out. Seated in the back of the school library, the 13-year-old son of Pakistani immigrants raised his left hand and blurted out: "Have you downloaded Obama's new iPhone app?"
I had a BlackBerry.
The app, Naib told me and the whole class, offered up-to-the-minute local information on all the states. It was all Obama, all the time, he excitedly noted: what Obama did, where Obama was, how supporters can get involved. "It's all right here," the 8th grader said, pointing to his phone. He could touch politics because politics was just in his pocket. Not everyone, of course, can afford an iPhone. Not every kid, of course, is as engaged as Naib. But the feeling that politics needs to open itself up, to be more transparent and interactive, is lasting and goes beyond party affiliation, ethnic background or class status.
"I think it has to be a more connected relationship," Naib said almost a year later in a phone interview, speaking about how politics should change. "It's not, like, there's that leader, and, like, there's just as random citizens. There should be more connection, more openness."
Technology + Transparency = New Politics. In other words, technology allows for transparency which leads to a new kind of people-powered politics. Let's over-emphasize the "new." It's so new, in fact, that elected officials, politicians, big-moneyed consultants, the political reporting and punditry class -- everyone who makes politics seem more like a Broadway show, with the actors up on the stage and the citizens just passively watching -- still have to wrap their heads around it. This is a clear case of the people being ahead of its leaders. Because of the one-way nature of television, leaders have been trained to talk down to their constituents. But because of the two-way street that is the Internet, politicians must learn how to listen and engage the very people they're accountable for. Many pols have adapted, at least in the superficial sense. They blog. They create YouTube channels and Facebook fan pages. They drop Twitter in almost every other paragraph to sound and seem like they "get it."
But do they, really? What are the implications of this emerging ethos? Who are its leaders? How is it re-making official Washington and the federal government? What does it mean for the GOP -- who, with a few exceptions, have lagged behind the Democrats in harnessing the reach of the Internet and new technologies? What does it mean for minority groups who, because of the networked web, are growing beyond their grassroots base and building alliances?
Pam Spaulding, of the influential gay political blog Pam's House Blend, writes that understanding how emerging technologies can be used to promote activism has always been important to the LGBT community. "It was a necessity for a slice of the American public faced with few legal rights that faced hostility and violence just for being who they were," she explained.
GOP commentator Matt Lewis, a contributor to the popular Republican site TownHall.com, writes that "in politics, the outsiders -- not the establishment -- own passion." He's right. And with the Republicans out of power in the White House and Capitol Hill, they have more effectively used the Internet, especially Twitter, to get their message out and rally their supporters.
Craig Newmark, the founder of Craiglist, writes that a new generation of web-savvy and tech-oriented workers are in Washington, helping re-make the federal government for the digital generation. Highlighting sites such as Data.gov, Recovery.gov and Apps.gov, noted blogger (and blogging pioneer) Anil Dash declares the federal government "the most interesting start-up of 2009."
And the Sunlight Foundation's Ellen Miller, the leading doyenne of transparency in politics, writes that some members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, are genuinely adapting. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, for example, posts her daily schedule on her web site, which she started doing it while she was in the House.
So does your Congress member -- your House representative and senators -- get it?
Tell us why -- or why not -- at technology@huffingtonpost.com. HuffPostTech will feature your e-mails.
Ellen Miller: Congress' Tech-Oriented Growth Spurt
Three years ago, those using the Web for transparency likely registered around zero. But in the intervening years, Congress has adapted to the Internet at incredible speed.
David All: The GOP Rises Online
The GOP has surpassed the Democratic Party online -- just look at its innovative, direct media techniques responding to the president's first State of the Union address.
First of congratulations on this position with Huffington Post. Smart gal that Arianna, yea...??
Next, we knew there was a very good reason we're always impressed with Americans and your above post is one more reason to....
Refer: "This is a clear case of the people being ahead of its leaders. Because of the one-way nature of television, leaders have been trained to talk down to their constituents. But because of the two-way street that is the Internet, politicians must learn how to listen and engage the very people they're accountable for." And accountable ' To' as well. Absolutely. Always. And especially as we go into the 21st Century and try out ol'Democracy here too.
Let's hope the Internet stays strong, open and transparent, and our observations, ideas, opinions, etc., are not used against us.
Nice to know the future for our kids will be in so many good hands, here at Huff.
Thank you.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jose-antonio-vargas/technology-transparency-n_b_296357.html
with 40% energy capture efficiency at .30 cents a watt or equal to the cost per watt of coal based
energy. This change will user in a true new politics as for the first time energy will be largely available
to all without the complications of world energy-geo politics-for the first time in human history politics will
be decoupled from energy sources.
You can change the means of communication, but until and unless you change the end, none of it matters, and we will be back to where we began, and it won't matter if we are using our cell phones and computers or quills and parchment paper, the same result will inevitably come to pass
Every writer/blogger/photographer on the internet introduces his own bias into the news product. You can only attempt to control the bias, or as Wall Street reporters do, reveal it to the reader.
As aircraft increased in complexity, it was discovered that the human element constituted a weak point in the system. Manifesting itself as a pilot-overload condition. One way forward was to throttle the mass flow of information. And confine the presentation of data, to those components required by the human operator at any particular moment in time. Thereby enhancing human decision making ability.
Or put another way. It is difficult to decide on the optimum direction in which to swim. When being carried backwards by an endless torrent of interruptions.
The technology is available, to make all of this information and actions up to the minute available.
But it is not done. The data is edited, secreted away, even intentionally skewed and massaged. Taxpayers are charged for access to what they have already paid for to create.
It should be a basic all encompassing law that any data that is not a matter of relevant national security, or personal privacy, is available electronically at no charge, to any US citizen.
This should be the case in any country. The information already belongs to us.
The result of this dramatic development was nothing at all. 'New politics' in terms of Congress misses the point grandly; the blunt fact is the obsolete Congress has become an obstruction, not an asset. Its existence allows profound corruption that could be eliminated.
If you are not thinking about structural reform you are wasting your time and energy.
Transparency is simply seeing/hearing what is being done. No technology is required.
Technology is MORE OFTEN used to OBSCURE/HIDE. Sure it can disseminate, but that technology is called a "printing press" or a TV newscast. Not new at all.
1+ (-1) = 0
New Politics = Null
Therefore:
Transparancy = Politics + Technology + Informed Classes/Culture + (Access to Technology)
More so than ever before (except maybe when we lived in tiny isolated villages), we have the ability to get almost all of our information and sensory input from a strictly narrow set of sources. If I lean left, I can check my Obama iPhone app, read the Huffington Post, and watch Olbermann and the Daily Show. If I lean right, I can go to Townhall.com, listen to AM radio, and watch Fox News. This exponentially increases the likelihood that I can go days or weeks at a time without encountering an idea that disagrees with my programmed prejudice. Truth becomes very limited.
This is, as our current climate demonstrates, a very dangerous trend for our country and our culture.
I do wonder about if there would be a market for a truly non-partisan information service, or if that is even really possible.
The problem also lies in that truth is sometimes ignored on one issue because of some allegiance to a party or ideology. Instead of seeking truth we only seek truth that reaffirms our current beliefs.
Literally, a nonpartisan loudspeaker. As in, you park it somewhere, turn it on, and people hear it - preferably with no option to not listen to it other than leaving the area.
Think of it like a Brinks truck with a big megaphone strapped to it, just driving around like the ice cream man.