Blogs and Political Reform

One might require a Ford Foundation grant to convincingly address the following question: What effect is the blogosphere (and alternate media in general) having on the prospects for genuine, organized political reform? Unfortunately, as I have no such resources at my disposal, I must try to come to some sort of conclusion based on nothing more than my own humble observations.

Empirically, after being immersed in the world of blogs of various kinds for some number of years now, my present view is that, at least where political action is concerned, the blogosphere may be doing, at best, only a small amount in assisting the winds of change. Simply, if not necessarily simplistically, put, despite the wide array of excellent blogs covering numerous areas vital to public life, my sense is that the many impassioned, well wrought, and sometimes even brilliant electronic scribbling that can be found on the blogosphere is not demonstrating the capacity to act as much of propulsive force for genuine, organized, political change.

Perhaps I shouldn't expect the blogosphere to have anything like the potential I would like it to have, and, yet, I am still disappointed in what I sense is, for the most part, a collective waste of energy coming from that part of the blogoshpere that seems to desire having a very different set of values in place informing our politics. Then, of course, perhaps my premise is wrong, and some nascent, ready to turn the established order on its head movement- though not the Teaparty- is, as I write, coalescing as a result of a few inspired blogs. Unfortunately, instead, my sense is that much of the energy that might be dedicated to the sort of action I have in mind is instead being spent dissecting, analyzing, and sometimes just plain fulminating against the established political order.

These are all laudable pursuits, even fulminating can, at least to some modest degree, be defended as useful, but, at the same time, I feel that, for good reasons, the forum that blogs provide overwhelmingly tend to dissipate the energies of their collective readership.

In the meantime, the established order, at least where the economy is concerned, seems to be in a well evolved state of epic upheaval, and if that perception is indeed accurate, history tells us that ineluctably the political sphere will soon experience its own brand of foundational tumult.

And while I'm quite prepared to give some unspecified sum of credit to the blogosphere for helping to assist change in the hearts and minds of some number of the populace, it seems to me that whatever effect the blogosphere is having as an agent of change, amounts to, at best, an engine for ad hoc responses to the dismal political status quo.

Election Day

The quality of the following correspondence should be self explanatory. See if you can spot the problem.

Hi Mr._____

I wanted to let you know that the Senator did not vote for this legislation, HR 3808, rather it passed by unanimous consent. This means that no one objected to the bill but individual records of each Senator’s position were not kept. Thankyou for writing in.

Sincerely,
Derek Khanna (on behalf of Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts)


Hello Derek,

Thank you for responding. I am aware that The Senate's was a voice vote, and for the purpose of clarification, when you wrote, "no one objected to the bill", were you saying that Mr. Brown voiced no objection to what is, in my view, a very objectionable bill? If so, saying Senator Brown did not "vote" for the legislation would seem to be technically true, but, rather something else in reality. Please advise.

Regards,

Edwardo

From Derek Khanna:

No one objected to the legislation. A large amount of legislation is done on the floor, often without physical quorum, through a unanimous consent vote. This means that unless someone objects it passes. Senator Brown did not object. He did not vote for or against the legislation.

I understand your concern for the legislation, it was vetoed by President Obama.

From me:

It was "pocket vetoed" by the President, which is a qualitatively different act, and I now have, for all intents and purposes, my answer. I am disappointed that Senator Brown did not voice a strenuous objection to a bill whose intent was an end run around proper legal process.

I made the same query concerning HR 3808 to Senator John Kerry's office and have yet to receive a reply. On that basis, and that alone, so far, the office of Senator Brown has the edge on his Democrat colleague. Finally, a vote where no one can be said to have either voted for or against a piece of legislation that ultimately passes is evidence of a deeply, not to say fatally flawed, system. I know what I won't be doing next Tuesday.

Mourning in America

I believe we have well and truly reached the end of the line fellow citizens. It may not be apparent, as the full effects of our utterly rotten system's imminent failure have yet to fully manifest, however, little patience will be required going forward as things are fast reaching the breaking point. I'm prompted to say as much based on the appallingly insufficient official response- save for a select (and mostly feckless) few- to the cataclysmic mortgage fraud scandal.

That, in itself, doesn't surprise me. I would be far more surprised, shocked, really, were the Legislative and Executive branches of government seen to be swinging into action on all fronts, enacting a full court press to thoroughly and judiciously deal with this epic sized sordid affair. But how could they? They are in so deep with all the financial system's perfidy it would be like turning evidence against themselves, which is why I assert that the U.S. Federal government, well, at least two of the three branches, but, probably, “upon review” the judiciary as well, deserves to be impeached, and some substantial portion of its number, a group that includes many high ranking officials, subsequently ought to be vigorously prosecuted for criminal misconduct.

If anyone can tell me by what contortions the Executive and Legislative branches of the Federal government-branches peopled by officials who, in the main, systematically subvert, deny, and/or obstruct justice- possess any legitimacy, please drop me a line.

Mortgagteocalypse.

An obscure mom and pop forecasting outfit by the name of Half Past Human has marked the period between November 8th and the 12th as coinciding with a tipping point whose effects will exceed, by several orders of magnitude, those associated with 9/11/01. And while I hate to tempt fate, HPH, at least by my runes, is a decidedly more miss than hit outfit from the standpoint that not only do they forecast more events that don't occur then do, but the ill effects from some of their more dire calls have been, as yet, with very few exceptions, far less heinous than prognosticated. Having said that, they have made two spectacularly correct calls which are 9/11 and the recent- well, ongoing- Gulf of Mexico catastrophe.

Presently, were I of a mind to nominate a prime catalyst for the putative tipping point, I'd vote for, or bet on, the epic mortgage fraud debacle that's presently unfolding, because, a cursory review of relevant blogs-don't waste your time looking to the MSM to get the skinny on this one- makes it readily apparent that we aren't looking at the emergence of the next black swan, but, rather, the arrival of an enormous flock or three of- desperate to copiously and messily crap anywhere and everywhere- black swans.

In the meantime, as we anticipate how this all shakes out, I feel supremely confident in asserting that attempts by the boundlessly vile Obama Administration to cover up and/or forestall the fall out from this festering cancer meets septicemia meets gangrene of a legal, financial, economic, political, and social (have I left anything out?) calamity will only compound our nation's grave predicament.

UFOs

Are we the only ones in the Universe? If not, are other intelligent life forms checking us out? I have no idea, but I'm biased to think there are other intelligent life forms in the universe that, for whatever reasons, have a keen interest in what goes on here on planet Earth. One is especially persuaded that this is the case when officials offer denials and excuses such as this. After all, what sort of government and/or military would choose not to alert the operators of a commercial airport beforehand that there would be activity in the area? It's simply not credible that A.) they forgot or B.) chose not to. It's simply not done for, what should be, obvious reasons. This is especially the case if one wants to appear credible when issuing after the fact denials about alleged UFO activity. Had the military informed local civilian authorities beforehand about planned maneuvers, one would be much more inclined to accept that the odd looking bright lights in the sky were, indeed, part of a military exercise and not the arrival of ETs.

Rahm Fiddles...

President Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, has resigned his post to seek the mayoralty of his hometown, Chicago, which is arguably the most corrupt city in the U.S. Somehow this seems only fitting. Apparently it was a touching and fond farewell as Mr. Emanuel shed a tear or two during his send off, quite possibly at the precise moment the President of The United States proclaimed that:

"We could not have accomplished what we've accomplished without Rahm's leadership."

This, of course, begs the question, what exactly do they think they've accomplished? It also makes one ask what they have, in fact, achieved? From where I sit, The Obama Administration have been excellent stewards of entirely too much of the agenda of the last President. You remember him, the one who was supposed to be the worst President in living memory, if not the most dreadful Commander-in-Chief ever. Well, there really isn't any point in ever trying to determine who is worst between dreadful and ghastly. This is especially the case when our two party system, which does little but front for what remains of the FIRE economy, has an octopus like stranglehold on the nation's business, as it were. Still, it is instructive, if not particularly appetizing, to keep a scorecard on just exactly what the combined governmental vampire squid-with apologies to Matt Taibbi- has managed to accomplish. Do write in and tell me what you think they've accomplished, especially if it's different than what I have only vaguely alluded to in this post.