Futurama: Online Progressive Congress
02:00 PM Jan 15, 2006
That the Internets are changing communications and organizing
strategies devolved below the level of cliche sometime around the Iowa
caucuses two years ago. But even if mass e-mailing and
write-to-Congress pages are now standard-issue kits on the NGO
toolbelt, the continuing fecundation at the edges offers startling
glimpses of the altered world in which corn farmers two years hence
will assume their doubtful prerogative of annointing front-runners to
palliate the lacerations of the Bush presidency.
DemocracyInAction
is lucky enough to count among its members a communard salon's worth of
truly brilliant initiatives to redefine the ways people meet and
combine to shape their political world.
The Online Progressive Congress'
vote this past week to formally oppose the Alito nomination will
regrettably do nothing to nothing to hinder the elevation of a man
whose hearings broadcast the depth of his ideological enmity to most
any cause progressives hold dear.
But call it an early milepost in the gestation of a new online political phenomenon.
OPC
-- how can I explain it? "The Online Progressive Congress is a
prototype of what political parties can become in the age of the
Internet," says its About Us
page. It's an online community, still in beta mode, "with accountable
leadership and an engaged general membership" in which to define and
refine progressive strategies.
If that sounds at once ambiguous
and ambitious, surely it is. But it's rooted in a clear vision of the
untapped power of online interaction to achieve formal political
strength without forfeiting -- indeed, through the exercise of -- the
fluidity and decentralization that form the primary themes of
cyberspace's romantics. To what end? Will it really remake politics as we know? Who knows? But to paraphrase Dogma, you don't need a belief -- you just need a good idea. Heaven knows it could scarcely be worse, or less effectual, than the existing Progressive (sic) Congress.
One thing at least is certain: there's no Joe Biden in the Online Progressive Congress.
Get a glimpse of the future at www.progressivecongress.org.
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Мастер и маргарита
master — 07:10 AM May 01, 2010
Экранизация культового романа Михаила Булгакова «Мастер и Маргарита».business
podvall — 09:29 PM Dec 18, 2009
I've learned how to be a better person for sure. The desire to grow community is a strong motivator to staying ethical and honest at every turn. :)