Sunday, November 19, 2006

Bloggers' truth making my job harder!


"Tony Blair's outgoing chief strategy adviser fears the internet could be fuelling a "crisis" in the relationship between politicians and voters.

Matthew Taylor - who stressed he was speaking as a "citizen" not a government spokesman - said the web could be "fantastic" for democracy. "

Link to article here at the BBC

"We have a citizenry which can be caricatured as being increasingly unwilling to be governed but not yet capable of self-government," Mr Taylor told the audience.

Like "teenagers", people were demanding, but "conflicted" about what they actually wanted, he argued.

"They wanted sustainability, for example, but not higher fuel prices, affordable homes for their children but not new housing developments in their town or village.

'Impoverished relationship'

But rather than work out these dilemmas in partnership with their elected leaders, they were encouraged to regard all politicians as corrupt or "mendacious" by the media, which he described as "a conspiracy to maintain the population in a perpetual state of self-righteous rage".

Maybe if we were all deviod of our own thoughts

"Whether media was left wing or right wing, the message was always that "leaders are out there to shaft you".

Right on the money there Matt

"At a time at which we need a richer relationship between politicians and citizens than we have ever had, to confront the shared challenges we face, arguably we have a more impoverished relationship between politicians and citizens than we have ever had.

"It seems to me this is something which is worth calling a crisis....

The internet is part of that crisis".

"The internet has immense potential but we face a real problem if the main way in which that potential expresses itself is through allowing citizens to participate in a shrill discourse of demands."

Yes exposing truth is way off the mark on our part.

"If you look at the way in which citizens are using technology and the way that is growing up, there are worrying signs that that is the case.

What is the big breakthrough, in terms of politics, on the web in the last few years? It's basically blogs which are, generally speaking, hostile and, generally speaking, basically see their job as every day exposing how venal, stupid, mendacious politicians are."

Incredible isn't it. Instead of taking notes on points of view from unbiased sources it is spun out in the form of an attack on individual expression. Now the political circus act fears there's a breakdown between the electorate and themselves because unaccountable blogging that isn't bought or regulated by them can't be controlled.

There always was but thick skin and obnoxious attitudes ignored it. If Matthew Taylor, Blair's chief strategy adviser wants positive points lets see positive acts.
It's impossible to go back. You can't undo what is done and the mistakes made should be made more public and scrutinized. Our problem is not knowing where to start. There's ream of this stuff to pick at and that's exactly what we'll do.

"The internet is being used as a tool of mobilisation, which is fantastic, but it only adds to the growing, incommensurate nature of the demands being made on government."

Demands for politicians to listen and do a job without all the bullshit, spin, corruption and propaganda?

He challenged the online community to provide more opportunities for "people to try to understand the real trade-offs that politicians face and the real dilemmas that citizens face".
Get of your pedestals and realise your supposed to be doing a job for us, the people not citizens in a grade or tier system similar to something resembling George Orwel's Animal Farm against a hierarchy, and face up to the fact we can now have an honest debate on how if you, and you have screwed it up we can take that away.

We won't ignore the problems created, side step around it and pretend it never happened no matter what force is applied to brush it under the carpet. Blogs are here to stay and the more greedy politicians get, their mistakes and wrongdoings become evermore transparent feeding us, the bloggers with more than we could ever write about.

R