Street communities are the purest and most rewarding form of democracy was the placid conclusion reached at the Berkeley Cybersalon on "Politics 101 Meets Web 2.0" with a few folks from hi-tech companies doing programs to support democracy, such as PhoneDemocracy.com, RBlock.com, and Maplight.com. Being a Berkeley crowd, there wasn't a Republican or even a Liberatarian in shooting distance, but someone from the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club provided a welcome analog counterpoint to the netroots wetdream.
Jack Kurzweil, from Wellstone, asked a critical question: "How can we get people who don't vote interested in voting, and hence attain true democracy?"
Although one can use the Internet to find people who do vote, it's not easy to find out who didn't. Thus, the disenfranchised -- who might not even have computer access -- can't be reached by the likes of Moveon.org and Daily Kos. Someone suggested test messaging and ringing up folks with cell phones, which might work for young people.
Someone complained about how netroots orgs like Moveon.org raised money to buy advertisements that feed back into mainstream media magnates, who spend oodles of cash to buy politicians and therefore perpetuate the plutocracy-democracy we have. Another person -- a military brat -- complained about Moveon's placement of the General Betray Us ad in the NY Times that was censured by the U.S. Senate last week, but others felt it was worth the money for all the ruckus it raised.
The entire Cybersalon was conducted in a democratic fashion and maybe that's why it seemed so mediocre. Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture, and Alexis de Toqueville, who wrote that American democracy produced a culture of mediocracy, might have a point.
I think the next Cybersalon will return to a participatory dictatorship of experts.
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