Excuse a "meta" post before we get back to the bankruptcy action. It's been a pretty active day - this weblog didn't exist a few days ago, and today it was mentioned live on two cable tv shows and a radio show (that I know of). I don't even have blogads up yet.
There's been an odd pulse to this bankruptcy issue. There's been a bit of swagger and confidence lately in the blogosphere because of all the coverage of Rather, Guckert, and Eason. I don't exactly think it was about overconfidence, but realizing that the blogosphere kind of missed the boat on the Senate bankruptcy vote elicited a collective feeling that ran counter to that swagger. It didn't jibe.
And I think it just bugged a lot of us. Others have written about why we didn't affect the process as much as we think we could have. My own theory is that thus far, the blogosphere has a lot of the same qualities as the open source community. It's the sexy things that get the attention. Programmers will write fancy desktop software for free no problem. But they haven't come up with open source tax software.
The bankruptcy bill just wasn't sexy. It took us a while to look at it voluntarily. It was civic duty alone that revved us up, and it took us a while to get around to it.
I think there's some collective realizations to be made here. First is that the blogosphere is, in a sense, representatives of the public. We are the citizens that somehow, as a group, can get Congress's ear without having to go through a PAC. We're elected by our readers, and the elected positions we hold change all the time as our popularity rises and ebbs. It's very much the kind of "emergent democracy" that Joi Ito writes about all the time.
And, the second - again, just my opinion - is that this isn't as free a game as it first seems. It's not as simple as just choosing to focus on what we want to focus on. Make fun of me for alluding to Spider-Man, but we manage to gain a bit of power, and with that power comes responsibility. There's a civic duty we have to keep tabs and do research, on behalf of others. We have some responsibility to protect the public's interest, and in cases like the bankruptcy bill, we're more trusted than Congress. I think knowing this helps explain why there's been such appetite to form a coalition, even while we hurl so much poison at each other on other days.
It's of course impossible to force or create a direction towards which the entire blogosphere will flow, but I wonder if we'll be seeing more of a push to identify more blogs that are guardians of the public trust for particular issues, or more blog-funded nonpartisan research. There's a lot of different possible forms, but the point is that if there is a growing recognition that: Congress isn't there for the public, that someone has to be, and that blogs can be... then, that demand will be met somehow. I imagine we'll be seeing cross-blogosphere coalitions more often.
This weblog will continue to be about the intersection of politics and technology, which will often involve nonpartisan subjects, of interest to both (all) sides of the political blogosphere. I invite you to check in regularly.
Posted by tunesmith at March 10, 2005 07:32 PM
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://politology.us/mt/zxcv.cgi/12
I don't think we should give up yet. There's a hope that if we could organize an action in Washington sometime before next month when the House will get the bill, we can perhaps force BushCo to veto it. At the very very very least, we'll be able to embarrass him when he signs it. I say we work for that goal. The Senate vote is just the catalyst we need to make the story a big one.
Any hope of getting the A-list blogs on board with some sustained action?
Posted by: eRobin at March 11, 2005 09:06 AM
Hi All,
Even before the bankruptcy bill, even before the recent information that left and right bloggers form two distinct and mainly non-connecting entities, some of us were realising that multi-partisan blogging coalitions were a good thing.
I am a member of a one such fledgling coalition, the Unpaid Punditry Corps. We co-operate to promote dialogue between left and right because partisan blogging isn't the way politics works - it's the way politics fails.
If anyone reading this is a blogger, check out the UPC hub site for more on who we are and what we want to do...then drop us a line if you are interested.
Regards, Cernig
Posted by: Cernig at March 11, 2005 11:28 AM
Nevada is 4th in the nation on the Household's per filing list.
The Bankruptcy bill was the easiest fight the Democrats could have.
Joe Lieberman and Chris Dodd voted NO.
By voting yes, Harry Reid, has enabled any Democrat who voted yes to say "I was just followin' orders from the boss."
Dick Durbin (minority whip) voted NO.
Grassroots from BOTH PARTIES hated this bill.
This bill disenfranchises those whom the Democrats BY DEFINITION should be defending, the poor and misfortunate.
By voting yes on this bill Harry Reid has slapped any and all pregressive democrats in the face.
However, look around the left side of the blogosphere... Silence. Crickets. Nothing from the so called crusaders for justice.
Ignoring this vote is toeing the line.
Shame on you all.
Posted by: media in trouble at March 11, 2005 11:38 AM
we're more trusted than Congress.
Ummm, I hate to tell you, but your neighbor's four year old is more trusted than Congress. After it found it's way into the Scotch bottle.
Moral Bankruptcy.
Yes, exactly. The Moral Bankruptcy Bill.
Posted by: justme at March 11, 2005 06:28 PM
FYI, www.cursor.org linked to Politology, and the Dkos diary, today in their middle column and commented on the coalition efforts.
Posted by: Marisacat at March 11, 2005 09:00 PM
Glad to see a new blog open up. Maybe you can make sense of these items.
Item: The Week (sort of a Reader's Digest for politics) reports that in 2004, after-tax US corporate profits were the highest in 75 years, relative to GNP.
Item: The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities reports that after-tax personal income for the top 1% bracket increased 133% from 1979 to 2004 or so. Other brackets, including the lowest 5%, improved about 12% during the same 25 years.
Item: From my own local newspaper, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources announced new fees for all park visitors in the state. Local residents seeking a little cheap sunshine and water sports at the local reservoir will now have to pay a minimum of $5 or $6 just to enter the park.
Item: From the same newspaper, the Springfield City Schools may face receivership as an operating bond levy fails. The State of Ohio will take over the schools if the local school board cannot devise a plan for operating the school system within its current, reduced budget.
Budget shortfalls resulting from reduced federal support have shifted the burden of financing many government operations--from county services to public education--to local taxpayers who, by and large, don't believe their reduced federal taxes (?) should be spent paying for the higher cost of local and state services.
Add to this the 40% loss of manufacturing jobs in the state of Ohio since 2000, and the apparent inability of the state legislature to find a fair method of financing public schools statewide, and we've got what you might call 'a fine kettle of fish'.
Does anything here make some sort of sense?
Thirty years of reduced or stagnant real income for most Americans? Thirty years of rising incomes for rich individuals? The highest level of post-tax corporate profits in 75 years? Reduced and falling manufacturing employment in what used to be an industrial powerhouse?
And a bankruptcy rate that beats all but 7 other states in the nation? Ohio has 1 bankruptcy in about 53 households, ranking 8th in the country.
And our Senators vote for the worst piece of legislation since the Patriot Act. God bless the GOP, a wellspring of compassion for the unfortunate.
Posted by: Jon Koppenhoefer at March 11, 2005 11:47 PM
Someone wrote the Bankruptcy Reform should be about right and wrong, not right or left. They are correct, however, the make it about right or left. The facts are that only 20% of the debt of those that declare bankruptcy is related to credit card expenditures. The remainder is related to ie medical bills, car payments, or child support.
These individuals should be subjected to a means test to determine what they cann and can't pay. Those that have spent irresponsibly and purposely for non essentials should be held to the contract they accepted in the beginning.
Those that purposely run up credit card expenditures with no intention from the beginning to pay this debt and to declare bankruptcy should not be relieved. This is not hard to determine.
The reason is because hard working citizens like myself that pay debts in full and use credit respsonsibly are subsidizing the cost to these companies that are duped by "customers" that exercise their free ride with this loophole. Honest people pay the shortfall from bankruptcies through higher fees and interest rates because of this blatant misuse of the law.
I have no problems with footing a part of the bill for those that are truly strapped and cash poor for reasons that are driven by a desire to help their family, maintain their health, or enrich their mind and life. This can be determined and now it will be.
I have the same view with bankruptcies as I do with abortion, they should be rare. Education is the key to accomplish this feat and using our federal budget dollars to promote programs to teaching individuals at a young age to properly manage credit will be better for all of us financially. There are more of us out there than just the credit card companies that are poised to benefit from this new law. And it's just common sense.
Posted by: spikemencer at March 14, 2005 07:32 AM
I can understand common enemies of the blogosphere can find common ground on the bankruptcy bill. It's because this issue is not about Right and Left. It's about Right and Wrong.
Anyone who voted for this bill was clearly supporting Moral Bankruptcy.
If people are so busy appeasing the lobbying groups who they believe helped to get them their jobs, that the forgot how to do their jobs, they don't deserve to have their jobs.
Come primary season, and we are entering spring training even as we post, we, on the Left and the Right, will be shopping for some new employees.
Posted by: CL Morris at March 10, 2005 11:17 PM