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Web Debate as Self-Obsessed Point-Scoring Internet | The problem with much Internet debate: “What is striking is that few of the comments really engage with the piece they are supposedly commenting on. Instead, most commentators just engage with each other, often with a viciousness that takes your breath away.” It’s narrow, insular point-scoring rather than a reflective exchange of ideas that might inform a wider audience, an essay says. [Open Democracy]

La nouvelle écologie politique

Open democracy – 09/01 The politics of ME, ME, ME, Keith Kahn-Harris David Hayes

So starting out on the pathway to enlightenment, which is less dark than totality but less light then the brightness of the sun doth shining upon solar reflecting mirrors, I put my ignorance to work for me and found the first name that I would never, ever think of when looking at Kenya. Really, there is no one I expected less to show up than Dick Morris (via opendemocracy.net). Mr. Schmoozer showing up in Kenya? WTF?But, when Raila Odinga, the man who lost the election folks think he should have won, was looked at

G20's world: join a group read , Tony Curzon Price $(".sort").hide();                     opendemocracy.net 21 hrs ago 62 related          The G20 communique from their November 15th Washington meeting isreproduced below. Join me in doing a group read/comment of the text. Isit what we need from our leaders? Are the principles right? What ismissing? What does it mean? To join in, follow these steps: 1) get a diigo account 2) join the oD-G20-communique group 3) start using diigo to add notes and comments to any part of the text below. I recommend you do this either through the diigolet functionality, or, my preferred option, through installing the diigo toolbar. When viewing the communique, select "View Comments" from the diigolet button or the toolbar to see what is being said or asked about the document. When viewing the communique, select "View Comments" from the diigolet button or the toolbar to see what is being said or asked about the document. ======== 1.... [read full story]                     Add Comment There are also 62 related articles View all news articles about*:

If this idea is right (and it makes sense to me, what I understand of it at least), then e-participation must be at the heart of this redistribution of power around the new (information) technologies. The trick is to understand the shape of the new power arrangements and design the e-participation system to match.

On http://www.opendemocracy.net, in "From Zittrain to Aristotle in 600 Words" Tony Curzon Price sums up Zittrain's "communitarian" position from a recent presentation as: In the cyber-world, each web-site with a community around it becomes its own polis, and it is life in the polis that makes virtue and fulfillment possible. http://www.opendemocracy.net/blog/tony_curzon_price/from_zittrain_to_ari... The thing that confuses me is that Zittrain's categories (for example in the image and text on Tony Curzon Price's site) are all jumbled. He uses tired useless terms like left and right as well as bottom-up and top-down. While he does describe both bottom-up and top-down hierarchies, he also speaks of bottom-up and top-down polyarchies, which is simply nonsensical because polyarchies are peer-to-peer and have no top or bottom at all. This is not his fault, it simply serves to demonstrate why political theory has yet to get its collective head around the emergent complex global system.

Head to a rural village and pull out a camera to take pictures of children and see how many show up. This photo by OpenDemocracy reminds me of my own experiences. It's a swarm. For an excellent film that shows what a rural school is like in China, check out Not One Less. It's about a 13-year-old girl who reluctantly becomes the teacher of a one-room school when the teacher has to leave for some reason.

Honesty about 1968 I was ten getting on for eleven in 1968 and the big event for me in May of that year was Cardiff City playing SV Hamburg in the European Cup-Winners Cup semi-final. So it's good to read some sober and honest analysis of that year from Fred Halliday rather than the over-rated nostalgia on offer from many of the superannuated ultras. Posted by Leighton Andrews on Thursday, June 19, 2008 0 comments

These two examples just scratch the surface of the boycott battles that took place in China's Year of the Olympics and are occurring again during 2009, its Year of Anniversaries. Thinking about this range of dizhi duels inspired me to write a piece on dizhi of various sorts of boycotts playing out in and affecting China, past and present, for the excellent British openDemocracy website, which has carried some of the best online coverage of recent PRC developments, ranging from the Tibetan unrest of last spring to the circulation of a dissident manifesto known as "Charter 08". Here's an excerpt from that piece, which opens with references to some Chinese intellectuals calling for a boycotting of PRC state television (to draw attention to the distortions and lies that it broadcasts) and one Beijing law school calling on its students to dizhi Charter 08. I'm offering up an excerpt from that piece here for two reasons: I'm hoping that doing so will provide some context for readers of this site as tey think about the latest news from the PRC and prepare for stories likely to come out of China later this year; and that doing so will encourage some readers of this blog who aren't yet aware of openDemocracy to bookmark that site as well as the Huffington Post: