From John Palfrey this morning:
Are citizens really re-engaged in the political process? And if so,
what would a president elected by a citizen-powered groundswell do once
elected to govern in a manner consistent with how s/he was elected?
Participate in a discussion ongoing here;
it’s free and experimental and it’s only going to work if lots of
us dig in. You’ll just have to sign up with a simple form, join the project
called “Internet and Society” and reply to the question posted by Jim
Moore and Kelly Nuxoll. (We at the Berkman Center don’t support any
candidate, but we do support citizen engagement in the political
process using Internet technologies.)
This is an opportunity for YOU personally right now this day–yes you Steve, Ingrid, Ralph, Sherry, Dave, Yossi–to participate in a very significant experiment in
online presidential policy making. The Berkman Center for
Internet & Society and the Howard Dean campaign invite you to an
online policy discussion in the Harvard Law School/Berkman Center
developed “H2O” format. This is not your father’s Oldsmobile online
discussion. The way this one works, you are invited to respond at
some length, and your piece is then circulated to another participant
for her or his comment. You are assured at least one thoughtful
reader before your piece is posted. Reciprocally, you will be
send, by email, a different reader’s essay, and asked to comment on
it. The result is a building dialogue that emphasizes
peer-to-peer connections and community-building, as well as public
posting of ideas.
The actual question being considered is posed in Socratic form, and
puts you in the hypothetical position of a newly elected president.
The question speaks for itself (I hope–Kelly Nuxoll and I wrote it),
but here is something to mull over:
Perhaps Howard Dean is not
running for the same presidency as George Bush. That is, perhaps
in an era of online communication, combined with grassroots community
organizing, we need a new form of presidency that itself encourages
more peer-to-peer problem solving across our society. Perhaps we
need a movement to reverse the consolidation of presidential and
legislative and judicial power at the center, because this
consolidation of power makes it harder for the society to solve its
most critical problems.
