Cory Doctorow Sez:
"The last twenty years were about technology. The next twenty
years are about policy. It's about realizing that all the really
hard problems -- free expression, copyright, due process, social
networking -- may have technical dimensions, but they aren't
technical problems. The next twenty years are about using our
technology to affirm, deny and rewrite our social contracts: all
the grandiose visions of e-democracy, universal access to
human knowledge and (God help us all) the Semantic Web, are
dependent on changes in the law, in the policy, in the sticky,
non-quantifiable elements of the world. We can't solve them
with technology: the best we can hope for is to use technology
to enable the human interaction that will solve them"
In Mother Jones Magazine Pulitzer Prize Winner Visionary
"Angels In America" Playwright Tony Kushner Sez:
"Anyone that the Democrats run against Bush, even the
appalling Joe Lieberman, should be a candidate around whom
every progressive person in the United States who cares about
the country's future and the future of the world rallies. Money
should be thrown at that candidate. And if Ralph Nader runs --
if the Green Party makes the terrible mistake of running a
presidential candidate -- don't give him your vote. Listen,
here's the thing about politics: It's not an expression of your
moral purity and your ethics and your probity and your fond
dreams of some utopian future. Progressive people constantly
fail to get this.
The GOP has developed a genius for falling into lockstep. They
didn't have it with Nixon, but they have it now. They line up
behind their candidate, grit their teeth, and help him win, no
matter who he is.
MJ: You're saying progressives are undone by their own
idealism?
TK: The system isn't about ideals. The country doesn't elect
great leaders. It elects fucked-up people who for reasons of
ego want to run the world. Then the citizenry makes them
become great."
Thanks To Scott Rosenberg
3:53:54 AM
