There Is No Plan

There’s nothing the social media and tech mavens like doing more than talking up social media and its influence.

In Iran, that influence turned out to be overplayed, and the ‘Green Revolution’ fizzled out. But in Tunisia and Egypt, it seems like it did indeed play a major organizational role, at least in catalyzing the original clashes. The Iranian police state proved itself much more adept at manipulating social media for its own ends. Plus it had the added advantage of dealing with a rebellion that was bourgeois in origin. The Egyptian riots seem to have a far wider social base, which may prove to be crucial. It’s interesting to note that in both Tunisia and Egypt, satellite cities away from the capital played a big role in fomenting the rebellion.

But regardless of the social pattern, it’s clear to Thereisnoplan that the internet is a crucial part of the equation in Egypt, which explains why it was cut off. Washington has been watching closely, but I’m guessing that Beijing has been taking note too.

China has overheated its economy pretty nicely. A real estate bubble, a more educated, and connected population with vastly increased expectations, inflation levels near the tipping point, and a depressed international consumer economy are adding real pressure for political change. And while China’s conciliatory approach to human rights and democratic change is probably just talk, unlike their distaste for the current Nobel Peace Prize recipient – they’re getting closer and closer to a time when concrete decisions will have to be made. Read the rest of this entry »

accountability, shmaccountability. just make the damn plan work already

I’m a huge fan of accountability, I think it’s great. But government is a big place. The idea of opening up all government business to accessible public scrutiny adds little value. It will only create confusion. Sifting through and understanding the data remains the key, and guess who’s going to be able to do that. The same people who knew how to access the information before it was put on recovery.gov. In short, it’s 10% useful, 10% public relations, and 80% window dressing.

Accountability to the public has its place. And that place is called democracy. Every two years we get to hold our legislators accountable and every four years the President and his party gets the same treatment. It’s not a great system but it kind of works.  The dirty little secret is this. Too much ‘demos’ in democracy is not necessarily a good thing. In fact, in these perilous times when leadership has never been more important, it might actually spell disaster at precisely the wrong moment in our history.