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davidn3600

(6,342 posts)
Mon Apr 22, 2013, 03:07 AM Apr 2013

The End of Government as we know it

A year ago, I wrote about the decline of American institutions through the eyes of Johnny Whitmire, an unemployed construction worker, who lost his home due to systematic failures of his bank and employers as well as city, state and federal governments. “You can’t trust anybody or anything anymore,” Whitmire said, standing outside the $40,000 home he ceded to his mortgage company.

In a new book, “The End of Big: How the Internet Makes David the New Goliath,” author Nicco Mele argues that such cynicism is not only warranted, it’s the inevitable result of social and political changes wrought by what he calls “radical connectivity.”

That is, our ability to send vast amounts of data instantly, constantly and globally -- breathtaking new tools that “empower the individual at the expense of existing institutions and ancient social structures.” These include government, businesses, entertainment, military, schools, media, religion and other big institutions designed to protect and sustain people like Whitmire.

“Our institutions have in fact failed us,” writes Mele, a Harvard Kennedy School faculty member and technology expert who worked for both Howard Dean and Barack Obama.

In a must-read for political and policy junkies as well as futurists, Mele argues that the Democratic and Republican parties must urgently embrace the bottom-up ethos of radical connectivity -- or perish. He also says arguments over the size of government are outdated, because the real question is how we redefine governing for the digital age.


Interesting article...
http://news.yahoo.com/end-government-know-210002737--politics.html
4 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
The End of Government as we know it (Original Post) davidn3600 Apr 2013 OP
Why was it canceled? jakeXT Apr 2013 #1
The Fate That Awaits Many Of Us - The Right Wing Stokes These Fears Daily cantbeserious Apr 2013 #3
"empower the individual at the expense of existing institutions and ancient social structures" = HiPointDem Apr 2013 #2
We now live in exponential times, chervilant Apr 2013 #4

jakeXT

(10,575 posts)
1. Why was it canceled?
Mon Apr 22, 2013, 04:31 AM
Apr 2013
They applied for a trial loan-modification through an Obama administration program, and when it was granted, their monthly bill fell to $473.87. But, like nearly a million others, the modification was canceled. After charging the lower rate for three months, their mortgage lender reinstated the higher fee and billed the family $1,878.88 in back payments. Whitmire didn't have that kind of cash and couldn't get it, so he and his wife filed for bankruptcy. His attorney advised him to live in the house until the bank foreclosed, but "I don't believe in a free lunch," Whitmire says. He moved out, leaving the keys on the kitchen table. "I thought the bank should have them."

A year later, City Hall sent him salt for his wounds: a $300 citation for tall grass at 1900 W. 10th St. Telling the story, he swipes dried grass from his jeans and shakes his head. "The city dinged me for tall weeds at my bank's house." After another pull from the water bottle, Whitmire kicks a steel-toed boot into the ground he once owned. "You can't trust anybody or anything anymore."

Whitmire is an angry man. He is among a group of voters most skeptical of President Obama: non-college-educated white males. He feels betrayed -- not just by Obama, who won his vote in 2008, but by the institutions that were supposed to protect him: his state, which laid off his wife; his government in Washington, which couldn't rescue homeowners who had played by the rules; his bank, which failed to walk him through the correct paperwork or warn him about a potential mortgage hike; his city, which penalized him for somebody else's error; and even his employer, a construction company he likes even though he got laid off. "I was middle class for 10 years, but it's done," Whitmire says. "I've lost my home. I live in a trailer now because of a mortgage company and an incompetent government." http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/04/how-americans-lost-trust-in-our-greatest-institutions/256163/
 

HiPointDem

(20,729 posts)
2. "empower the individual at the expense of existing institutions and ancient social structures" =
Mon Apr 22, 2013, 04:35 AM
Apr 2013

nonsense.

empower *some* individuals, connected to *some* institutions and social structures.

disempower many more.

chervilant

(8,267 posts)
4. We now live in exponential times,
Mon Apr 22, 2013, 07:40 AM
Apr 2013

with events worldwide accessible instantly. I tell my students that our species hasn't had time to adjust to this new reality. We're a little slow.

I also believe that this new "connectivity" starkly highlights radical income inequities, and gives the poorest among us access to a global audience (never mind that so many of us are functionally illiterate, we all have fully functioning brains--save an unfortunate few with congenital or accidental mental handicaps).

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