Well put. I'd just add one other difference between a diary (online or otherwise), and a discussion space like Quorum: the great advantage of a diary is that it doesn't talk back, and doesn't challenge what you write in it. A diary is the perfect place to record ten comments a day about how the hob-nailed boot of the white man/ federal government/ corporate interests/ fornicatin' fathers is the cause of all your personal problems. A diary will never discourage this stuff for being redundant, or narcissistic, or manifestly ridiculous. (And if it's unclear to anyone how redundant, narcissistic, etc. this stuff is, go to Free Republic and read the endless posts about how the blacks, Jews, Muslims, Bill Clinton, and ATF are the cause of people's personal problems; and how democratically disenfranchised people are because nobody else agrees.)

But the posts I like to read on Quorum that are more or less transparent-- articles which raise a topic of general interest, include a link or two, then invite other opinions. When people rail about a 'lack of democracy' on this site, they miss the point that democratic discussion is as much an issue of style as content. If people front-load their posts with foaming moral accusations, nobody is gonna pay attention to the content, even when it raises an important issue. This is not really an issue of civics, but of social skills; and I'm hardly free of guilt on this score, I'd be the first to admit. But when posters trade respect for respect (asking, 'What do you think?' instead of 'DON'T YOU AGREE THAT I AM PERSECUTED!?!') they attract plenty of attention to their content.

I actually opened a blog account before reading your comments, I guess meant to exonerate the ATF, hob-nailed cops, corporate exploitation of us all and the fascist directives issued by career administrators of our public service departments.

No, no, no, sir. They are guilty of sedition, traitors to the republic and need to be punished for undermining our rightful liberties in their consideration of corporate interests and brainless bradyism. To commit such acts as destruction of doctor/patient relationships amounts to murder, when private information is witheld from one's physician and to nullify 90% of the Bill of Rights with malice and forethought is treason.

You have made up my mind, Mr. Schlegel: Quorum NEEDS me. Don't you agree?

Media concentration (as in attention paid to subject matter)is money-centric (as in the corporations that control the media). It must be obvious that I welcome a web rennaissance that allows us all to share our views, past experiences... even acid trips and other illegal acts with others who are interested.

I've even built a page (incomplete) combining links and a kind of message board for that purpose.

A peer review regarding the interest of a post to the readers is, however, also a good thing, and I apologize for my post to Mr. Kenney, who, however did start it. (Of course I doubt that he has a laryngectomy for which he takes narcotics and is, therefore, more organized and lucid than I.)


Thanks for the suggestion that perhaps it's time to move on. I'm sure Mr. Regulus will consider it, also.

'Magnificent Seven'.

James Coburn's character, Britt.

Eli Wallach gave the 7 their weapons back and allowed them to leave (similar to Sharon with Arafat in Beirut?).

Coburn's line: "Nobody gives me my own guns and tells me to run. Nobody."


I'm...independent, too. It's about me and my satisfaction, not them and theirs. Conversation about american democracy is my guns.

An interesting article on a similar theme from a futurist, Dale Peskin, in an ASC Annenberg School publication. It makes two principle points:

• In the news future, news is a participatory activity.Everyone is a journalist, or can be.
• Storytellers - specialists in the art of conveying human emotions -- rule this future. And in this future, everyone is a storyteller.

Somewhat theoretical, but an interesting skim nonetheless.

A corollary to the idea that having and holding individually considered, conceived beliefs is not overly widespread, is that beliefs are a commodity. That in the United States ideas, beliefs, and ideals are mass produced, mass marketed and mass distributed. Our "beliefs" and our "ideals" are suggested to us by a well-placed, well-connected, corporate, media, influence-peddling, self-interested class of elites. It is hardly even subliminal. It is hard-handed, heavy weight, ubiquitous steering. It is in the air; it is what there is.

Looking, listening, and probing around the american culturescape, I have noticed a reluctance to face hard questions and hard answers; an unwillingness to look into the face of, to analyze and understand realities that are staring us down; an inability to turn to the future, make demands on it, and do the work needed to impose expectations on it; that confrontation with critical thinking and logical concluding is resisted as if by reflex; that the mere and mindless act of mouthing an "opinion" is considered not only enough and a whole hell of a lot, but sufficient to meet the standard of full participation in the democratic experiment. That no thought has gone into the opinion, no analysis has led to it, and no consistency adheres to it is not recognized as an issue or a problem.

What I have noticed reflects life in the United States and highlights what has been known as the dumbing down of the United States. Even the phrase "dumbing down" reflects what I have noticed. "Dumbing down" is a euphemism for the decline of scholastic, rational, and value based leadership, to say nothing of "followership" in the United States. This is a reality, a truth we are unwilling, unable to confront. So we dress it up and dress ourselves down with a phrase that allows us to slip the punch: it could not possibly be the case, we confidently tell ourselves as we whistle past the graveyard; after all, the U.S. is the richest, most powerful country there could be; and after all, even if it is true, we're still the best. So we don't have to face it, consider it, act on it.

It's only a little, ya know, indigestion.

Here in the United States we seem to pay attention to economics, politics, crime, and sports. But not at all, mind you, to culture, health, the American Dream, education, children, law, social problems, justice, race, or old folks. We act as those can be relegated to the completed pile or to the rarefied realm of foreign policy.

Entertainment, amusement, distraction is what the country is really into. As in "Let us eat cake", as in the spectacle of the Roman coliseum circuses. We have craved and we have found distraction from the necessity to confront and contend with that which is essential to the heart and soul of the American Dream--justice and equality. We have found distraction in what passes as amusement and entertainment. We have found it in personal and social dispensation from the god given privilege and the communal responsibility to think, analyze, understand, and act.

Let me give you more reasons why I sing the blues: the popularity of the National Enquirer, the Star, and any other rags of that ilk. People magazine and all the television/Holl ywood/music/beautiful people, celebrity-as-news rags of THAT ilk; television gossip shows, conservative radio talk shows, sports talk shows, trendy lowest common denominator television lemmings, and what passes for television news. And, good god, my god, why have you forsaken us, reality TV.

Distract me, titillate me, tickle me, Elmo me, please me, entertain me. Do not inform me, challenge me, educate me, make me think, help me think, or let me think. I do not want to be well rounded. I want to be slim and popular.

It is so depressing I don't want to think about it.

Sometimes I wonder whether very many citizens of the United States have beliefs anymore at all. I have never considered or even had the thought jump into my head or line of sight that we...they... just don't feel comfortable in their own beliefs.

Considering that thought now, I would twist it this way: It is the very act, the very state of having beliefs that makes citizens of the United States uncomfortable. So beliefs are not something to have and to hold, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death or in the short term. "Of course I can read! Thank god I don't have too" kind of thing.

It is enough, apparently, just to be a citizen of the United States; no real personal or psychological investment attaches to it. Its like those now ubiquitous televised awards shows: One doesn't need personal investment to win; all that is required is to be a citizen of the United States.

Not having ideas or beliefs of their own, the population takes it cues, information, and decisions from what it is told; and of course media does do most of the popular telling.

Its very comparable to that shocker, "Wall Street psychology"; and to mass hallucination; and to lemmings rushing to the sea; and to following the judas goat.

We take our cues and views from what we are told. That is such a tremendous responsiblity; media typically doesn't accept it any more. Media is now a profit center, not a bastion of journalism, the fourth estate, watchdog, or voice of the people.

What a world, what a world.

(Is the sky falling? Yet?)

I run a sort of moderated Blog or e-Zine at http://www.mp2kmag.com (The Magazine for MapPoint). Is it a Blog or e-Zine? Where's the fine line? Some of the content is easily posted by co-editors, some is only accessible right now by linking to the mySQL tables with Access.

Failed .coms. Now we are approaching the essence of american democracy--to wit, Demoney.

Or at least I imagine that is the connection between democracy, the 'net, and your post.

The .com capitalists made a ton on the 'net; made the 'net what it is today ("what it is today" is a neutral statement), but the culture only looks at the newly rich wistfully or with envy. What's the point, Mike?

>>>"We think control needs to be shared among posters and readers, to foster interaction."<<<

Is interaction being fostered? If that is your objective, then good business calls for an evaluation of degree of objective being achieved. How are you measuring the degree of interaction, degree of objective, being achieved? What plans are there to maximize achievement of your objective?

Or is it only talk? Not conversation, talk.

You've got only a handful of people posting here, not counting you, Scott, and SVP. More regulars have left than now remain. (God that a commentary on democracy.) A good (meaning bad) percentage of articles have precious little to do with democracy, conversation about which is another of your expressed objectives. How are you doing, objective achievement-wise?

Isn't it past time to rethink and retool Quorum's method? Joining with E the People is only a bailout of Quorum's problems; what about Quorum putting some rethinking and retooling on the table?


Two issues particularly: What's with your rating system? and readers can read without what you are apparently pleased to call "interaction".

Oh. And not counting me, either, a majority of one.

So talk of Blog; and not of the point of Quorum.