links for 2006-11-09

• New Media Musings: Coverage of Web 2.0
  JD Lasica is at the Web 2.0 conference and gives us a rundown of the happenings.
  (tags: web2.0 media internet)
• Election Coverage Still a Men’s Club - New York Times
  [converted to Unicode] "History was all over the screen, except on the anchor desks and panels of experts, where every news division, even CNN, seemed to have sent out an inter-office memo that said, “stag.�"
  (tags: news journalism politics gender system:badutf8)
• Technology's Role in 2006 and Beyond (I) | Personal Democracy Forum
  "we asked a distinguished group of technologists, politicos, bloggers, and journalists to respond to the following questions: Was the role of technology in politics different in 2006 than in 2004? How did new technology most affect Election 2006, and do y
  (tags: democracy internet politics blogs)
• Seeking Semiotic Democracy on Election Night « Media SITREP
  MacArthur's John Bracken writes: "has our ability to maintain “a more active relationship with information” changed the way our governments do their work and deliver services? Not yet, not from where I sit."
  (tags: internet politics democracy)
• John Palfrey » Blog Archive » The Day After: Got Democracy?
  John Palfrey on the gubernatorial race in Massachusetts: "You might in fact think of many of the bloggers on the left as volunteers working independently of the campaign....Better to have the online crowd on your side than not, at a minimum."
  (tags: internet politics democracy blogs)
• Blogs Take Lead in Reporting Polling Problems, With Supporting Evidence on YouTube - New York Times
  "Blogs of all political stripes spent most of yesterday detailing reports of voting machine malfunctions and ballot shortages, effectively becoming an online national clearinghouse of the polling problems that still face the election system."
  (tags: politics internet blogs democracy elections)
• Sifry's Alerts: State of the Blogosphere, October, 2006
  David Sifry's regular update on the state of the blogosphere as seen by Technorati. "Technorati is now tracking more than 57 Million blogs...the blogosphere is doubling in size approximately every 230 days...The globalization of the blogosphere continues.
  (tags: blogs blogging internet media web web2.0 technorati)

Comments

[mahathir_fan]

US is not only the country having elections yesterday. Elsewhere in the world, China - the world's largest democracy is also having it. In Beijing that is.

It would be interesting to hear from Beijing bloggers how the election went. Were there anyone who qualified to run for office or qualified to vote but not allowed to vote? Also, does anyone know where I check the election results? I would be interested to know how many voter turnup, how many seats did CPC win this time etc. etc.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-11/09/content_728292.htm
Beijingers vote for district deputies
Beijingers went to the polls¡¡Wednesday to elect deputies for the local people’s congress.

[Feng37]

MF, don't you think it's a little disingenious to call China a democratic nation when even elections in the capitol are rigged to keep voters from knowing anything about who they're voting for?

Here's one Beijing blogger's take on the issue: http://20six.co.uk/positivesolutions/art/582687/I_vote_for_Hu_Jintao_

[mahathir_fan]

FEng, the first word that I think about when I think of the word COMMUNISM is DEMOCRACY.

I have responded to the bloggers posting. However, my last post was not displayed, and I suspect he has a technical glitch. I reproduce here below.

I do not live in China, and have only been there once. So I do not know the details of their election. That is why I am very interested to know from the people who actually live there. I encourage them to go out and vote, and if they dislike their government, that they run for election themselves.

My own experience is that in the Western world, ignorance has led to many people believing that COMMUNISM IS NOT DEMOCRACY. This form of ignorance is similar to what we see today where they claim that ISLAM IS A VIOLENT RELIGION. Yet the people who make such claims have never lifted a single page from the Quran. Likewise, the people who claim that COMMUNISM IS NOT DEMOCRACY have never lifted a single page off Das Kapital.

It appears that the blogger may have misquoted the meaning when the blogger said: “The standard excuse for China not becoming fully democratic is that ‘it is too big.’” He took that from Jiang’s quote.

Regarding Jiang’s quote, Jiang was refering to American style democracy. Specifically, the idea that 1.2 billion people would vote for the Presidency directly. He did not reject democracy, how could he for China is already a democracy. Besides, no true Communist will ever reject democracy. See his quote here:

http://www.ibiblio.org/obl/reg.burma/archives/199710/msg00333.html
“How can the American way of elections be organized in
China when we have over 1.2 billion people and more than 100 million who
can’t read or write?” Jiang said.

However, I do not believe that you need direct election of the leader to qualify for democracy.

In a lot of countries that are considered fully democratic, people do not vote for their leaders directly. They vote for a representative to represent them at the Legislature. The elected representatives then elect amongst themselves who would be the Prime Minister. Of course, this person would almost certainly be the leader of the winning party. This is how Tony Blair becomes the PM of England.

If you check the constitution of the PRC, you will see in Article 57. The National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China is the highest organ of state power. This is different from the US, which places the Executive, Legislature, and Judicial at equal levels. In PRC, the Legislature is the highest organ of state power, not the President. The President is in fact a “subordinate” of the Legislature. The Legislature has power to elect and recall the President of PRC. Because of such a constitutional structure where the President subordinates to the Legislature, it makes more sense for China to follow the system where the Legislature decides on the leader - just like in the UK.

While I consider PRC to be the world’s largest democracy, I do admit it is weak in that it does not allow opposition party. I would propose that if the fear is that the opposition party would win the election and derails China from its socialistic revolution path, then they should allow a 2nd Communist Party that shares the same ideology to exist. Competition tends to breed efficiency.