Blogs, politics and feedbacks in OODA loops II

US politics from the cheap seats and Daily Pundit again.

US domestic politics - interesting how? Interesting as the avangard case of internet influence, and of course the US as the worlds only superpower, whose globe shaping foreign policy (implicit, as well as explicit - it can be observed in opposition sometimes) is the product of internal politics meaningless elsewhere. 5% of voters in Florida swing votes because of local issues (crime? social security? policy towards Haiti? whatever!), and we get to occupy Iraq, or not. US domestic politics is the tail that wags the dog as far as 200 other countries are concerned, including Latvia. So - interesting.

James Lileks in Jewish World Review writes

But the pestilential keyboard pounders had best realize they're just screaming to the choir. Persuading the middle means acknowledging that the opposition is not composed of subhuman Moorlocks who hope global warming drowns coastal-dwelling gay stem-cell researchers. People on the right may be wrong, but it's quite possible they don't actually want a fascistic corporate state where the elite tour the country in giant hovercraft, vaporizing Wal-Mart labor organizers with microwave rays.

humorous, but Daily Pundit responds with Middle Me This....

So tell me again: What is so admirable about this middle, and why should people who actually know what they are talking about, are not afraid to form, hold, and express opinions, are willing to act on them and who, in general, take the time and make the effort to become what the Founders would have considered good citizens take a back seat to the Brobdignagian mob of mopes, dopes, goofuses, doofuses, and rubes that make up "the middle?"

Why is smearing "Duh, I dunno" in crayon across your forehead considered a badge of honor?

So not only are the Left insane, but swing voters are a pack of losers. There is no point preaching to the unconverted, because they are obviously clueless (since they have not converted already). Heaven knows where that leaves actuallly considering opposing arguments based on their merit, or of objective viewpoints. So, a blogger in danger of dissapearing up his own OODA loop. But how important are bloggers?

The Washingtom Post writes Blogs Attack From Left as Democrats Reach for Center. Not immensely coherent, but the radicalising influence of the left wing blogs is laid out. Is this part of a wider trend, where the internet allow the radicals to direct party events (as opposed to the old days they were merely embarrassing minor speakers at rallies)? Couple this to the selective input potential of blogs to close political wing OODA loops and thereby drive those same wings into extremism.

If the democratic system works, extreme closed parties should be rejected by voters and collapse electorally. If not we get ... democratically elected governments with radical policies and closed OODA loops. Examples : Nazi Germany, Milosevic Serbia, Mugabe Zimbabwe and now Hamas Palestine.