Gee. Maybe Bush ISN'T an incompetent boob after all.
For Bush, Advances But Not Approval - washingtonpost.comOne thing that gets quickly forgotten in the instant-response world of the internet is that in the REAL world things take time to happen. Time for sanctions to work, time for Sunni and Shiite to realize that Al Quaeda's NOBODY'S friend, and maybe they can actually SHARE a prosperous, thriving Iraq instead of destroying the other faction and living in a third-world pesthole.The war in Iraq seems to have taken a turn for the better and the opposition at home has failed in all efforts to impose its own strategy. North Korea is dismantling its nuclear program. The budget deficit is falling. A new attorney general has been confirmed despite objections from the left.
After more than two years of being buffeted by one political disaster after another, President Bush and his strategists think they may finally be getting back at least a bit of their footing. While still facing enormous challenges, from the crisis in Pakistan to the backlash over children's health care, they hope Bush has arrested his downward spiral and established a better foundation for the remainder of his time in office.
But in today's world, with a media presence that's starving for stories 24/7, if anything isn't an immediate success, it's a flop.
Patience is a virture. Lots of folks seem to be lacking it these days...
J.
Comments (2)
After being in a few virtual worlds the conclusion is: Internet time is 6 times faster than real time. Often *more*, at one point the day turned into the week, the week the month, the month the year: one month in a virtual world was one year of real life. Unfortunately our systems are made to experience things in real time and so that whiplash of emotions online leads to emotional drainage - no matter how extroverted, the quick shifts in relationships would get you.
Part of the 'nutroots' problem is that phenomena of experiencing such emotions, and strongly, in Internet time. From power and self-justification and feeling righteousness... to seeing the world plod along in real time. That time compression is addictive to a point, and then becomes self-defeating as one's emotions do not recover quickly enough to sustain you. At this rate the entire phenom of net-activism will quiet down to dullness in another year or two... the infrastructure laying foundation for internicine fights over minor polemical points is already doing that inside DKos and was present in HuffPo from the start. This does not mean maturity will be gained any faster, and the resignation to having to work in the real world will start to hit the online activist community and hard. Invest enough emotion into losing battles, often enough, and fatigue sets in.
Meanwhile those giving a view of their life, without huge investment in partisan polemics, will continue on. That is the sustainment of life online: not investing all of your time, effort or emotions into this venue of life.
The MSM so wants to get into the online fray, and yet remains with its same old problems that it cannot react fast enough to those that just 'question the story'. To gain the voice of individuals and respected groups you must *gain* respect by your actions online. The MSM treats the citizenry online as they do offline, and that is without respect outside partisan venues. The concept is: Yellow Journalism. Save that today the MSM does not have the power of its beliefs to openly say its biases and stand up for them. I do not mind openly yellow journalists of that school: take a stand, give me your views from it and I will decide how accurate you are and how transparent you are in your statements.
Iraq, and to a far lesser extent Afghanistan, are the first of the wars covered by cyberjournalism. Now the individuals decide what they want to write on and where, to the point where even a few voices carry heft because the MSM *ignores* their job of *just reporting*. Encumbered by partisanship which they dare not name, they slink away in another tone of yellow - pure cowardice to do their job in a tough situation and inform the citizenry.
That is also a whiplash of experience, and every day that the MSM does NOT do their job openly and honestly, is like a week to the citizenry both online and offline. Word of mouth is trumping even cable networks... bewarned of the History channel and Discovery channel... they are now reporting on Iraq and Afghanistan faster than the cable news outlets. We see the future of journalism coming about: not just bloggers but those operators of outlets that see high validity in giving the deep view of events that has arrived from those who report it. When History and Discovery trump MSM news, the MSM will be dead.
That era is coming and fast... very, very fast... faster, please!
Posted by ajacksonian | November 20, 2007 3:03 PM
Posted on November 20, 2007 15:03
>>...be warned of the History channel and Discovery channel... they are now reporting on Iraq and Afghanistan faster than the cable news outlets.>>
I really enjoy the History Channel...but it _does_ have an agenda on anything more recent than WWII. You definitely need a filter. Don't know about the Discovery Channel...
Posted by suek | November 20, 2007 7:17 PM
Posted on November 20, 2007 19:17