Justice David H. Souter has announced his retirement from the court. Rumor has it Souter wanted to retire after the Supreme Court had to decide Bush v. Gore in 2000, but waited until a Democratic President would be available to name his successor. All this after Souter had initially been named to the court in 1990 by George H.W. Bush, but, as the New York Times writes, “became one of the most reliable members of the court’s liberal wing”.

Now this opens up a great challenge for President Obama, and expectations are high: Will he add diversity to a mostly male, Harvard / Yale educated bench with little private practice experience and a geographic tilt to the Northeast? Will he choose a pragmatist over an ideological nominee? A woman, someone who is part of a minority?

With all the speculation and shortlists, thank God Fox News’ Foxnation.com is there to ask the really important question:

Why aren’t any white males considered for the Supreme Court?

Of course, Foxnation’s commentators can be relied on to tell us why this screaming injustice is allowed. Essentially, Barack Obama is a racist. (This is voiced by some posters, with a few lamenting the fact that Whites are called racist when they hate African-Americans, but not the other way around.)

Another poster argues that “Republicans and Conservatives are a minority”, too, and should therefore “sue the Administration for their place on the Surpreme Court”. While I admire this logic, I will also make sure to bookmark the post for the next time some pundit seeks to define the USA as “a center-right nation”. Others say white males always have to pay for the “lazy” parts of the population (women? Hispanics? African-Americans? all lazy?).

Some sane voices point to the fact that this is fabricated hysteria by Foxnation, or that  other posters “confuse minority with liberal.” But somehow, they’re still drowned in the senseless chatter around them.

I need to ponder all this input now, but will try to come up with a somewhat coherent answer to Foxnation’s question. Though I’m not sure that’s possible. Anyway, enjoy reading.

Update, May 5: The New York Times also has this fun interactive feature where you can say who you’d choose “If you were President…” My favorite suggestion so far: Bill Clinton.

One of the greatest dangers facing American democracy today is extreme partisanship. The division of public and politics along party lines hinders political discourse and halts social progress at great costs to society. If little else, Americans can agree on that. But, as soon as you ask who is responsible for political bipolarity, people are divided: Fox News or the liberal media, fundamentalist evangelicals or the eastcoast elite, rich republicans or wealthy democrats, SUV drivers or treehuggers.

“Split: A Divided America” is a documentary that shines a light on the roots and consequences of this political divide. While it can’t solve all the problems and leaves the viewer with open questions, there are still some insights to be drawn from it.

First of all, the paradigm of red states vs. blue states is a construction, and not a political reality. But, its adoption is of use for some people, which explains its popularity. Partisanship can win campaigns and makes the media’s job a little easier. Alas—it fails to describe a much more complex reality.

The 2008 documentary features well known scientists, publicists, and political activists such as Robert D. Putnam, Nicholas Kristof, Amy Goodman, Noam Chomsky and Jesse Jackson.

Plus, it is remarkably bipartisan and although the producers are part of the story, they manage to step aside and let their subjects speak for themselves most of the time. In taking this approach, “Split” is a step away from the Michael Moore kind of opinionated reportages, that preach to the choir and seem to divide rather than unite.

The movie is not officially available in Europe yet, but—much to our delight—we found it on Hulu (once again, how to watch Hulu if you are outside the U.S.):

As the days of George W. Bush as President of the U.S.A. draw to an end, every part of the transition process takes on historic proportions. Nobody knows how many people will turn out on January 20 to see Obama take over the White House. It will probably be the biggest crowd ever at any Presidential Inauguration, which will also make it the costliest Inauguration ever. We tell you where to watch the celebration in Berlin!

Still-President Bush has declared the state of emergency for the District of Columbia during the weekend. 11,500 troops are assigned inaugural duties, aided by another 8,000 police men.

Meanwhile, Obama merchandise is in hot demand and might qualify as an economic stimulus. The Washington Post will print almost three times as many copies as usually and raise its cover price from 75 cents to $2 for the Inauguration issue. Needless to say, finding a a place to stay in D.C. borders on impossible.

Luckily, there are lots of alternatives in Berlin to join the festivities, so you can fall into your own bed at the end of the night.

UPDATE
I added the CARTA event, because they also screen the Inauguration.

• “Der Digitale Präsident” – Carta Diskussionsveranstaltung
  Haus der Bundespressekonferenz, Raum 0107
  Schiffbauerdamm 40
  10117 Berlin
  With live screening and a panel featuring:
  - Björn Böhning, Bundestagskandidat SPD
  - Mercedes Bunz, Tagesspiegel Online
  - Tobias Moorstedt, Journalist and Author (we interviewed him last year)
  6.00pm, free admission but you need to RSVP
  more info
• Inauguration Celebration of the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy
  Amerika Haus Berlin (at Bahnhof Zoo)
  Hardenbergstraße 22-24
  10623 Berlin
  > 4.00pm
  doors open
  > 4.30pm
  Panel discussion on the significance of President Obama for Germany and Africa
  > 5.30pm
  Screening of the Inauguration
  > 7.00pm
  Panel discussion on the significance of the Obama’s presidency for the global African diaspora
  >8.30pm
  Concert, Jazz, R&B
  free admission, more info
  
• Democrats Abroad Inauguration Party
  GOYA ClubNollendorfplatz 5
  10777 Berlin
  > 4.30pm
  Doors open, projection of the entire ceremony on a large screen
  > 4.00pm
  Ceremony starts and ends at 20:00 (according to a press release from Washington D.C.)
  > 8.00pm
  Guest speakers from the different American abroad organizations. There is the POSSIBILITY the Governor Mayor of Berlin will make an appearance. THIS IS NOT CONFIRMED AT THE MOMENT!
  > 9.00pm
  Live Music from FOLKADELIC
  > 10.30pm
  DJ “Daddy-O,” Funky Soul Classics
  Tickets: 10-,€,  6-,€ after 21:00
  To reserve a ticket send a message to chair@demsinberlin.de
  There will be an after party at SURPRISE Club & Disco. A shuttle vehicle will be available for door to door transport from 10.00pm till midnight. Entrance and shuttle ride is free when you have a ticket for the Event in GOYA.
  more info
  
• Obama Kaffeklatsch at the JFK Institute
  Caféte at the John F. Kennedy Institute
  Lansstr. 5-9
  14159 Berlin
  There will be cake and coffee.
  free admission, starts 4pm
• Your place
  You can simply stay home and watch the Inauguration online. Read here where to access live streams of the ceremony and of several Inauguration parties in D.C.

At U Street Corridor, Reps Won't Find Rest

Black Broadway
3:40 p.m.: Green line from College Park, Maryland, to Washington, D.C.
Greenbelt metro station: the beginning and end of the Green Line. I am struggling to find an analogy more befitting this day: “The beginning and end.”

The train is almost empty, save a few voices announcing their soon arrival at friends’ or families’, eager to watch as the nation turns the page on a new chapter of American history. It is rainy and gray. I squint my eyes, hoping that might magically turn the gloomy downpour into drops of catharsis. In America, today is the day of reckoning – the “final verdict on eight years [of failed policies],” as Obama likes to call it. Regardless of where one stands, November 4th, 2008, will be a day of either gloom or catharsis – the beginning or end. Some things not even man can control, no matter how hard we try. But today, that won’t keep people from at least trying.

4:00 p.m.: Arrival at the U Street Corridor.
“Black Broadway,” as it was known in its heyday during the first half of the 20th century. The home of legends: Jazz greats Duke Ellington (a D.C. native), Sarah Vaughn, Billy Holiday, and Miles Davis were U Street staples, and, as the story goes, it is where Dr. Martin Luther King grabbed a spoon at Ben’s Chili Bowl after his “I Have a Dream” speech.

After the assassination of Dr. King on April 4th, 1968, U Street erupted into 4 days of riots, destroying businesses, and causing both unemployment and insurance rates to reach for the sky. Meanwhile, the gates to an inferno of drugs and prostitution seemed to open ever wider as investors fled “Black Broadway.” The winds of change first swept through the Corridor with the onset of the 1990s, and today is considered to have just the right degree of luring-but-safe ruggedness to make it hip in a city which, on the surface, tends to get lost in suits, ties and pearly whites.

Politics is for people, by people; a perpetual negotiation of grants – of trust, of power, and of liberty. Win some, lose some. While former D.C. mayor Marion Barry was shunned for being caught smoking crack cocaine at downtown Vista International Hotel in 1990, black Washingtonians assured his 1995 reelection despite a 6 months prison stint: Barry had reached out to the black community, he had created jobs. As gentrification has pushed housing prices up, and the prostitutes down a few blocks, many of the neighborhood’s black residents fear to be pushed away.

U Street is all about politics. And here, as in the rest of country, the people have learned about the proteanism of politics the hard way. And yet, on this rainy day, no one squints. On Black Broadway, everyone is eagerly anticipating the biggest show in town: The 2008 Presidential Election. Judgment Day is here.

The Other Bradley Effect
50-year-old Bradley rests in the rain outside of Garnett Patterson Jr. High School, doubling today as “Precinct 22” polling station. He has just voted for Obama, and has been voting since he was 18.  To him, this election is about redemption – he has said his final prayer in the voting booth, and now it is in God’s hands. We both ponder the scene before us in bemusement: I, 26, white, and ever so European; Bradley, 50, black, and a D.C. native, telling me that the fate of the nation is in the hands of God.

“They could put both in office, for all I care,” says a withered voice behind me. A short man slides by me, and joins Bradley in contained excitement. He is easily in his late-60s, with keen eyes behind tinted glasses in brown plastic rims, gleaming from under a red baseball cap. They shake hands, and nod consentient. “But you just voted, so you must believe there is something you can do, right?” I try. “Well, I’m voting for everybody else; for the future generation. Obama, a black person, that’s historical,” says Bradley as he shakes my hand goodbye.

Captain Crystal
Inside the polling station, a speech-impaired woman greets me warmly over a steaming Styrofoam box. Admittedly, reports of endless lines and long waiting hours had me bracing for a long, busy day “in the field.” “It’s been crazy out here,” Captain Crystal, three-time Precinct Captain, reassures me, as I, to my great surprise, discover a meager line of 6 people waiting to vote – in 5 minutes, it will be down to 2, tops.  “It’s the rain,” the Captain insists, “just give it another hour.”

Crystal boasts how this year, they have done their best to accommodate the large turn-out by providing Optical Scan screens to ensure that impaired voters, too, get to cast their ballot. “Everybody wants to vote,” Captain Crystal tells a small team of local young journalists from Howard University and myself, “so we’ve trained volunteers, line control workers, and hired management to make sure to help them – the elderly, the illiterate, disabled people, and the deaf and blind. We’ll help them vote, but we’re not going to tell them who to vote for.”

Captain Crystal is markedly proud. She and her team has been at the station since 6 a.m., and do not expect to leave Precinct 22 before 10 p.m. She bolts to and fro.

“International man! Over there, that’s the press area,” the Captain demands, navigating me to a green paper patch stretched along one side of the polling room floor. “International man,” that is me. I hear the budding journalists from Howard U giggle behind me, strutting their notebooks and digital cameras. They are not a day over 20. Meanwhile, I try to “capture the moment” with my 2 megapixel camera on my Nokia phone. My digital camera ditched me last weekend at the Beauty Bar in the Big Apple, and has probably been living it up with Cosmo-sipping hipsters ever since.

Precinct 22: No irregularities, no nothing. No 2004 voter suppression scenario, no dirt to dig up. This ship won’t sink on Captain Crystal’s watch.

The Promise
It is rainy still. A stocky, middle-aged man greets me with a gratified smile, and calmly seeks shelter under his umbrella. He lends an air of class to the grayness – no squinting necessary. Trivial exchanges give way to conversation. Meet Robert Harp, self-proclaimed long-time Democrat (with the exception of Gerald Ford in 1974).

“What’s your proudest moment during this election?” I ask him.

“Obama has run a noble campaign. He’s stuck with the issues, and stated them clearly. And he’s provided comprehensive solutions,” Robert begins. “He could’ve played the race-card, but he didn’t,” he continues, signaling a silent nod to the historicity of U Street, and the polling station behind me, where a majority of the voters I have witnessed today are African American.

We discuss John McCain and the early primary debates. “He could have made a good president,” Robert says, “but then he started bolting from one position to another,” reiterating the claims that McCain has appeared “erratic” in the final stages of the campaign. VP pick Palin, the negativity, and then the economic meltdown: “the darkest moments of the campaign.”

My jacket turns a darker shade of grey, as our conversation continues under the drizzling DC sky. From a working-class upbringing in Brooklyn, NY, through making peace with one’s roots, to a successful life in Boston and DC: Robert’s life reaffirms that the appeal of Obama’s story, in many ways, rests in the shared experience of the American people.

Our conversation makes a last stop at the debate over “Barack the Wealth Spreader,” as Palin dubbed him, in what seemed a blatant attempt to invoke fears so effectively aroused during the Red Scare of the 1940s and 50s.

“What about the American Dream? Is that why there’s so much focus on the middle-class?,” I ask. The idea of liberty – the freedom to succeed, and the freedom fail – is sacred to most Americans. “Are Americans afraid that if they take their eyes off the middle-class, they’ll loose sight of the American Dream?”

Robert looks up: “What I’ve learned from this election is that we are one nation. But in the last years, that has been constrained.”

For millions of Americans like Robert, the 2008 Election is not just about reclaiming Washington, but about reclaiming the nation – the promise. Or as Obama would have it: Reclaim the audacity of hope.

I bid Robert farewell, and head down U Street. Rain still. I squint my eyes as I pass a barbershop. Four kids are lined up, getting groomed for the moon landing of our time – a new frontier – while their parents are out trying to guide the hands of God.

By Peter Dahl

[Show as slideshow]

We remember watching the New Hamsphire primary and I’m sure government teachers around the world rejoice at how much students and the general public have learned this year about the US- election system. Also, pundits have regained credibility, if boringness, too, by spoiling the fun and calling the winner already before election day.

But for us – No more scanning the net for funny skits of candidates’ lapses, no more wondering how expensive a couple of suits need to be, or if a middle name has any implication for leadership qualities. Really, what now?

Tapmag will give you a roundup of election night in Berlin soon, but for the moment, we second what German media journalist and blogger Stefan Niggemeier has posted here.

And of course, not to forget more election fun coming up next year, this time in Germany. We only need Frank- Walter Steinmeier to be a little more like Barack Obama and it might actually be interesting.

For the Dems, Jerry Gerber and Michael Steltzer, press secretary and chair of Democrats Abroad Berlin respectively, stepped into the ring. Republicans Abroad Germany sent vice-chair Stefan Prystawik and lawyer Paul Kiefer. Sadly, the format ensured that direct exchanges were kept to a minimum. Moderator Michael S. Cullen granted each side amble time for long monologues but little for an actual debate.

As was to be expected, the predominantly German audience in the packed to capacity auditorium was totally in the tank for Obama. Requests by Cullen to refrain from applauding were largely ignored, in fact the audience behaved very Un-German and made constant noises to indicate their support or disapproval.

Both sides mostly stuck to the usual talking points in their remarks, “McCain=Bush”, “Obama voted 94 times to increase taxes” and the like. It only got interesting when topics not discussed at the real debates came up.

The Republicans appeared to be on the defensive most of time. Especially Gerber visibly enjoyed taking shot after shot at John McCain and the Reps. Example: “McCain even seemed to have forgotten the name of current president. I’m older than he is, I know what it’s like”

Prystawik appeared to sense some ungratefulness in the audience given that “Berlin is the city that over the years has profited the most from Republican presidents.” This remark generated the most vivid discussion of the night, with Don Jordon, a journalist who was also on stage, pointing out that while there are a “John F. Kennedy High School, a John F. Kennedy square and a John F. Kennedy-Institute” in Berlin, Ronald Reagan, who “practically abolished the Wall”, is not honored in any way. Needless to say, the crowd was not pleased.

The ensuing question period was roughly equally split between fairly thoughtful questions and painful idiocy. Apparently, the intellectually challenged also feel the need to voice their opinions. The low point was a very German moron who with a pathetic attempt at irony proclaimed, “I’m about as educated as a citizen of the Midwest!”.

A more sensible audience member touched on the importance of race in the campaign, leading both Gerber and Jordan to remark that they believe Obama would have a hard time getting elected to high office in Germany because of his skin color.

All in all, nothing particularly new or earthshaking, but it was nice to see Germans so engaged for a change. Stefan Prystawik told us afterwards it’s because Germans and Americans are “way too similar”. But maybe it was only the wind chill 35°C inside the auditorium.

The debate was part of the series “Wie wählt Amerika?“, organized by the Initiative Amerika Haus Berlin. The series will continue this Wednesday, October 22nd, at 7pm with “Die Außenpolitik des neuen Präsidenten. Was die Welt von Obama oder McCain erwarten darf”,  Hardenbergstraße 22-24, 10623 Berlin.

SPIEGEL: “Change” is the slogan of this year’s presidential election. Do you see any chance for an immediate, tangible change in the United States? Or, to use use Obama’s battle cry: Are you “fired up”?

Chomsky: Not in the least. The European reaction to Obama is a European delusion.

SPIEGEL: But he does say things that Europe has long been waiting for. He talks about the trans-Atlantic partnership, the priority of diplomacy and the reconciling of American society.

Chomsky: That is all rhetoric. Who cares about that? This whole election campaign deals with soaring rhetoric, hope, change, all sorts of things, but not with issues.

He has more to say about the state of American democracy and the 2008 elections. Chomsky touches upon the role religion plays for campaign managers, the narrow spectre of choices voters are given and McCain’s honest suggestion that this election really is about personality and not issues, as the Obama campaign claims. The full interview is here.

Also, this election is increasingly fought out not on the TV screen or in newspaper editorials and op-eds, but on the Internet – which adds another historic element. German journalist Tobias Moorstedt has travelled the US to find out more about this development and the changes, challenges and criticisms digital campaigns evoke. He touches on all of these questions in his new book and in the following interview with tapmag (you can also read the interview in German on my private blog).

tapmag: Your new book is called „Jeffersons Erben“ („Jefferson’s Heirs“). You discuss the influence that the Internet and other new media have on political elections in the US. How can this change be described and what does it mean for voters and candidates?

Tobias Moorstedt: The net brings change to our private life (Instant Messaging), the entertainment industry (MP3) and the economy as a whole (Amazon). Who could imagine getting through university without the help of Wikipedia and Google nowadays? Email, Skype and webcams let us stay in touch with friends across the globe. Why should the new information technologies and the change they bring leave the political system untouched? After all, this system is based on the exchange and processing of information.

In a nutshell: The Internet has made it easy to collect ever more data, to share it with other people and to organize action with those people. Just think about the tedious process of political action fifteen years ago – you had to design a leaflet, produce copies and distribute it. Today, you just write an email to an audience which size is technically infinite.

tapmag: Who are Jefferson’s heirs and what connects them to the ideals of the American Founding Fathers?

Moorstedt: On my journey through the Internet (and the real USA) I met very different people who are all politically active on the net; a student from Texas who isn’t of voting age yet, but is campaigning for Obama in his conservative community nonetheless, a blogger who reaches hundreds of thousands of readers by the click of his mouse, a computer engineer who dreams of programming a new constitution.

Almost none of these net activists invoked Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin, but they might be surprised how many beliefs they share with the Founding Fathers. Jefferson called Information the currency of democracy. He tried to find ways to directly include citizens into the decision making process of the government – and thus educate them to be better, more responsible citizens.

Also, I think he would have liked the energy and passion of the bloggers and activists. He once remarked: “I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.”

tapmag: Barack Obama was able to reach out to a lot of his younger voters via social networks like Facebook, MySpace and his own platform MyBarackObama.com. Republican Mitt Romney has tried similar tactics in his campaign for the nomination of his party, but failed to build up support online. Are Democratic voters more Internet savvy?

Moorstedt: Democratic voters are on average younger, better educated and have traveled more. There is a sort of digital divide between the two American parties – which doesn’t imply that Americans in the heartland of the US do not use email or have no knowledge of Wi-Fi.

I spoke to Republican strategists in Washington; they think that their candidates have a problem with the open structure of the net. When I present myself online to a certain degree I have to give up control over how people use my picture and statements and what they write on my website.

Republicans have mastered the art of the classical, top-to-bottom campaign in which everyone stays “on message” all the time. They are control freaks. Plus, the Republicans never had a reason to use the net for a long time. They beat their opponents with the old media. Because they had this success with traditional media, they now face an innovation backlog.

tapmag: To which degree did Obama’s success in the primaries depend upon his Internet strategy? How might the Internet help him to succeed in the Presidential election?

Moorstedt: The Internet was a huge advantage for Obama – he understood to use it in a new way, which matched his campaign. Obama was new, young, exciting and different – he was like a funny YouTube video or a young band, a kind of thing that spreads fast in social networks. Obama had hype potential and the Internet is a hype medium – a perfect match.

Additionally, he collected enough donations over the net to successfully compete with the richest and most powerful family of the Democratic Party [Ed.: The Clinton family]. Obama is the first candidate who made the net an integral part of his campaign – it is more than just another channel to send the same message out.

MyBarackObama.com is a network or platform on which local groups can form and organize independently from the campaign central. These volunteers make calls and knock on doors for Obama and have created a “surge on the ground” in the last days.

The Republicans used to have an advantage here; they could draw from the network of churches and organizations in which they were traditionally organized. Obama uses the virtual net to reach out to the reality on the street.

tapmag: How does John McCain – the self-proclaimed Internet-illiterate – use the Internet for his campaign? Does Obama still have a substantial advantage, or are his campaigns well copied and applied by all candidates?

Moorstedt: McCain did say, he is in the process of learning how to use “the Google”. I think that sounds as if he views the search engine as a sort of sovereign oracle, an übermensch creature. Maybe he’s actually one step ahead of us.

Seriously, of course McCain has email groups, social networks, and he also twitters, chats and podcasts. Still, the activity surrounding Obama online is much more substantial. He understands the mentality and the culture of the web far better. We will see how the number of Facebook friends translates into votes.

tapmag: Before Barack Obama, Howard Dean build up a lot of support online for his 2004 bid for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, which did not help him win the nomination. Was the social magnitude of the Internet too small in 2004, so that the enthusiasm of the Dean-followers could not cross the border into mainstream?

Moorstedt: Four years are a long time on the Internet. Not many people had DSL or Wi-Fi in 2004. YouTube and MySpace didn’t exist. Smartphones were the exclusive gadgets of the business elite. A lot of experts believe that 2008 is the first true online election.

It is true that the Dean campaign couldn’t bring the enthusiasm that surrounded Dean online to the voting booth. But, one shouldn’t forget that Dean, once he took the lead in polls and donations, was attacked from all sides with TV ads and negative campaigning.

It is a mistake to assume that only because Dean didn’t win, the Internet has no political magnitude. Joe Trippi, his campaign manager said to me: “It was the first time a candidate lost, but his campaign won.”

tapmag: Is the Internet a battle ground to win over new voters, or do you only preach to the converted online?

Moorstedt: Every politician, every party and every NGO has to advertise him-, her- or itself on the Internet – because that is where their audience increasingly can be found. There are no reliable studies yet whether interactive media like the www can increase political activity of the citizens.

What we know for sure is that Internet users who visit the website of a candidate are very likely to vote for this candidate. That is why the candidate’s websites should be more than virtual copies of the campaign posters and leaflets, but a platform which the members of a political community, that ideally emerges around a candidate, can use to meet and coordinate.

tapmag: Obama claims to have broken the power of the big corporate checks with all the small donations he has collected online. Can the Internet contain the influence of special interest groups?

Moorstedt: Of course Barack Obama receives and accepts donations from Silicon Valley and Wall Street. However, he managed to win over hundreds of thousands of small donors who gave ten dollars one time and fifty the next time. This turned out to be a critical advantage during the primaries against Hillary Clinton.

The pool of potential donors has grown. It might very well be that a politician, who is funded by a lot of small donations, is granted a specific independence because he doesn’t need to take into account the agendas of the unions or big business.

However, it would be financial populism to claim that the corporate lobbyists and special interest groups now have to take a back seat. The more interesting question is: How can the small donors hold politicians and parties accountable? Their line of arguing could be: We supported you. Now we own you!

tapmag: How are your findings comparable to Germany and Europe? Hubertus Heil just twittered from the Democratic National Convention in Denver, will that bring him any closer to the young voters? Which strategies could be implemented, which would fail because of transatlantic differences?

Moorstedt: A journey through the US is, at least with respect to media technology, a trip to the future. The US has a five-year lead against Europe when it comes to the usage of smartphones, Wi-Fi or Pay-TV.

I am confident that the German blogosphere will develop into an important voice in the political debate in the near future. Also the SPD has a social network now, called meinespd.de, which is online but hasn’t really attracted a lot of members yet.

Again, we shouldn’t forget that we have a different political system in Germany than in the US – parliamentary democracy vs. a strong President, multiple party system vs. election coalitions, etc.

But also in Germany the numbers of registered party members are falling. The tendency to bind oneself to a single party for a long time and fill out a membership application is shrinking. Which doesn’t mean that the citizens are becoming more and more egoistic, their engagement just follows another fashion – shorter but also more intense.

tapmag: Which dangers could arise when the election campaigns take place on the Internet? Do you think that a fragmentation and gradual radicalization of the public along political party lines is a threat, as Cass Sunstein describes in his book “Republic.com”?

Moorstedt: There are a lot of threatening scenarios, for example the possibility to anonymously spread false information. The web is an ideal medium for propaganda.  The handling of personal data of voters has also to be controlled tightly.

Sunstein talks about a radical effect of the blog communities. Because blogs like MyDD, Daily Kos or Little Green Footballs only attract activists from one side of the political spectrum, who reinforce each other’s opinions, these opinions and beliefs will become more extreme over time.

It’s an interesting argument. It is true that Internet users can avoid the possibility of cognitive dissonances. When you get your news online you don’t necessarily encounter different opinions or news you don’t want to know about, or photos you don’t want to see, which you would be more likely to come across if you had flicked through a newspaper.

A conservative American who only surfs the websites of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Instapundit will naturally encounter only a very few positive arguments for universal health care; he lives in his own news cosmos. Some experts call this the balkanization of the Internet.

The harsh tone of the discussion and the partisan rhetoric of the politics blogs seem to back this thesis; however, I find the activity of the bloggers rather inspiring than alarming. Even if sometimes the discussion becomes excessive, I prefer the energy of the American bloggers to the apathy of the average voter.

Interview by Kolja Langnese

Tobias Moorstedt: Jeffersons Erben – Wie die digitalen Medien die Politik verändern. Published by Suhrkamp Verlag: edition suhrkamp 2571, 165 pages, Euro 9,00 (ISBN 978-3-518-12571-7).

Here’s the trailer.

Moore’s goal four years ago was to convince millions of non-voting “slackers” – mostly between the ages of 18-29 – to give voting a try. Starting out in Elk Rapids, Michigan, in front of an audience of 400, the tour caught on and up to 16,000 slackers each night turned out to see Moore and his entourage of speakers, comedians, and musicians. To further encourage the slackers to show up, Michael Moore offered them a clean change of underwear, Ramen noodles, and a promise that no event would start before noon and no politician would be allowed to speak.

Moore, who has turned the business of documentaries profitable by adding left-wing opinion, a huge dose of sarcasm, and the character Michael Moore into the mix, said that he gives it away for free because of personal reasons. ”I’ve been very blessed and fortunate to have so many people come to my movies over these two decades, I decided why not bypass the studios and the exhibitors and make one that the fans can have for free, as a show of my profound appreciation of their support.”

The film has a budget of over $2 million, and mainly consists of tour footage. Still, that budget is ten times the size of Moore’s first movie “Roger & Me”. He said, the only return he hopes for is the largest turnout of young voters ever at the polls in November. The film is available at slackeruprising.com, Lycos, itunes and amazon. (If you are not accessing the download sites from the US or Canada, you might have to pretend that you are. This article describes how.)

In 2004, the younger generation overwhelmingly voted for John Kerry, with no effect. With the Presidential election in the US this year becoming closer everyday, this time the youth vote could make a substantial difference in the decision for the White House. Maybe that’s why the world premiere of “Slacker Uprising” will take place tomorrow night in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is one of the hardly contested swing states.