European Political News

This morning there was a short interview on Start the Week with Clay Shirky (where do they get these names?) - author of a new book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations - about how the possibilities of building alliances quickly makes protest easier. Here’s the conversation (which is about 10 minutes): Download audio file (20080317-bbc-radio-4-start-the-week-andrew-marr-clay-shirky-here-comes-everybody.mp3) And here’s a quote from the conversation with respect to blogging: Political bloggers are characterised as: “Single young men with a libertarian outlook”. Clay Shirky replies: “That’s not the problem - it is more of a sense of having the permission to speak in public.” That is an interesting distinction; and I think I agree with him. As I’m coming into contact with a wider range political bloggers, more and more of them seem to be distinctly older than “young”. “Libertarian” is probably right, though. There are more details of the book here. Clay Shirky has started writing a blog with updates here. [Update 2pm. Looks like we need to apply these techniques. Having read this by Mr Eugenides today, and this in the Guardian: Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain’s most senior police forensics expert. Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said a debate was needed on how far Britain should go in identifying potential offenders, given that some experts believe it is possible to identify future offending traits in children as young as five. ‘If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long-term the benefits of targeting younger people are extremely large,’ said Pugh. ‘You could argue the younger the better. Criminologists say some people will grow out of crime; others won’t. We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society.’ This is not Italy in the early 1920s, it is Great Britain in 2007. This proposal is morally and ethically repugnant, and Mr Pugh’s position is untenable. If they must detect unacceptable tendencies in Primary School, then why not try sniffing under the armpit rather than pfaffing about with DNA databases - probably far more reliable, and just as respectful of the rights of the individual. Our Chief Constables are severely screwed-up in their thinking and their ethics, and we have a cancer growing in the police service. How do we root out these totalitarian tendencies?] Tags: political blog, here comes everybody, clay shirky, organising without organisations, flashmob