One of the great frustrations for the modern citizen is being constantly talked to but rarely, if ever, listened to. Only by speaking at a local council meeting during the time for public input can the lowly citizen feel like they might possibly be heard. Our modern world, however, eschews such direct and personal conversation with our leaders and those who claim to represent us. Instead, we are lectured to by the remote voices of television and radio and, with few exceptions, we can't ask questions or refute points. We become frustrated and bitter, knowing that we are disenfranchised. We get recorded calls urging us to a rally for things we don't believe in or for politicians too handled to listen. We are expected to cough up money for one group to keep another group from doing something. We are expected to vote for one candidate whose capabilities we despise the least. Then we are lectured to some more because so many of us don't contribute or vote.

We look to the web and we see no improvement. We are bombarded by slow motion flash presentations as we try to reach somebody to talk to in an organization. We talk amongst ourselves, but we are a small band of bits and bytes lost in a breeze of cyberspace. Meanwhile, the news pages show some message from Bin Laden. I have several things I would like to say to Bin Laden in response, but there is no way to speak or write to him. I go to the web site of MoveOn.org and, though they claim to be a grassroots organization, there is no public forum, no bboards, no chatrooms, no place for me and any of the other blades of grass to have our say. Of course, they are just the mouthpiece of George Soros, but you would think they would at least try to pretend that they listen to the people.

We, the silent masses, are not heard.

Can Social Media help our plight? Possibly. We know our isolated cyber-communities have no communication with the powers-that-be, and that those powers only talk at us at election time and only listen to us when they have to.

when they have to

When we speak at the town council meeting, the council listens to us, the public, then.

when they have to

That is how we open the ears of the politicians. If we will only listen to them when they listen to us, then we can create true public discourse on the web. If we create a social media on the web, on television, on radio and on the telephone, where two-way communication is enforced, then the nonsense of Bin Laden and Soros will not be heard unless they listen first to the reason and thoughts of their audience.

Carl Peter Klapper

PS: Be sure to download my song A Home for All in time for the Fourth of July.
Also, The Washington Poems makes a great, though perhaps now a late, Father's Day Gift.