SCORE ONE FOR INTERNET dEMOCRACY

The World Economic Forum, a.k.a. Davos, is what is affectionately known in some circles as the Capitalist Cabal--a clandestine tryst where the world's most powerful barons of industry, financiers, and political scions convene behind closed doors to plot the course of the global political economy.

For a few years now, civil society organizers from across the globe have convened a World Social Forum in an attempt to push back on the social pendelum in the direction of dEMOCRACY, while a few political actors "invited to amuse, surprise and, within moderation, attack, the gathered throng" at Davos are allowed in to plead with the rich for mercy upon the destitute and impoverished in the world.



"Okay, so let me say this one more time. All we are asking for is to be able to eat and to send our kids to school and not to be plagued by AIDS and malaria anymore. Deal?"

In the past, some business leaders questioned why a World Social Forum was necessary at all? Why couldn't everyone just like, ya know, meet together? How can one be so powerful and yet so naiive?

Here's what happens when we try to get together: human rights violations

But according to the latest from the Int'l Herald Tribune, internet dEMOCRACY pierced the veil of Davos:

"Davos has now been breached by the blog," said Joichi Ito, chief executive of Neoteny Co., a venture capital firm based in Japan. "Anyone interacting with my blog gets past the guards."

...For some, however, such obsessive use of communications technology totally misses the point of meeting in Davos. Its isolation is exactly what is needed to have room to think, they say.

One perk of being invited to Davos is a goody bag of gifts, including regularly the latest and most poewrful in handheld PDA computing technology. That these global leaders (and their minions who marshall such international summits) did not forsee that insiders would blog-broadcast Davos into the outside world kind of makes you wonder how they got to be in charge in the first place.

The best cure for the pathologies of avarice and power-lust is sunshine, by blog or any other means. A special thanks to my gracious supporters at blogger and kudos to bloggers of all political persuasions.