Hugh Mackay Web2.0 and democracy

it has been a thought of mine recently that if we could only get everyone connected to the internet and engaged in the decision making of the country that we would have a better system then the current westminster parliment... however reading "Advance Australia Where?" has given me pause for thought - thought for pause. Hugh basically says that if everyone is involved then we end up with chaos and that we need leaders - people who can consider the facts and make informed and sometimes popular decisions. I agree... however I feel that my recent thinkings about the involvment of everyone in the process has been a lack of voice within the decision making process - a government, now deposed that was making decisions that I did not agree with - bad decisions - decisions that got them unelected.... during those times however I wanted more engagement and web2.0 seemed like a natural way to go. Now that we have someone in govt that is more to my way of thinking.. I don't feel so angry about a lack of engagement.

all that being said we still need transparency in govt and better consultation and engagement with the populace and web 2.0 has a great many tools and ideas that can further that cause.

hhmmmmm...

is anybody out there

Despite all the neat tools and all the neat communications channels and all the neat photostreams and all the neat neatness... sometimes it still feels kinda lonely out there - despite all the tweets and the never ending streams of status updates - all these people, all the time but still it feels somewhat empty.