
Hecklers show dangers of Members of Congress using Twitter - sweetdreams
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/06/twitter-users-heckle-hoekstra-en-masse.php
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marcusbooster
Got this link from the comments, pretty funny:
<http://petehisameme.wordpress.com/>

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rrhyne
Post title should be: "Twitter lets lawmakers know when they are being an
asshat".

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sethg
I'm not sure the _lawmakers_ are getting the message here....

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TrevorJ
140 characters does tend to create the danger that your comments will be less
nuanced and devoid of context. That's fertile ground for inviting criticism
right there.

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icey
_"Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when
Republicans were shut down in the House."_

Do you think any amount of nuance can really save that?

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gojomo
I think nuance and charitable reading -- which should be granted to _everyone_
in online forums, especially forums with constrained context -- can save it.
For example:

It's not clear exactly what "Iranian twitter activity" Hoekstra's talking
about. Is it the activity of people in Iran, or their outside supporters, or
of dilettantes just cheering from a distance?

He says 'similar' not 'the same as'. And both do involve a partisan group,
locked out of a political process, using Twitter to coordinate a response.
That aspect may be a tiny dimension of what's happening in Iran, but it is one
dimension.

And he's not implying his analogy gives him any special empathic insight into
what's happening in Iran. He's talking about "twitter activity", which is _not
the same thing_ as mass protests against a repressive state (as much as
Twactivists would like to think it is).

So those who mock Hoekstra have changed his tweet in their own minds into the
least-charitable reading possible: "Iran's protests of repression facing
violent crackdowns, I understand because it's just like a challenging
parliamentary maneuver we faced." But that is _not_ what he used his <140
characters to say; that's only what people already predisposed to hate him
chose to hear.

When a Zen Master says something perplexing, comparing things completely of a
different scale, or things that don't seem to be comparable, the proper
response is not "U R dum ha ha!", but to try to understand those ways it might
be true.

Hoekstra may not be a Zen master -- he may very well be a gaffe-prone idiot, I
don't know -- but it's never fair to any speaker to rip a statement from its
context, interpret every word in the worst possible light, and broadcast it to
others hungry for things to be enraged about for partisan advantage. That
cheap maneuver is one of the worst things about both politics and the
speed/atomization of online communication.

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aardvark
True; the larger problem here is with the medium itself: Twitter does not
provide room for context or nuance.

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jodrellblank
I think the larger problem is the nature of current political discourse is to
assume the other person/party is an evil idiot and do everything in your power
to spread that idea, without addressing the content of what they say or
proposing any details better solution yourself or working together to for the
good of the country instead of infighting.

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aardvark
Good point. I wonder how much of that is due to the long period of peace and
prosperity that the U.S. has experienced; in the absence of any serious
external threats, it becomes easier for partisans to squeeze their political
opponents into that role.

9/11 was an anomaly. Following the attacks we saw a time of genuine good will
between the parties. The further we get from that date, the more our politics
is descending back into petty partisanship.

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byrneseyeview
Republicans have less to lose from this kind of thing:

<http://www.slate.com/id/2220030/>

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paulgb
_Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us 'time to
deliver' on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND_ \- Sen. Chuck
Grassley

Ignore the content for a second and look at the grammar/spelling. I'm not sure
if it's more sad or funny that this becoming one of the ways politicians
communicate with the public.

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tlrobinson
Wow. I thought this was a joke at first. _I'm_ embarrassed for him.

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krschultz
This might be the best use of Twitter I have ever seen, he has to feel at
least a little dumb about that comment now.

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noodle
you're assuming he doesn't just use twitter as a megaphone; that he actually
reads responses.

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username
Doesn't anyone adhere to "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those
who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."?

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paulgb
For better or worse, in politics, those who mind tend to matter.

