Reliable Sources' Howard Kurtz brought on the Buzz Machine's Jeff Jarvis, who caused quite a stir on Twitter last week when he decided to voice some of his frustration with this whole debt ceiling debacle after a couple of glasses of wine.
As Jarvis discussed with Kurtz, one of the things that a lot of our pundits are ignoring in the media is the enormous amount anger that's out there on the part of the electorate on how this situation is being handled by our politicians. I can't say that this is the absolute worst we've seen from our politicians by a long shot, but this completely irresponsible hostage taking and the refusal to do anything about our deficit that doesn't just savage the working class and the poor while ignoring the terrible income disparity we've got in the Unites States has to rank right up there near the top.
Here's more from Jarvis' blog -- No one owns a hashtag:
The beauty of a hashtag is that no one can control it.
A hashtag is not like a marketing, media, or political message, whose creator thinks it can be created and controlled. It is not like the namespace in domains, on Facebook and Google+, or in trademarks, for anyone can use a hashtag without permission or payment. It’s not like a dictionary with one definition. It’s not like a word on an FCC list that prohibits or chills its use.
A hashtag is open and profoundly democratic. People gather around a hashtag. They salute it and spread it or ignore it and let it wither. They imbue it with their own meaning. The creator quickly and inevitably loses control of it.
That is what the #fuckyouwashington escapade has taught me: the power and importance of the hashtag as a platform. Hashtags allow us to gather around topics, events, and actions across platforms. Hashtags are in our control.
It’s quaint that some folks lobbied to get me to change the hashtag, as if I controlled it. Some scolded me for not scolding Congress or the GOP or the Democrats or the White House. But what was fascinating about the #fuckyouwashington is how it brought out users’ opinions — rather than mine — on why Washington is fucked up and by whom. Soon after the hashtag got out there, people starting tweeting “#fuckyouwashington for…”, filling in their grievances.
More there so go read the rest and if you can't watch the video, Jarvis pretty well reiterated all of the same points he made in his blog post to Kurtz.
