As I have been saying, the information age will usher in radical and dramatic changes in the way we do things. And corollary to these, we should see the snowballing forces of decentralization percolate into the field of politics as digital activists congregate to defend against government’s repeated attempts to control the internet through coercive means (mostly via censorship) by bringing the confrontation into the political arena.
Internet activism has turned what used to be a defensive evasion strategy into offense—via voters.
I am gradually being validated by developing events abroad as digital activists appears to have emerged as a potent third party political force, first in Sweden and now in Germany.
From the Wall Street Journal, (bold emphasis added)
The Pirate Party, a loosely organized group of digital activists, is dropping anchor in state legislatures here, shaking up Germany's staid political establishment.
The Pirates believe in file-sharing, online privacy and digital democracy, but their platform lacks policies on major issues of the day, such as the euro-zone debt crisis. That isn't holding them back.
Around 10% of German voters support them, according to opinion polls. They are expected to win seats in two important state legislatures in early May, including in Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia. A strong result in those regional elections could set the course for the Pirates' real breakthrough: seats in the German federal parliament in next year's national elections.
"The tremors will be felt all the way to Berlin" if the Pirates enter the North Rhine-Westphalia legislature, says Joachim Paul, the party's lead candidate in the region.
The rise of the upstart movement is complicating life for Germany's established parties, which could struggle to form their usual ruling majority coalitions at state and national level if the Pirates' popularity proves durable.
The Pirates represent "a new style" in German politics, Mr. Niedermayer says. Their professed aim is to bring the digital revolution to politics, making government more transparent and accessible. They have caught the imagination of the Facebook generation, as well as of less tech-savvy voters disenchanted with bland politicians in Germany's mainstream parties.
"What we all have in common is the desire to be active in grass-roots democracy," says Kai Hemsteeg, a 30-year-old police detective. He used to be a local official for Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union, but says he likes the Pirates' greater openness to participation.
The Pirates were founded in late 2006 in an underground Berlin nightspot called C-Base, a hangout of the local digerati. They are part of an international movement that began in Sweden, whose main aim is the free sharing of information online, including through looser copyright laws. Of the roughly 50 Pirate parties around the world, none has had the electoral impact of the German wing.
As the information age deepens, compounded by the crisis of the welfare states (which should implode sometime soon), global political trends will increasingly shift in favor of digital or internet activism and of the entrepreneurs (China’s media suppressed political upheaval have indicated signs of the latter’s development). In the US, the rise of Ron Paul as a serious political contender against establishment politics seem as further evidence of such a formative trend shift. This should accelerate overtime.
