The Challenge of the MOOC

It is hardly original to observe that we live in the Information Age, or that the internet appears to be changing everything.

Which makes it all the more surprising that one reads so little about how our colleges and universities are preparing for the advent of the massive, open, online course - the  MOOC.

Considering how few of my well-informed friends know anything about MOOCs, I'm not exactly sure how I stumbled upon them.  Perhaps the word simply got lost in the flood of information in which we are all daily immersed.  Or perhaps, having been a public school teacher and administrator, the news hit me close to where I have lived.

At any rate, when I started hearing about MOOCs, I knew I'd have to do some personal research.  So this May, I enrolled in a ten-week course on Global Climate Change through Coursera.org - the largest of three consortia offering college level instruction, online, for free.

Having completed this course - I chose the MOOC equivalent of auditing - I can pronounce myself impressed.  The course was taught by two engaging professors from the University of British Columbia, Dr. Sara Harris and Dr. Sarah Burch.  They offered online lectures as well as substantial reading assignments, interactive "labs", weekly quizzes, and stimulating discussion groups in the form of comment threads.

For those who preferred to earn a certificate, there were two assigned papers and a comprehensive final exam.  And a fee of $39.

That's not a typo.  $39.

Thousands of students, from all over the planet, signed up for this MOOC.  Around 1900 of us audited the course all the way to the end, while another 750 earned the certificate. 

I learned a lot - as I'm certain most of my fellow students did.

To be sure, I've taken more demanding courses.  But I've also taken courses - both undergraduate and graduate - which were considerably easier.  In other words, this MOOC offered a genuine educational experience, comparable in difficulty to a typical undergraduate course.

The MOOC represents a new thing under the sun.  At a time when individuals, families, and governments are groaning under the weight of ever-mounting college costs - too often for instruction of doubtful quality - it would be remarkable if the MOOC didn't find a valued place within the educational marketplace.

Thus far, the three consortia offering MOOCs have focused on recruiting outstanding teachers from many of the world's top universities.  Coursera, which started at Stanford, offers courses from, among other schools, Harvard, MIT, UVA and Oxford.

Moreover, while most MOOCs are not yet accorded college credit, that door has begun to open.  In February, the American Council on Education (ACE) announced that five MOOCs - two math courses from UCal-Irvine, two biology courses from Duke, and a calculus course from the UPenn - qualified for college credit.

ACE's decision is the foot in the door.  It seems inevitable that - given today's competitive economy - large employers will soon begin devising ways of assessing the actual knowledge and skills of potential employees, rather than contenting themselves with mere paper transcripts. 

In time, assessing actual knowledge and skills - instead of transcripts - will provide an opportunity for a new category of entrepreneurs - and pink slips for a lot of HR drones.

More to the point, corporate and other employers - as well as the self-employed - will almost certainly take advantage of MOOCs as a means of upgrading the skills and knowledge of current employees - at little or no cost.

In time, even state licensing agencies - such as those which supervise costly and burdensome continuing ed programs - will have to get on board.

In the long run, MOOCs seem certain to shake traditional institutions of higher learning to their foundations.

When world-class teachers, from world-class universities, are available at little or no cost, how much longer can society be expected to continuing paying tens of thousands of dollars per student, per year for college instruction which is often mediocre and subject to grade inflation, and which, in the end, offers no proof of actual knowledge?

Would it not be more effective, and far less costly, to develop sophisticated means of assessing knowledge and skills - and allow individuals in need of new knowledge to acquire it by any available means?

Yet, if low-cost, self-directed education becomes an acceptable alternative to traditional university education, why wouldn't MOOCs run most bricks-and-mortar colleges out of business?

In some cases, the answer is - almost certainly - that they will.  Not every college or university will prove sufficiently adaptable to adjust to the rise of high-quality, free, online education.

Yet others will - quite possibly by meeting the challenge of the modern with the wisdom of tradition.    

In Britain's Oxford and Cambridge, the prevailing model of undergraduate education involves face-to-face meetings between one scholar and from one to three students.  No method of teaching is remotely as effective as this intimate, face-to-face, tutorial approach.

Up until now, the labor-intensive tutorial model has been ill-suited to American universities, committed as they are to educating enormous numbers of young people.

The rise of online education - with its ability to deliver high-quality, basic instruction to virtually unlimited numbers of students - might solve this problem.  Perhaps - in the near future - the American university will be able to use online lectures, peer-led discussion groups, and peer evaluation of research to free up instructional time for one-on-one, tutorial instruction.

In future, the choice might not be the  modern or the traditional, but a marriage of the best of both.

____________

Coursera's "Climate Literacy:  Navigating Climate Change Conversations" will be offered in a new session starting September 30.

Politics 101

Though he now seems likely to be distracted by the mess in Syria - the consequence of several  years of principled procrastination - President Obama has spent much of August on a strategically-timed campaign aimed at the problem of soaring college education costs.

I use the word "campaign" because - as is typical with political campaigns - the President was far more specific about describing the problem than he was about solving it.

Being the month when students prepare to return to campus - and when new freshmen begin their undergraduate lives - August provided an ideal opportunity for the President to hit the trail, campaign style, deploring rising college costs.

Campaigning 101, you might say.

This makes sense for an administration which never really evolved beyond the campaign - and, thus, is more comfortable pointing out problems than fixing them.  The President picked a time when college costs - including the many hidden costs which coincide with the fully-packed SUV, parental tears, and the awkward last hugs of that first trip to campus - are very much on the minds of American families. 

The veteran campaigners on Mr. Obama's staff arranged a series of rallies at which he could talk to large, star-struck crowds of college kids - or high school kids preparing to apply to colleges - about wanting to reduce these costs.

It really didn't matter that the President had no credible plan. 

And it certainly didn't matter that there's a logical inconsistency between the President's goal of making college education available to even more young Americans - while simultaneously trying to rein in rising costs.

Which, of course, amounts to saying, "Let's increase demand and bring the costs down at the same time.

That might get high marks in Campaigning 101, but not in Economics 101.

Still, it would be wrong to come down too hard on this President.  America's approach to what we quaintly term "higher education" has been unrealistic for decades now - since Vietnam, really - under both Republicans and Democrats.

Regardless of which party is in power, the policy has been to subsidize college education for ever-growing numbers of young people.

Why?

That brings us to Politics 101.

First, obviously, middle-class and working-class parents are dead serious about sending their kids to college - and they're grateful to any politician willing to help them pay the resulting bills.

That's why state governments provide financial assistance - largely in the form of discount "in-state" tuition rates and tax-free education savings plans.  Both are ways of buying middle-class and working-class votes with the voters' own money. 

That's also why Congress keeps expanding the Federal government's out-of-control policy of lending money, at low interest, to anyone who manages to finagle getting into college.

But it's not just parents who love financial aid programs.  Even more important are the kids themselves. 

Most newly-minted college freshmen are eighteen-year-olds - which is to say, they are also brand-new voters with no established party loyalties.

And, just like automobile manufacturers and brewers of malt beverages, political parties know that a brand loyalty established in the late teens will likely endure for decades, if not a lifetime.

What better way to win the hearts and votes of young Americans than by helping them pay for college now?

And, if their loyalties falter over the years, what better way to regain them than by passing a series of "fix-it" bills holding down interest rates - or forgiving part of their student loans?

Oldest trick in the book.

Politics 101.

Plus, there's this additional advantage to tuition assistance and college loan programs.  They introduce young voters - in a big way - to the grand American tradition of spending now and paying later. 

Again, that's an old, time-honored bipartisan tradition.  Buy now, pay later is how Democrats fund social programs.

It's how Republicans finance tax cuts for the rich.

It's how both parties buy the support of the real estate and housing industries.

It's how both parties finance their wars.

Really, it's how both parties - and the whole American business and political establishment -  rationalize our continuing failure to address global climate change.

Pollute now, pay later.

And it's why the United States - which used to profit by being the world's biggest lender - has gradually transformed itself into the world's biggest borrower.

Our college loan programs are an ideal way of acquainting yet another generation of young Americans with the seductive logic of deficit finance.

But, of course, this sort of thing can't go on forever.

The hard reality is that we spend too much money sending too many eighteen-year-olds to college. 

Indeed, because we make loans available to anyone who gets into college - for as long as they stay in college - we're subsidizing a lot of bad decisions by young people who aren't yet serious about learning

While raising the demand - and thus, the costs - for those students who are.

Our Big Brother

To begin with, I don't propose to soft-pedal my view of the National Security Agency's program of essentially unrestricted scrutiny of Americans' private communications.

The Constitution envisions no such sweeping governmental powers.  The regime of internal intelligence established and maintained under the Patriot Act - with the active participation of Presidents Bush and Obama - has no place in a free society.

But the Bush-Obama national security state - and yes, I've coupled their names - demonstrates the manifest willingness of both political parties to disregard individual liberty in the service of what President Eisenhower would surely have termed the "military-intelligence-industrial complex".

Let us call the NSA snooping program what it properly is - part of a Bush-Obama policy which also includes the use of drones to assassinate suspected terrorists - occasionally including American citizens; the perpetuation of imprisonment without trial at Guantánamo Bay; extraordinary rendition; and other gross breaches with our proud tradition of ordered liberty.

And it's nothing new.  We can add a dozen years of post-9/11 "extra-constitutional" behavior to decades of snoopery and police excesses resulting from our eternal War on Drugs.  A "war" which - while doing almost nothing to make drugs inaccessible to American consumers - has contributed immeasurably to the development of intrusive technologies; enriched narcotics rings and private prison companies; undermined the integrity and professionalism of governments, judicial systems and police forces around the world; and, of course, continuously nibbled away at our Bill of Rights.

As with the War on Drugs, both political parties, and the corporate elites for which they labor, have readily accommodated themselves to the increased power - and money - associated with the so-called War on Terror.  (A nonsensical term which is the logical equivalent of a "war on flanking maneuvers".)

The War on Terror is Big Government with a vengeance.  One would almost say, Big Brother.  The setup is perfect.  The enemy is invisible, amorphous and - for all the drama of its occasional successes - of extremely limited capability compared with, say, the Soviet Union of the 1960s. 

We declare war against such an ethereal enemy which - having no territory or regular army - cannot, logically, be finally defeated.  To our Oceania, "Drugs" have long provided a reliable Eastasia.  Since 9/11, "Terror" provides a nifty Eurasia.  (If you are groping for the references, it's time to re-read 1984.)

Our political classes love "wars" like this.  Wars which cannot be won - and thus, cannot be ended - are an ideal distraction from the business of solving problems which can be solved, but only by making difficult political choices.

A dysfunctional Congress and an aimless administration may be unable to reform the tax code; limit the impact of money in our elections; control health-care costs or the rising cost of college education; or do anyhing meaningful about global climate change - but they can look like they are doing something by making billion-dollar gestures in their two favorite, unwinnable wars.

And if the result is a continual erosion of our civil liberties and personal privacy, what is that to winning the next election?

So it's no wonder Congressional leaders of both parties are hyperventilating over Ed Snowden's whistle-blowing.  Senator Dianne Feinstein, whom I have long admired, completely jumped the shark when she added her voice to the likes of Speaker John Boehner in calling Snowden a "traitor". 

The fact is that Snowden - whatever his personal motives - has done us all a great service.

A debate has now begun in this country.  If we do not quickly lose interest, as we are wont to do - we may soon learn a good deal about what the government has been doing under cover of protecting us against its favorite Enemy. 

And whether we are still a people who value our liberty - even when we are asked to exchange it for the will'o'the wisp of safety.

Syria: Exiling Hope

So now, it appears, Russia is shipping more than anti-aircraft missiles to their Syrian allies.  Some reports have the Putin government sending in anti-ship missiles, as well, a move which could neutralize the use of American carrier-based aircraft to impose a no-fly zone - or knock out Syria's air assets in advance of a boots-on-the-ground intervention.

The prospect that America could be militarily checkmated by a has-been superpower is hardly surprising.  The Russians have always been chess-masters, and President Obama's strategic instincts seem to stop at the water's edge.

If a Russian gambit proves the beginning of the end for Mr. Obama's dithering approach to the latest Middle Eastern crisis, it might actually be for the best. The President has never understood the opportunities presented by the Arab Spring.  Perhaps it's time he just stopped trying.  Dealing with obstructionist Congressional Republicans is challenge enough for a President rapidly molting into a fairly lame duck.

But we shouldn't allow the collapse of Mr. Obama's wishful Syrian moment to pass without noting the core weakness of his strategic analysis - one which he shares with his predecessor and most of official Washington.

Among America's élites - political, intelligence, military, academic, media, etc. - it is a point of pride to know the names and résumes of the key players in some troubled part of the world.  These data are common currency among the people who are supposed to count inside the Beltway, on campus, and in think tanks scattered across the land.

In other words, the people who regard themselves as key players here in the United States are distinguished, in large part, by their ability to throw around the names of supposed key players in other parts of the world.

It's their version of sports-talk radio, Hollywood celebrity gossip, or the non-stop stock tips of CNBC.

It should be kept in mind, however, that America's élites govern through the acquiescence of millions of citizens who prefer to leave politics alone - but who have, periodically throughout our history, roused themselves to reform our institutions when the arrogant classes get them sufficiently screwed up.

The power to reform our political, social and economic institutions - while potential - always resides with the citizenry - and particularly with the anonymous, well-educated productive middle class.  This truth lies at the heart of all modern, developed societies.

Increasingly, across the planet, it is becoming clear that the people who really count - in almost every society - are the educated, industrious professionals, small businessmen, and entrepreneurs.

This trend has been developing since the Europe's late Middle Ages.  The very development of the modern nation-state has depended less upon kings, lords and generals than upon a slow, steady progress toward competent internal administration, the rule of law, economic development, the decline of hereditary and corporate privilege,  and the moderation of religious fanaticism.

And this progress, in turn, has rested with the  anonymous men and women who have worked, year by year, for the slow accumulation of those institutions which characterize modernity.

In the past century, this trend has become globalized.  Yet, for all that, our own arrogant classes - fascinated with their opposite numbers in other societies - invariably fail to grasp the transformational nature of this shift.

They prefer to trade on the celebrity gossip of key players.

Like calls to like.

But a picture of the world in which key players are truly "key" is no longer accurate.

Allow me to elaborate.

For some centuries now - at least since the invention of the printing press - the world has been gradually becoming more democratic.  Now, by "democratic", I don't mean to suggest something in the ideal, Athenian sense - but democratic in the sense that ultimate power no longer resides with the relative handful of people we identify as key players.

It resides, rather, with a larger number of middle-class people about whom we know far too little.

And this is not news.  Imagine that, around 1765 - as the unpleasantness over new taxes was breaking out in the colonies of British North America - someone at Whitehall had though to conduct an inquiry into the names and politics of the key players in the thirteen colonies.  Would that inquiry have discovered the leaders of the revolutionary effort which would erupt ten years later?

Impossible.  Among the names of loyal key players  - colonial governors, judges, functionaries, and aristocratic landowners - Ben Franklin's name would certainly have come up.  George Washington, the wealthy commander of Virginia's colonial militia, might have rated a mention. 

But most of the future leaders of our Revolution were barely out of school.  In 1763, Thomas Jefferson - soon to write what has been called the greatest mission statement in world history - was but twenty-two years old. 

Since 1776, despite most of human history's greatest butcheries, human progress has generally come through the discoveries of scientists and engineers - and through the mostly non-violent demands of an aroused, educated middle-class.  This has been especially true when that middle-class took the trouble to rally the support of the working class.

Gandhi proved the potential of non-violent action - as did Dr. King.  Peaceful demand for reform, led by the educated, industrious middle-classes, has transformed nation after nation.

Just two decades ago, the Soviet Union and its satellites imploded suddenly, and mostly without violence.  In east Asia, the change has been more gradual - but steady.

Similar changes have since taken place in many parts of the developing world.

Now comes the Arab spring.

A regime as repressive as North Korea's may deprive its people of modern technology, delaying the process of change.  But elsewhere, change has become the defining quality of our times.

And it is only reasonable to suppose that - In Syria, Iraq, even Iran - progress, when it comes, will come through educated, globally-minded professionals and business leaders who seek to transcend tribalism and religious fanaticism in favor of a modern, pluralistic society.

We forget this at our peril. 

President Bush ignored it in Iraq.  America's occupation of Iraq resulted in a civil war which empowered the worst elements of sectarian bigotry and overall medievalism - and caused the mass emigration of exactly the people Iraq needed in order to transform itself into a modern society.

By trying to avoid the risks of intervening in Syria, President Obama is making the same mistake his predecessor made.  He is ignoring the needs of the middle class.

President Obama, of all people, should recognize the power of these anonymous, productive classes.  In 2008, the key players of Democratic politics expected Senator Clinton to be their nominee.  If Senator Obama had built his strategy on key players, he would still be a Senator.

But since his election, the President has forgotten where his power lies.  He can blame most of his domestic frustrations on his failure to trust, educate, and mobilize middle-class Americans who are thoroughly sick of the key players of both political parties.

The same can be said of his policy in the Middle East.

In the long term, the process of rebuilding Syria as a modern, pluralistic - perhaps, someday, democratic - nation depends upon Syria's aspiring, upwardly-mobile middle and working classes.

Which is to say, it depends less upon who wins the present civil war than it does upon ending the destructive chaos which is driving those classes into exile.

The people who really count in Syria are not the key players known to our military, intelligence, diplomatic, academic and media elites.  They are the nameless bankers, doctors, lawyers, professors, and entrepreneurs who - given stability and half a chance - would slowly move their society toward modernity.

We should have had their backs two years ago.

Let's hope it's not too late.

Game Changer

By now, most Americans who don't live in a cave have heard something - however vague - about MOOCs.

MOOC is short for "massive open online course".  Several consortia offer these courses - Coursera being perhaps the best known.

Coursera offers college-level content to anyone with access to the internet, at no cost.  Outstanding professors from major research universities - Stanford, Princeton, Duke, etc. - deliver the lectures, but this isn't just a new way to watch lectures online.

There are readings, quizzes, short papers to write - even discussion groups. 

All online.  All free. 

There is, to be sure, a paid option.  For a small fee, you can sign up to get a certificate at the end of  the course.  For now, these certificates are worth the paper they're printed on - but that's changing.  Recently, the American Council on Education approved five courses from Coursera - three math, two science - for college credit.

We're entering a new era here.

In practical terms, a person who simply wants to learn - without worrying about getting a piece of paper - can now design a program from top universities and acquire that education for the cost of a broadband connection - or a lot of coffee at her neighborhood wi-fi location.

Or, for absolutely nothing, at the public library. 

I've written about MOOCs before, but that was before I had actually looked into them.  Last week, I enrolled in a ten-week Coursera offering called "Climate Literacy:  Navigating Climate Change Conversations", taught by two professors from the University of British Columbia, Dr. Sara Harris and Dr. Sarah Burch.

I've gotten through Module One, which was pretty basic, and Module Two, which was a good deal denser - mostly science, some it pretty technical.  Overall, the first half of the course is about science - then the focus switches to public policy.

My point is:  This is not fluff.  It's a college-level course.  You have to work at it. 

I've yet to decide whether to do all the assignments and earn a certificate.  If I opt in, it will cost $39.

Think about that.  A college course, from a very good university, for 39 bucks.

I'm trying to imagine how this doesn't change everything.

To be sure, MOOCs are new, so there are bugs to work out.  And most of the offerings are STEM stuff - science, technology, engineering and math.  It will be a few years before you can do the equivalent of an English major this way.

But consider what this could mean - if we do it right.

For the public schools - especially those which can't afford to offer higher-level STEM courses - MOOCs could represent a legitimate way for promising students to take those courses.  To be sure, accommodations would have to be made - such as hiring a teacher, perhaps from a nearby college, to meet with the students weekly and make sure they're on-task and not falling behind. 

For the home-schooling community, MOOCs could offer the answer to the difficult challenge of preparing older students who are ready for subjects their parents simply can't teach.

And for every serious high school student, MOOCs will soon offer a way of dealing with the frustration of an important course taught by a teacher who - whatever his intellectual attainments - just isn't a good classroom teacher.  Enduring the bad lectures might be unavoidable, but in her spare time, a serious student can get what she's missing from a top-flight, university-level instructor.

MOOCs will also offer wonderful possibilities for adult Americans - and even seniors.  For some years now, I've been involved with Adventures in Learning at the Shepherd's Center of Chesterfield - an educational program for active seniors.  I'm sure most of the Shepherd's Center's small, hands-on programs will continue just as they always have - but I can already envision what might be done for scholarly types by combining a MOOC with a weekly discussion group.

The biggest changes will probably come on our college campuses - and this is a topic worthy of exploration in-depth.

For now, I'd like to close with my appreciation of the course I'm presently taking. 

My regular readers will know that I have long been persuaded that the scientific community knows what it is talking about - and thus, that global climate change is real, largely human-caused, and deadly serious.

I've read a couple of books on the subject, and I really enjoyed Al Gore's documentary.  But I'll be the first to admit that I don't understand the science all that well.

I've just trusted the scientists.

Now, thanks to Drs. Harris and Burch, I'm starting to understand what scientists have known for a while now - and why they are deeply concerned, but hopeful that it's not yet too late.

This is a great MOOC. 

That's a phrase we're going to be hearing a lot more in the future.  

... or Get Off the Pot

I suppose that, deep down, the President is waiting for a miracle in Syria. 

Maybe the Syrian rebels - our guys, not al Qaeda's guys - will win a smashing victory,  oust Bashar al-Assad, and establish a stable, pro-American government.

Maybe the proposed peace conference will actually meet, overcome the unanimous desire of its participants to slaughter each other, and hammer out a coalition government fairly representing all of Syria's races, religions and interest groups.

Or maybe the American people will, without guidance from their political leaders, arrive at a consensus which permits Mr. Obama to act boldly - if action contingent upon polling data can ever be said to be bold.

Personally, I think he's just dithering - something this President has elevated to a Zen-like practice.

As for miracles, I'm guessing the Middle East used up its allocation several millennia ago. 

And if anyone wants what Sir Winston would have called my appreciation of the situation, it's this:  Syria is descending from one circle of Hell to the next while the world's only superpower wrings its hands and hopes for the best.

It's time for America either to act - or to declare that Syria is none of our business and turn our attention to other things.

Please understand.  I'm not at all sure we should concern ourselves with Syria.  To be honest,  I'm more interested in issues such as global climate change; the widening gulf between America's 1% and the rest of us; corporate domination of politics in the Western democracies; and the Cardinals' latest winning streak.

Besides, a war which boils down to enraged Middle Eastern tribes butchering each other over obscure ethnic and sectarian differences seems to me - while regrettable - pretty much a case of "dog bites man".

It's an over-populated planet.  Every little bit helps.

Still, it's impossible to pretend that America has no stake in the matter.  Syria isn't a big country, but it's strategically located.  Like much of the Arabic-speaking Near East - Syria is a society fractured into so many groups that it may well be unable to function without an imperial overlord or a murderous strongman.

America's most significant interests would include these:

Syria has chemical weapons, and a demonstrated willingness to use them.

Syria borders Israel.

Syria has its tentacles in Lebanon - a state which, left alone, might actually be capable of returning to a condition of advanced civilization.

Perhaps most importantly, Syria is a client of our local nemesis, Iran, and of our re-emerging would-be nemesis, Russia.

Given the limits of present-day technology, relocating Syria so that it no longer abuts Israel seems a non-starter.

On the other hand, a reasonably good outcome in the current civil war might well address the remaining issues.  Certainly, a more tractable government in Damascus might conceivably cool Syria's relations with Iran and Hezbollah, the most dangerous Islamist group in the region.

A new government installed with active military assistance from the United States might even allow us to draw Syria's chemical teeth. 

Moreover, America's stakes continue to rise.  Russia has pledged to provide anti-aircraft missiles to the Assad regime, and that's not something we should stand for.  Russia is a country we should be cultivating as a potential long-term partner - but its evolution toward democracy and the rule of law have been interrupted by the perpetual presidency of Vladimir Putin.

As long as Putin can ignore his country's urgent needs - by rallying nationalist nostalgia for the good old days when the Soviet Union was a super-power - Russia will remain stuck in the mud.

So there's a strong case to be made for resisting any attempt by Putin to make a big show in foreign affairs.  Syria represents a chance to take him down a peg, and such a chance shouldn't be missed.

Likewise, Hezbollah has committed to sending fighters into the Syrian conflict - which gives us a legitimate opportunity to kill them wholesale.

Hezbollah is a tough bunch, and sending in our troops against them would result in significant American casualties.  But in armed conflict, I'd bet on elite US Army and Marine units - with good air cover - against Hezbollah.  And taking a crack at exterminating Hezbollah - a finite force in a small, well-defined area - seems a lot more realistic than chasing the Taliban around the trackless mountains and valleys of Waziristan.

There's another issue - to my mind, the largest issue - and that's the demographic impact of civil war on Syria's future.  But that issue is so unfamiliar - because so often ignored - that it deserves its own post. 

For now, my message to the Obama administration would be this:  Dithering is not prudence, or patience, or doing your homework.  Dithering is dithering - and it's the diametric opposite of leadership.

It's time for Mr. Obama to do something ...or get off the pot.

The Internet Illusion

There are times when I enjoy playing the curmudgeon.  (Heaven knows I'm getting old enough.)  So let me just say this upfront.

You can't change the world online.

In recent months, I've grown increasingly grumpy with well-intentioned people who seem to believe you can.  As I write this, I've just gotten another plea from the President's "grassroots" campaign - Organizing for Action - to sign its petition demanding that the Senate pass stronger background checks for weapons purchases.

I'll probably sign, but not before I finish this curmudgeonly grumble.  Because America's progressives and liberals need a serious reality check.

For the last few weeks, it seems like every third person on my newsfeed has posted some expression of outrage that the Senate ignored the wishes of 90% of Americans in order to satisfy a small minority opposed to background checks.

Note that word "wishes".  

Because there's a vast difference between the wishes of a majority and the will of the people.

Wishes are for greeting cards and animated kiddie flicks.  Will is about commitment, sacrifice, and hard work.  About having some skin in the game.

It's becoming increasingly easy to express our wishes through such ephemeral means as internet petitions.  And powerful interests will occasionally deign to grant a token victory to such wishes - reversing an ill-considered personnel decision or adjusting some obnoxious policy or rule.

Something that doesn't cost much.

But when real power, or serious money, is at stake, the people who run things will yield only to the aroused, stubborn, persistent force of the popular will.

And that's much harder to come by.

In the case of background checks, the opposition consists of a small minority of Americans - perhaps three to five million citizens.  But if those opponents make up only a small percentage of voters, they have the advantage of being focused, single-issue voters. 

Any incumbent who displays less than 100% loyalty to their definition of Second Amendment rights can be certain of facing their wrath.  They will vote, and raise money, and work assiduously to defeat that incumbent in the next election.

They might be a tiny minority, but they have will.

And our Senators understand that.

Imagine, for a moment, an equal number of well-organized citizens on the other side - absolutely dedicated to eliminating assault-style weapons, or banning large ammo clips, or imposing mandatory background checks.  Citizens willing to do whatever it took to defeat any Senator who refused to vote their way.

Then we'd have a fair fight.

But that's not America in the Age of Obama.  On a host of issues - gun control, environmental protection, marriage equality, reproductive rights, etc.  - genuine liberal/progressive activism is hard to find.

We've substituted virtual activism - and that's not the same thing.

In America, power comes from electoral majorities - not from polls, online petitions, or changing our profile pics. 

Power comes from winning elections - and not just Presidential elections.

It comes from winning congressional elections, legislative elections, even those seemingly trivial local elections in which future governors, senators and presidents get their start.

It comes from finding good people and turning them into candidates - for every seat.

And those candidates don't have to be Democrats.  Independents will often do just as well, or better.

Winning elections requires, above all, three raw materials:  money, manpower, and expertise.

Since Howard Dean's insurgency, in 2004, political campaigns have learned how to raise money online.  But to date, there's no internet substitute for manpower - the boots-on-the-ground, door-to-door, retail politics that wins elections.

America's liberal/progressive forces need an army of citizens willing to put in the hours, pound the pavement, and cope with snarling dogs and slammed doors.

Citizens who realize that changing America requires more than sitting in a coffee shop, sipping a latté, and double-clicking on an internet petition.

For therein lies the danger.  The ease, convenience, and potential anonymity of online petitions and other such expressions have deluded too many into believing they have actually taken action - when all they've done is make themselves feel better.

Real-world politics takes very little account of facile gestures.  It demands commitment - the choice to get into the arena.

The rich, the powerful, the bigoted, and the profligate will yield only to superior force in the form of millions of mobilized voters.  Wishes will not suffice.

And really, that's as it should be.  Whatever your specific cause - sane weapons laws, stopping the Keystone XL pipeline, legalizing same-sex marriage, or restoring a society where any child can aspire to rise as far as her abilities and efforts can take her - it should demand real sacrifice.

In historical terms, despite occasional presidential elections, America's liberal/progressive forces have been in retreat for the past four decades.  Only by educating ourselves, sharpening our arguments, mobilizing our forces, and doing the hard work - for any one issue - will we fit ourselves for the countless other battles which need to be fought.

It's about building character, and teamwork... 

And will.  Real change demands real commitment.  It demands an act of will.

We can build a future worthy of our past, and worthy of our promise.  But wishing won't make it so.