The LATimes discovers the connection between politics and technology. Oh, and it's not just the money. Not entirely. It's also time and, well, interest.
Joe Menn rounds up the usual tech millionaire suspects: MoveOn's Wes Boyd and Doug Carlston along with Joe Krause's DigitalConsumer.org accompanied by Craig Newmark, John Gilmore (see below) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Menn, who has also written a pretty good book on the revolutionary but illegal music service, Napster, doesn't talk about local or state politics. Instead he focuses on national and consumer issues; Newmark and Krause have copyright fights, for instance. MoveOn, of course, is just good old-fashioned organizing.
Nice of them to notice, huh? Timely, too.
Geek rabble-rousing and political dissatisfaction are coming together in an interesting way. It's not entirely clear where this is headed -- Geeks can move right very quickly, particularly when it comes to money -- but it's going somewhere.
The best example so far is Oliver Muoto's PayDemocracy. If you were in San Francisco for the Bubble, you remember Oliver. His Friday party mailer -- it started out as a brief email message but grew to a multi-page listing with ratings -- was the social Bible of a certain place and time. No slouch in the PR skills department, Muoto got himself a nice write-up for his new gig in last week's Wall Street Journal.