Bill Moyers reflects that the satisfaction we might take from our favorite political satirists hides our impotence:

• Sometimes I long for the wit of a Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. They treat this town as burlesque, and with satire and parody show it the disrespect it deserves. We laugh, and punch each other on the arm, and tweet that the rascals got their just dessert. Still, the last laugh always seems to go to the boldface names that populate this town. To them belong the spoils of a looted city. They get the tax breaks, the loopholes, the contracts, the payoffs.

The public speech of these notable comics, critical though they may be, is not enough. The social media writing of their fans is not enough. Moyers implies something about the nature of public writing--that the words are not enough. Their power is achieved only when they help to animate social networks, groups of affiliated and committed and skillful people. It's an example of the semaphore lesson I was considering the other day:

• Messages are easy, easier than ever, but they go nowhere, they are useless, if the network has not been prepared. That network is a piece of open technology and a web of people already aligned with each other and inside each one of them the knowledge, attitude, and skills needed to pitch in.