That's never been asserted. What's been said is that the dependence on online technologies can lull some people into a false sense of security.
To the contrary, that is more or less Shirky asserts:
I see, you're talking about Shirky and I'm referring to the people on this list. My mistake. Well, the first problem with Shirky's assertion is that as an elite not connected with grassroots social movements, he speaks from the place specifically having to do with political campaigns and the existing social structure, i.e., voting and elections. That is the extent of what he is referring to, and in that sense, there is no evidence to back him up, because Dean is pretty much the first politician to put any of this into sustained and consistent practice. So yes, Shirky has his head up his ass. On the other hand, if we're talking about grassroots use of the Internet to support and sustain political *organizing* and various forms of action and intervention (in other words: movement building), we already have numerous examples of that, including everything from the anti-Corporate Globalization Movement to the work I did with the Black Radical Congress. So the issue is really what type of political actions are we trying to identify? If we're merely talking about voting, then yes, the evidence is weak there. If we're talking about grassroots political action, then there's plenty of evidence of it's effectiveness. Part of the problem is defining what effective action is. Shirky, and I suspect many others, only see that which results in the election of officials from one of the two Corporate-owned parties as "real" effectiveness. Art