Posted on 01/05/2009 12:46:03 PM PST by steve-b
...I fear that one element in Obama's well-intentioned infrastructure planhis goal of providing all Americans with broadband Internet accessmight one day be seen as inadvertently laying the foundations for a return to fascism, the political catastrophe of the 1930's....
The 1930s fascists were expert at using all the most technologically sophisticated communications technologiesthe cinema, radio, newspapers, advertisingto spew their destructive, hate-filled message. What they excelled at was removing the the traditional middlemen like religion, media, and politics, and using these modern technologies of mass communications to speak with reassuring familiarity to the disorientated masses.
Imagine if today's radically unregulated Internet, with its absence of fact checkers and editorial gatekeepers, had existed back then. Imagine that universal broadband had been available to enable the unemployed to read the latest conspiracy theories about the Great Crash on the blogosphere. Imagine the FDR-baiting, Hitler-loving Father Charles Coughlin, equipped with his personalized YouTube channel, able, at a click of a button, to distribute his racist message to the suffering masses. Or imagine a marketing genius like the Nazi chief propagandist Josef Goebbels managing a viral social network of anti-Semites....
Silicon Valley utopians argue that blaming the Internet for online hatred is like blaming Johannes Gutenberg, the 15th century inventor of the moveable type printing press, for Mein Kampf. And that's true, of course. Yet given the way in which we know that the unfiltered Internet spreads corrosive lies and inflames prejudice, why would we want to give all Americans universal broadband access at the very moment when millions of them will be unemployed, disorientated and angry? Rather than spending billions of dollars in telecom technology, wouldn't it be better to invest that money in local libraries and librarians, where their education could be supervised by accountable human beings....
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
Let’s see......if we did not have the internet........
Fahrenheit 9/11 would have been a documentary sold to the public without opposing view.
Dan Rather would have successfully circulated a forged document against a sitting president.
Al Gore would have won the White House in 2000.
Bill Clinton would never have been impeached for staining an intern’s dress with his manhood.
Many “studies” against guns would never have been proven to be falsified.
Many “speeches” would never have been proven to be plagurized.
Without the Internet, Rathergate would have been RatherReport.
“The 1930s fascists were expert at using all the most technologically sophisticated communications technologiesthe cinema, radio, newspapers, advertisingto spew their destructive, hate-filled message. What they excelled at was removing the the traditional middlemen like religion, media, and politics, and using these modern technologies of mass communications to speak with reassuring familiarity to the disorientated masses.”
I don’t think BO needs to do this. He already has the media kissing his A$$. That IS mass communication. They will deliver pretty much whatever message his talking points of the day include. So why bother going around them. I think he will focus more on exploiting that advantage by curbing internet political activity and talk radio. Then his message is the ONLY message people hear.
“We live in an increasingly democratized culture in which individuals, tragically, have less and less control over their own economic lives.”
HUH?
“.... why would we want to give all Americans universal broadband access at the very moment when millions of them will be unemployed, disorientated and angry?”
I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we make an exception of Andrew Keen of “The Daily Beast” ?
This is the same guy who called printing presses evil in colonial America. A responsible press is a wonderful thing for those who decide what is irresponsible. For anyone else, it is a gag and the single most useful weapon of the tyrant.
A couple of thoughts;
Talk radio will be ignored .. we will be put into a frenzy by Congress 'acting on' TFD, but really .. they don't care whether it will go through or not ... haven't they already proven that they can manipulate enough people to mimic a majority? This neo-majority (I'll lay claim to the coinage of the word), is sufficient because of their bruteness to be louder and more effective in being ... well ... louder ... and more repetative.
We are watching the dismantleing of America as she was meant to be in an extremely rapid pace.
Zero took office with the daily press meetings and nominations .. all very professional and 'presidential'.
The internet will be the gathering place of conversation and debate .. and more lefties will come along and be ... um ... louder and more repetative.
They have the time, the power positions, the money .. and folks .. no one wants to say the words but the fact is, all we have are words and bullets.
I truly believe we will have our Lexington Green.
"Palin's performances plunged American Presidential politics to a new nadir in intellectual ignorance, linguistic cheesiness and populist farce. The Couric interview, in particular, revealed a barely literate woman unable to string a coherent sentence together." The 2008 tv election October 10, 2008
I dunno, Andrew - I thought Katie Couric was fairly literate in the interview, even though the overpaid tart doesn't know that FDR didn't "get on TeeVee" in 1929, because he wasn't president, and there were only a handful of experimental TeeVees...
I'm thinking the real Nazi just outed himself. He wants himself and his "journalist" gang to control the Internet for the Obama White House, to shut us ignorant Righties up...
You’re right about that.
What I meant was they don’t allow the right to present their own case.
I watched how Rush Limbaugh’s TV show was removed from the airwaves in Chicago.
They put it on at 5am but the ratings stayed high. They moved it to 1am but the ratings stayed high.
Then they canceled it with no explanation.
Just checking to see how that looks when adjusted for today....
The left is still pushing it.
The MSM is not liberal because of any government regulation, it is liberal because the people who own and control it are either liberal themselves or choose to push the liberal agenda for other reasons. Their is nothing stopping a conservative, or group of conservatives, from buying any MSM business and making it a conservative mouthpiece. There are rumors of the "fairness doctrine" being reenacted but I highly doubt this. For now, liberals can own and control NBC or CBS and make it a propaganda arm of the DNC, a moderate can own and control FOX and make it "fair and balanced", and a conservative could own and control any media outlet they want and make it the voice of conservatism. Conservatives, for whatever reason, have chosen not to do this. This is no reason to bash the liberals for being smart enough to understand the importance of controlling mass media to push their agenda. You put your money up and you make your choices. That's capitalism and that's freedom.
All fact-checkers are equal, but some fact-checkers are more equal...
As opposed to "fake but accurate". I've not noticed any significant 'fact-checking' within the mainstream media of late either.
Sure it is. We've already covered how it got this way.
Who would risk several billion dollars for a conservative cable outlet, radio station or newspaper now, when the left could legislate it out of existence within weeks.
It's a bad business risk.
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