THE OLIGARCHY STRIKES BACK

The internet and the blogosphere have been a tremendous boon to liberty, permitting real-time information flows across the globe, increasing transparency and empowering the average citizen to speak out or even acquire real influence on the public issues of the day. The effects have sat poorly among some members of the elite, particularly in government and at major MSM institutions who enjoyed a preponderant influence in shaping opinion and setting the bounds of public discourse. Even at times dispensing disinformation with impunity.

Some of these folks would like that power back. They range from foreign governments that oppress their own citizens to MSM airheads who cannot stand the fact-checking and mockery from the common herd. They want to raise the barriers to entry again to circumscribe who can be heard.

Bruce Kesler has an excellent round-up of these would-be Oligarchs of Information in the Augusta Free Press:

“Return to pre-Internet journalism?

Guest View

Bruce Kesler

The Augusta Free Press

There are foreign and domestic movements afoot that may return journalism to its pre-Internet closedness. One would move control of the Internet to that bastion of freedom – for petty despots, that is – at the United Nations. The other would give the U.S. government the power to, in effect, license journalists.

Whether you are on the political left or right, or more likely just a news consumer who wants fuller information than provided by the mass media of your newspaper or TV network, your right to hear freedom of speech is at risk.

If not for the Internet’s openness, you would probably not have heard about many criticisms of the government, its programs or leading political figures, or just have heard what certain media or political elites choose for you to hear. They may like that insulation from the light of truth. Would you?

It is only due to the Internet that opposing views may ever get heard – as in the Vietnam veterans’ rebellion against John Kerry’s false presentation of himself. It is only due to the Internet that the self-serving conduct by politicians gets unearthed, and they embarrassed, so quickly – as in the spending spree by the Republican Congress in the so-called Transportation Bill. It is only due to the Internet that the abuses of sanctimonious leading journalists gets exposed – as in Dan Rather’s attempt to affect the 2004 election with false Bush military-service documents, or the hysteric misreporting of the causes and effects of Hurricane Katrina’s impact.

If that’s the situation in the United States, imagine what the Internet has meant to the struggle for freedom among those in China or Iran or Cuba or the kleptocracies in Africa. It’s virtually the only way the oppressed have to get real news from outside, to break out of the solitary confinement imposed by their governments to become members of a global civilized society, to get out truth to their people, and to unleash the worst fear of their rulers – international opinion – and bring approbation on their depravities.

I wrote about one of the threats to the Internet, “U.S. versus E.U., China, Cuba, Iran on Internet Control”:

“Let’s hope John Bolton can scuttle this one. At the World Summit on the Information Society, the European Union has lined up with such stalwarts of smothering internet freedom as China, Cuba, Iran and several African states (in name only, these tribal kleptocracies) to carry to the U.N. their effort to take control of the Internet. … (According to) Internet authority Milton Mueller: ‘It’s not clear to me that governments know what to do about anything at this stage apart from get in the way of things that other people do.’ Like freedom of speech. This issue, this outrageous putsch attempt, deserves an uproar, heard around the world on the Internet.” www.democracy-project.com/archives/001913.html.

Another blogger goes into much depth, including this key economic point: “It is on the basis of that ‘full faith and confidence’ in the system (of hands-off, efficient administration of the Internet by U.S. agencies) that vast information flows, often transacted by companies worth many billions of dollars, can occur on a routine basis.” http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2005/10/battle-for-internet.html.

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