and it might stop people from actually doing something rather than only talking about stuff. I listened to Dreams End on a very recent radio interview yesterday and that point was put across by either DE or the interviewer. However, the Internet was not dismissed as a useful tool by either of them and I also believe it has great potential.
Equally, it has a downside and one that serves the same purpose as teevee, mass spectator sports and other distractions; it serves to deflect energy towards activities that don't actually get us any further forward. The Internet is also a very good way of sowing disinfo. A good example is the skewing of the 9/11 debate to the pointless, circular question of CD.
Another benefit of the Internet to the PTB is it provides huge amounts of information about what people are actually thinking on any given issue. Tin foil hat time but bugger it, I'm going to say this anyway and be damned.
I have long suspected at least two of the big liberal boards were deliberately set up to maintain the myth of an alternative to the Republican Party. It is no accident that at least one of these boards insists on support for Democrats (I think that's correct) as a condition of membership. So right from the start the parameters of the debate are constrained. I think that might be deliberate and it might serve the purpose of absorbing debate within those parameters rather than allowing it to spill out into activities/debate that is not in the interests of the Democratic Party (for which read the status quo...) It also provides enormous amounts of intelligence, and that's what it is, on how people are responding to whatever policy initiative is being proposed or tested. Damned useful to know what people think on any given issue, isn't it? Nice to know if the bait has been taken...and if people still cling on to the notion that the Dems will kick ass if only they get into power.
Both boards reek of Tavistock Institute-type "Civilised disagreement provided one doesn't go out of the liberal tent" and the sort of outright challenge to the status quo that is needed is firmly discouraged. For example, support for a third party. It is no accident that debates on 9/11 are relegated to a fire pit on one of the boards. It's not difficult to see why debate on the massive anomalies surrounding 9/11, on a board that has direct links to the Democratic Party, would be discouraged.
Another biggish board has allowed the "no planes" debate to become a central plank in their ongoing debate on 9/11. So there is a focus on technical discussions that are going to lead nowhere. Whether the skewing of the debate towards the "no planes" concept is deliberate isn't all that relevant per se. The fact that such a debate is ongoing serves to confirm the point that the Internet can be both useful as well as being a source of distraction from the real issues.
And the PTB would have to take control of the entire www: Usenet and e-mail, as well as the 'net although the person proposing a closed Internet (such as Internet2) probably means the whole system.
I think it is in the interests of the PTB to keep the incessant babble going so energy is dissipated into a myriad of unconnected debates. True, some of the debate is starting to coalsesce around the central theme of the system is rotten. For the most part the 'net (and the Newsgroups) is a dazzling array of distractions, a sewer of porn (not erotica coz that's something entirely different to scummy prOn) and a great way to sow disinformation where it both gets to the maximum number of people and has the greatest potential for taking root.
The www is both useful to the PTB and a threat. Maybe it has now reached the point where the threat posed by the free flow of information is starting to outweigh the benefits of being able to sow disinformation and gather intelligence on what people are thinking. (Mind you, it would be stretching it a bit to regard some of the babble that goes on as "intelligence"
)
If there is a move towards a closed Internet it is reasonable to infer that the boot is coming down. So watch the debate closely folks.
On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
John Perry Barlow - A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
