ihoby wog

IMPORTANCE

Democracy is at stake. Being the only uncensored means of high speed communication, it is the only place candidates and ballot measures have nearly equal footing for the public to experience what they’re about and make an informed vote.

Freedom is at stake. Through the internet you are free to express nearly anything you want to potentially anyone in the world, unbound by corporate suppression. True information, whistle-blowing, investigative reports and so on are necessities. Creativity, entertainment and cultural records are enriching. The ability for us to do EXACTLY WHAT WE’RE DOING NOW on this website is at stake.

Once again, community and human enlightenment are at stake. As with other means throughout history with which people gained new abilities to communicate and interact across previous barriers, we are at a point where the internet has the potential to let us realize how similar all our hopes and concerns are, how little we really need borders, and how once enough of us realize that – then it’s obvious that we can start making life better for everyone.

SOLUTIONS

Many years ago, a plan was called for and drawn up. It was said to be the most ambitious project ever attempted, the man who drew up the plans did not have confidence it could really be done. But the government was determined and the resources were allotted. The project was to build an Interstate Highway system.. and guess what – they succeeded. And with the exception of turnpikes, U.S. roads are free for everyone to use.

That’s how the “last mile” of internet should be – and CAN be. If all the necessary people in our government can ignore the corporate lobbyists for a minute and LISTEN TO US instead, they could see that we want this. They could pick a plan to do this and they could build what needs to be built for us to have free, nation-wide internet access.

People of government should realize that if they don’t listen to the citizens who elected them and are corrupted by corporate interests (who are by definition and legal charter, dictatorships with a single goal of monetary profit over all other concerns), THEIR VERY JOBS ARE AT STAKE. The system in which they’re employed as “public servants” will continue to slide into a republic not based on democracy but on despotism.. exactly the abuses of power that the U.S. rebelled against Britain for so many years ago.

So they need to take a new look at who they’re supposed to be serving (hint: us). They need to realize that if they save and expand the internet for all, they won’t NEED to be funded by corporate interests to appear on TV because people will get their information from the internet – and you won’t NEED millions of dollars to appear on the internet. You can campaign all you want on the net without spending much at all, and reach thousands, millions of voters without the TV and Radio networks chopping your message into half-second bites.

So if you don’t need millions of dollars to reach millions of voters, you don’t need corporate campaign funders looking for special favors.. and you can listen to who you’re supposed to be listening to, to make your decisions on what bills should pass and fail – the American People.

An economy based on fleecing citizens for corporate profit and fighting war is not sustainable. An economy based on bankers controlling all is not sound. A culture based on capitalism is not humane. We need to stop this direction while we still can, before it all comes crashing down.

The first place to start is with the last bastion of free speech, high-speed communication, and potential for true democracy – the internet. It can be the main conduit between the people and the government to get things on the right track.

With digital TV and Radio (and of course, net-based entertainment) there could be added, a rating functionality. The audience could casually participate in providing democratic feedback of anything that is being broadcast. It would be great if the ratings were not just a simple up or down vote but could also be in the form of a 1-5 or 1-10 rating – or be in the form of emotion (joy, disgust, sadness, etc.) and concept (“I feel informed”, “This is important”, “This is disappointing”, etc.) buttons. Along with this ability to give pertinent but simple feedback, the results could be made transparent as well. There could be a view mode that would show current feedback statistics for the broadcast.

That would handle one aspect of opinions of how valued a broadcast may be to the public.. the other side is where the funding for these programs comes from. You could either go the capitalist or the socialist way.. or both.

In the capitalist method, everything would be pay per view. The price would probably have to be low or not many people would watch. Life with that would most likely be similar to using cell phones without “plans”.

In the socialist method, taxes would pay for the programming and voters would control what shows or stories (or general styles/genres/subjects) actually get the funding.

In either method, advertising could be excluded entirely to remove that source of bias and influence. The programs might not be as well funded.. but I think in most cases, current programs are over-paid and the broadcasting industries are rife with wasteful excess.

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As for how to prevent propaganda.. the best way is probably through diversity of viewpoints broadcast. And the best way to increase the diversity of viewpoints is to reduce the cost and difficulty of creating contents and broadcasting them as much as possible.

If it’s cheap enough and easy enough for someone to argue with what you say, they’ll do it.

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You probably shouldn’t use the word “filter” in this context because in the larger picture it amounts to censorship and informational fascism.

What could be implemented for net-info though, are protocols for increasing the ability to quickly/easily verify information and for certifying credentials or building cumulative “street cred” for a given source.

I can think of a couple ways of doing this – and I think these sort of systems would give the greatest benefit without needing to form armies of corruptible moderators or attempting to develop impossibly smart artificial intelligence programs.

By controlling the means of mass communication, they can make us feel more isolated and alone than we really are.

Education and health are probably the key methods for societies to realize self-empowerment. And since communication is most of what education is, that makes mass communication a critical device in how each one of us formulates our view of the world around us (especially beyond us).

Right now the Internet is the only means of mass communication still dominated by diverse and opposing viewpoints.. I think it’s for this reason that we have a movement as massive as we do, trying to counter forces of oppression. The internet is the only place where we can FIND OUT about opinions and reports that contradict what is being broadcast on TV, Radio, and Print. It is the very means with which we even know that things like media consolidation / net un-neutrality / etc. are happening and that there are other people out there who don’t like it either.

Remember there is no such thing as common knowledge, only what is either experienced directly or passed on from one person to another.

If there is a question of focus, that could go in several directions. Either we fight to protect the internet over all else and branch out from there.. or we get some other medium up and known as fast as we can before they shut down the open internet.. or we give up both to take over TV or Radio.

I don’t know. Neither of these focus actions sound as good as keeping at all fronts.

I guess the biggest thing to consider is that we HAVE to keep some line of communication up between all of us, whatever it may be.

1. Rich

2. Connected

Organizations like MoveOn and even the ACLU have only persisted at the level they have because of one or more wealthy benefactors who agree with their way of thinking. Somehow these orgs and their silent sponsors found each other and I think more of this needs to happen.

If this isn’t on the table as an important course of action, I feel it should be. While I don’t generally favor fighting fire with fire (and in this case, money with money and clout with clout), it can have the effect of leveling the playing field.

I’m wondering if anyone has ideas about who we could appeal to? Possibly disheartened members or former members of major corporations, banks, the federal reserve, or so on? Maybe on the side of influence there are people in the congress, lobbyists, newspeople or military officers.. I’m sure there are some of them who don’t like what’s going on, or at least some aspect of it.

Maybe.. maybe some of those contractors in Iraq that received portions of that “missing” $9 billion a couple years ago? I mean, if two guys with no experience or staff can get paid $100 million for “securing” an airfield that no aircraft used – I’d think either some of them might be feeling guilty and want to give back a little, or we could get even a fraction of that kind of money from someone else.. which would amount to far more money than could ever be raised by donations from us, the fantom that used to be called the middle class.

I mean $100 million.. one hundred million. Can anyone even visualize that kind of money? It doesn’t even sound like a real amount.. a zillion kadjillion.

But that’s what we’re up against.. people that have that kind of money and people that were willing to do just about ANYthing to get that kind of money.

So if any of those people in that strata might be willing to confront their peers with our help – either openly or discretely – that would be an opportunity that could change everything.

They might need us just as much as we need them.