The end of the Internet?

June 30, 2008 — xanthippa

The Internet is the one tool in the hands of us, the ordinary people which allows us access to a wide variety of information and opinions.  It empowers us, so we are able to form opinions which are truly our own.

After all, most of us are not able to explore every aspect of science and society (and all that) all on our own!  If I spend my time in the lab, chances are I will not be able to travel to far off places to see what is happening there.  And, if there is no news-source to tell me that, say, a brand new type of car fuelled by water has been invented in Brazil, it just might not occurr to me to be dissatisfied with my gas-guzzler here….

The internet corrects this.  It allows me to search all kinds of sites, read things written by people from all over the world, with all kinds of opinions.  Raw and unfiltered… so I must learn to differentiate between supportable fact and fanciful notions or downright manipulations, but – again – the internet enables me to do that.  I learn a lot by doing this.

Yet, perhaps, even before my younger son gets to high-school, this may no longer be the case…. 

Thanks to Blazing Catfur, here is a truly scary piece of information:

AmericanFreePress.net published an article titled ‘Canada’s ISPs plan net censorship’.  Here are some excerpts:

“The plans made by the large telecom businesses would change the Internet into a cable-like system, where customers sign up for specific web sites, and must pay to see each individual site beyond a certain point. Subscription browsing would be limited, extra fees would be applied to access out-of-network sites. Many sites would be blocked altogether. “

…

“The plans would in effect be economic censorship, with only the top 100 to 200 sites making the cut in the initial subscription package. Such plans would likely favor major news outlets and suppress smaller news outlets, as the major news outlets would be free (with subscription), and alternative news outlets, like AFP, would incur a fee for every visit.”

…

“Marketing and big budget ‘content-pushing’ just doesn’t seem to work on the Internet, and this is something that several industries want fixed. ISPs know this and will benefit greatly by fixing this for the marketing and entertainment industry,”

In other words, the internet will no longer be what it is now.  No more ‘surfing’.  Instead, the internet might – in effect – become no more than an extention of the current cable-subscription service/directed advertizing. 

The ISPs will be paid by the ‘richest’ sites (which will increasingly include specific TV shows and other ‘big-budget’ mass-media entertainment) to include their websites on the ‘package’ of 50/100/200 websites, much as entertainment channels are now sold in ‘bundles’.  If one wishes to go to other sites, they will either be ‘billed per visit’, or (depending on the ‘package’ one can afford to purchase from the ISP, all other sites will be blocked.

Yes, blocked.

But, even if you could access them ‘per visit’ – how many sites do you check on a daily basis?  For fun, news, entertainment?  5?  10?  50?

How many would you visit if it cost you $1.00 each time you went on?

And, if people can no longer afford to frequent all but the richest, most ‘influential’ (with ISPs, of course) websites, how long before most of the rest become obsolete…extinct???

And who will then control the majority of the content seen on the internet?  It will be the entertainment industry!  The very same people who have already bougth full or partian control of so much of our news industry.   

 Well, at least there will be consistency…

Our movies and TV shows will show the proper ‘moral’ lesson to go along with the ‘news’ and the ‘internet chatter’ of the day.  The ‘social engineers’ at the helm of these multinational corporations (which is what the big entertainment companies are now) will have unprecendented power over the opinions we, the ‘unwashed masses’, are able to form.

Is this an isolated move?

I wish it were….  But with the ‘stuff’ that has been happening all around the world, aimed at intimidating, limiting and regulating the expressions of free speech on the internet, this appears to be only one little step in the march towards internet collectivism….

 

(Thank you, ‘Dust My Broom’, for this most excellent post.)

Posted in debate, freedoms, human nature, opression, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , . 5 Comments »

And we are…..?

February 12, 2008 — xanthippa

“Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be preferable to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.”
                                                            – C.S. Lewis 

So, where exactly does that put us?

Posted in freedoms, human nature, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »

What is ‘Fascism’?

February 6, 2008 — xanthippa

Thank you for indulging me in a purely fun philosophical musing on the nature of thought and existence…which, if I am not mistaken, established a consensus that my own existence is defined by ‘being annoying’ rather than by ‘thinking’ … implied feedback loop, and all – and don’t go saying that it’s an infinite loop…   :0)      

So, please, let me move now to other topics:  less abstract, but hopefully no less thought provoking….  I promise to stay as annoying as ever! 

Children say the ‘darndest’ things…and ask the toughest questions.  Except that I didn’t realize this one would be a ‘tough question’.   

After all, ‘everyone’ knows what ‘fascism’ is, right?  Jackboots and swastikas and Italian right wing dictators – images of WWII appear before our eyes and we know EXACTLY what ‘fascism’ is.  Except…when I got asked this question, I found verbalizing the answer was nowhere as easy as my mental picture made me think it would be. 

Italian fascism (under Mussolini) was a ‘right wing’ dictatorship.  So were the ‘fascist’ dictatorships that plagued South America.  So, many people think that ‘fascism’ is a synonym for a right-wing dictatorship.  Except that it isn’t…  Yes, we also think of Hitler’s Nazi Germany as being a ‘right wing dictatorship’ – except that … it wasn’t.   

Not exactly, anyway.  The word ‘Nazism’ is a short form of ‘national socialism’ – and that is decidedly a ‘left wing’ terminology.  And even a cursory look at the policies instituted in Nazi Germany will demonstrate that Hitler’s dictatorship was ‘left wing’ in practice, as well as in name.  He nationalized many industries, and established more of a ‘nanny state’ than constitute most of today’s western socialist’s wet dreams.  He even said his two idols were Lenin and Stalin…  So, how could Nacism also be ‘fascist’? 

Some reading and thinking shows that the definitions and descriptions vary, based on the time and social climate and political views of the commentator…yet there are always a few features that are common across the definitions/descriptions.  Now, here are my own little observations: 

1.         In its deepest core, fascism is the ‘dictatorship of the majority/privileged minorities’.   

It does not matter if the government is left-wing, right-wing, or whatever.  It invariably ‘clips the wings’ of its citizens, and makes them feel special for it!  How?  By either turning ‘wing-clipping’ into a matter of ‘national identity and pride’, and justifying it in the most reasonably-sounding terms, at first… and the ‘moral majority’ is either ‘impassioned’ or ‘guilted’ into supporting them…and tramples down anyone who does not ‘run with the flock’….  After all, if your wings have been clipped, you can either ‘run with the flock’ or ‘be trampled’ – because soaring high in the skies is no longer an option and the very desire for it will be vilified. 

As such, fascism elevates the rights of groups over the rights of individuals who make up these groups.  This feature is the unmistakable mark of ‘fascism’. 

2.         Fascism often gains control gradually and insidiously. 

Remember, even Hitler was voted into power…  So how can fascism gain control ‘gradually and insidiously’?  By becoming indispensable to the individual, to force its citizens to ‘go along’ with things…  It does this by appealing to a call for unity (be it racial, social, religious or ‘under attack by an outside enemy’) and by forcing the citizens to ‘buy-in’ into government sponsored social programs to such an invasive degree, the citizens will no longer be able to exist independently (either because these services become government monopolies, or because the citizens no longer know HOW to take care of themselves).   

Anybody see the ghost of a ‘nanny state’? 

These are my ever-humble (or is that ‘never-humble’?) opinions….though this ‘sketch’ seems rather ‘rough’, in need of refinement. 

So, please, how would YOU define fascism?

Posted in freedoms, philosophy, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , . 2 Comments »
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