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Internet Exchange of Ideas
May Yet Alter World Politics
By William Finucane
The parents of those of us who
were born just after World War II – as was I – received all their news about
that conflagration from newspapers and, to an extent, radio. In fact, everybody
got their facts on all the world’s wars from newspapers over the centuries, long
before the 20th Century offered radio first and later television.
Sure there were
documentaries and books and films about all the battles. But newspapers had to
have evidence, notes, interviews, and they all had to stand up to examination.
Everything else could be faked. News could not. So we believed.
Now, having been through Korea,
the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam and the wars that have made the Middle East a hot spot
for Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and many
other countries, we have seen America’s so-called “free press” being used
shamelessly as a propaganda tool. Newspapers, television and radio no longer
claim – believably – any objectivity.
So who do the American viewers,
listeners or readers turn to in order to get the real, unvarnished truth?
Well, the first thing Americans
have to do is to toss out the idea that any one medium can be trusted to deliver
truth to any group of customers. That is a fallacy. When we read about the Civil
War, World War I and II and all the other wars, we always followed the American
reporters and editors version, and there was always more than one publication
covering the same issue, so it was possible to see if and where facts conflicted
or collided. But of course even then, what was available to us was one-sided
because it was reported by our side..
What America’s readers, listeners
and viewers need is the whole story from all sides. To understand wars, people
must know Communism, Fascism, Chinese philosophy, Arab mentality. Without those
other sides of a war’s coverage, the ”American” side of the story is – really –
fantasy, just like it is for many if not all other populations elsewhere who
rely solely on their nation’s news outlets.
So it will go always? No.
George W. Bush has made such a
bungling failure of the Iraq war and its tributary wars, not to mention the
federal debacle of the 2005 Katrina hurricane, to name just a very few of the
major issues just passed, that any sensible reader has to look askance at the
initial coverage. News people did not themselves know how to handle those
issues. Why?
America’s gargantuan news
conglomerates could only swallow what official Washington officials doled out.
News groups were – by now – unofficial propaganda panderers. Sure, there were
some that did good work. But as a news entity, news people were impotent. Thus
would America have spelled its end, since once news is fully managed, democracy
can only dry up and ultimately disappear. This would have pleased the GOP, and
it might have happened, except for one saving fact; the Internet had matured.
In fact, television stations are
now worrying that more people are turning to the Internet than are watching
television, listening to radio or reading newspapers. Readers and listeners are,
in other words, turning off the now obvious government pabulum. They are seeing
official news as suspect. It’s about time.
But there is now far more work to
do in pursuit of reality. No intelligent reader can look at a couple of sources
on any subject and pretend that she or he suddenly knows the ins and outs of
anything. Now the readers must make their own decisions based on what they
individually desire to read. If all readers-listeners-viewers simply pick one or
two sources to follow the world in general, they are simply shifting their
allegiance to a new narrow source – the Internet. That won’t do.
What the Internet actually offers
is impossible volume on everything. By itself, that solves nothing. What is
needed now is ways to sift through the numbing volume of opinions and facts and
gather from those items your unique take on what is happening and what will
happen next. Anyone who says she or he has these search engines calibrated to
deliver all the pertinent facts on any subject is an idiot.
What everyday
viewers-listeners-readers really need to do is set out on a quest for the most
powerful search engines that offer the news sources they want and which also
provide opposing viewpoints.
If one wants parochial answers
that stress local problems only and that keep local eyes where politically
powerful people want them to stay, then it might seem foolish to take a
big-picture look at issues. That is exactly what current leaders – Bush, Cheney,
et al – want to do: win local elections and keep peoples eyes trained on what
the leaders can make happen. Narrow politics is all it is.
With the Internet at its disposal,
however, the people can see the overall situation and demand greater action in
response to issues. The key to making this transition, however, is that everyday
people need to use their Internet as more than an entertainment, shopping, bank
service. Those are just tricks that the Interned can perform easily. Yet it can
offer the means to change the planet through open dissemination of information.
Everyone may now have the capacity
to see a whole world and how it can operate. This doesn’t mean all the people
agreeing on some specific order. Just the contrary; there can be millions of
ideas floating around, but they will not consist of the smoke screens that
politicians throw up as campaign material or to cover the true intent of
legislative and executive action.
Every two or four years elected
officials spew forth their ideas, and often, if not usually, those promised
concepts have absolutely no connection with what they intend to do. Given an
electorate with Internet savvy, though, false political rhetoric would wither.
People are intelligent the world
over, and the internet offers them an opportunity to go over the heads of
Sheiks, elected officials, religious leaders and others who want power for its
own sake and not for the good it can do, and by force of numbers and tacitly
agreed upon views can redirect self-serving policies.This would not happen
quickly, or smoothly, and it will be opposed to power mongers who see the
Internet sapping away their sway. But it has the potential of taking place, of
giving more people everywhere a greater understanding and therefore a greater
say in their world.
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