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The Genius Of Blogging


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"The response of the 'professional' media to [the blogging] explosion has been interesting. First there was patronising incredulity that people would write without being paid for it. Then there was disdain. 'Where', asked the hacks, 'was the quality control?' Surely the whole thing was just an epidemic of vanity publishing?

 

"Then there was unease, fuelled by the realisation that (a) large numbers of bloggers were talking to one another behind the media's back, as it were, and (b ) some of them knew more about many subjects than most journalists. Badly researched or ideologically skewed reporting was being instantly skewered by bloggers ..."

 

The Genius of Blogging

 

These words ring true when you consider sites like Capitalstool, which have broken the monopoly of the sell-side borkers and their joined-at-the-hip media shills on investment recommendations.

 

Long live Capitalstool!

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The democratic ideal which underlied the web explosion has been real I suppose, but of limited effectiveness. Against the centrifical force of the net the response of the media bussiness has been a continued rush to consolodation.

 

Content wise the news, bussiness and otherwise, is ever more homoginized, self referential and self serving. So far the result of that has been a massive victory in terms of shaping opinion and consent.

 

Every single time the Internet is addressed by a politician it seems the topic is about ways to make it less free and less democratic. I would not bet against the powers that be can successfullly control the Internet. After all, its very use is subject to monitoring and in the end the fear of its use is sure to be a brake. That the most individual aspects of life, what we read and say has been legally declared subject to total inspection and review by the government is hardly a coincidence.

 

As an oddball liberal progressive here I hate to admit it but I have essentially lost hope. I might talk and act like my ideals stand a chance but I dont' actually believe it anymore. To the extent that democracy is a liberal concept, which it surely is, is the extent to which democracy is now failing right before our eyes. (study De Toqueville) The powers of centralization are winning, big time. Going any further will intrude into politics, which does no good in this forum, or any other for that matter.

 

Blogs are a form of entertainment for a minority.

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That revolutionary (so to speak) technology, the fax machine, is widely credited for the dissemination of information that allowed Chinese people to communicate with the West -- the Tianamen Square protestors were able to communicate quickly to "organize" (as much as they did with a seat-of-the-pants movement) because of technological progress. Remember what it was like in China during the 70's; as bad as things are for the common person now, many people's lives are much better now. I know someone who had been a student and was forcibly relocated and "re-educated" in a rice paddy, and the tales of life with the Red Guard chill one's blood.

 

It is hard to put the genie back in the bottle. Yes, the internet may go down at some point, but I find it difficult to believe that people will not find ways to communicate freely now that it has become so easy. Assuming that the infrastructure is not destroyed, and we are not living in a Hypertigerian catastrophe, of course. :blink:

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As an oddball liberal progressive here I hate to admit it but I have essentially lost hope.

i haven't. those asshole potentates can take their design for world subjugation and stick it so far up their collective ass that it comes out their goddamned nose.

 

broadly speaking, their control trend is in a 2nd wave that has turned into an irregular failure, just before a 3rd of a 3rd of a 3rd. it may not look like it at present, but this world is headed very quickly towards spiritual enlightenment. their days are numbered. they will have to grow up....and go somewhere else until they do.

 

never give up hope.

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The internet will be used to round up the resistors. It will be used to control and shape opinion, as is the rest of the media. What most people fail to realize is that EVERYTHING can be subjugated to the will of the corporate state--all forms of protest or resistance. Look at the "alternative music" movement of the 70's and 80's. Underground bands reacting against the homogenous pablum began "do it yourself" labels and thrived. But by the early 90's, the mainstream record companies had successfully made "rejecting the mainstream record companies" a profitable marketing strategy. Today, we have a "punk" revival with as much real social awareness/moral outrage as John Tesh. All that remains are a few scattered acts like Annie Di Franco. "Alternative" is a joke to those of us who know where it started and how it ended. It is not a joke to the kids...who think that listening to it somehow makes them "different" or "unique" or "alternative." Today, a company called Green Mountain markets its "Green" power production at a premium price here in Texas. How "green" is it? No greener than any other power company here in Texas. Brilliant, manipulative marketing. By the time that corporate power is finished with the Internet, it will be about as democratic as Stalinist Russia. Under THIS kind of "capitalism" we have going on now, all things serve the state/corporate power.

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