Wow! I thought I was the political reactionary. When did Archie Bunker register as a moss-backed Democrat and start work at some predictably Lysenkian font of mainstream media bed-pan wisdom? This apparently took place because Progressive jet-fuel geniuses have just now figured out that a free-flow of information will make it harder for them to control what people are currently thinking or what they say.
I’ve just read an example of this Progressive Neo-Reaction in a Politico Magazine article entitled “How Technology Killed The Future.” Author Douglas Ruskkoff, like the PTSDed space marine in the movie “Aliens” tells us its game over. He explains the nature of our ineffable damnation below.
The result for institutions—especially political ones—has been profound. This transformation has dramatically degraded the ability of political operatives to set long-term plans. Thrown off course, they’re now often left simply to react to the incoming barrage of events as they unfold. Gone, suddenly, is the quaint notion of “controlling the narrative”—the flood of information is often far too unruly.
We just can’t have this. Imagine the resulting dystopia if millions of undisciplined Germans had just tuned out Goebbels and listened to their I-Pods instead? Yesterday, the always-sharp and entertaining Moe Lane described what Big Media just now realized about the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution.
“Does this now mean stars can say whatever offensive things they want under the guise of freedom of speech, without repercussion?”
I’ll give the intellectual prodigy that articulated that deep and ponderous inquiry a subtle hint. Hustler Magazine can publish a parody of a liquor advertisement that portrays a famous televangelist getting drunk and losing his virginity to his own mother in an outhouse. I’ll bet you $20 that duck-hunters ragging on homosexual people are probably engaged in what was legally described as “coarse but acceptable satire.” Karma truly does collect with interest. Increasingly advanced and varied Information Technology is one mechanism by which our post-modern secular Pharisees get mailed the unpleasant bill.
The Political Left is frightened by this brave, new world. They need to get the NSA out there to monitor all this scary new technology. The peasants simply cannot go unwatched. They can talk, but their superiors will listen and control.
We’ll have Net Neutrality enforced by a government with a strong partisan rooting interest. Slyck News details where Net Neutrality legally stands after a recent legal decision limited the regulatory power of the USG’s Grasping Hand.
The Open Internet Order had three components – disclosure, anti-blocking, and anti-discrimination. The court did not vacate the disclosure rule, which requires fixed and mobile broadband providers to “publicly disclose accurate information regarding the network management practices, performance, and commercial terms of [their] broadband Internet access services.” However, the requirement that broadband providers charge or provide service (to) everyone equally, whether that entity uses 5 bits of traffic a year or uses 30% of all internet traffic at a given moment, is dead.
This is typical Leftist stupidity. Kroger isn’t necessarily getting equal supply chain service to Costco when they buy 5 crates of apples and Costco buys 200 from the same agricultural vendor. Bloggers getting 5 page views per day should not expect the same level of technical service or ad revenue as Daily Kos or Instapundit. There are logical economic reasons to treat different sized economic orders for service with different levels of respect. This is just daily life; not a conspiracy amongst the higher orders of The ISP Illuminati.
So how does any of this tie together with Douglas Rushkoff developing a fear of science and technology that would have made a Jesuit Inquisitor nod his head in agreement? The post-modern, post-moral state monopolizes power amongst a cartel of political allies. These allies abuse the mandate of the NSA and come up with Orwellian concepts such as the deceptively named “Net Nuetrality” out of a need to maintain a chokehold on the supply of power. Information has value and power. It will ultimately break out of a cartel and get distributed and consumed in accordance with typical market behaviors.
Having it erupt through the establishment levies kind of takes away the whole point of there being an establishment. This quickly makes the ossified brains of this corrupt political power cartel develop a major league case of IT Denialism. They feel the same way about non-traditional media that environmental regulators and OPEC cronies feel about the Alberta Tar Sands. Take away the chokehold and you severely delimit their powers. It’s enough to make The Luddite Left truly turn anti-science.
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