It didn't take James Baldwin to say it, but he said it so well: "Ignorance allied with power is the most ferocious enemy justice can have."
There has never been a lack of ignorance in the world, but sometimes a lack of the power to give it wings. Now that power exists...! In a planetary-size wingreach that would have been the envy of Caesar, Robespierre and Goebbels. The Internet.
The power of this instrumentality is in itself neutral. Like water -- which can either give life to a parched desert or flood an entire city -- its digital power is molded by each of its movers. And so.... If you search the Internet you can access all the power of information (eg. medical facts, historical data, biographies) or all the power of defamation (eg. edited biographies of virtually anyone).
Consider one example...
If you searched the Internet for the phrase "Obama is..." the top six possibilities offered as of January 1 were: "antichrist," "idiot," "racist," "liar," "Hitler,""socialist." A search for "Obama is destroying America" yielded 719,000 sites. Now six months later these numbers have grown into a staggering interpretation of free speech. And each of us has the power to contribute to the stagger.
Here's an image. You're suddenly in ancient Rome. In the Coliseum with thousands of screaming spectators. You're handed the reins of a snorting four-horse chariot, and told to play Charleton Heston. Staring immediately. What do you do with the reins...?
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Ride. Don't lose control....
ReplyDeleteI don't think Obama is neccesarily the best person for the job. But I trust him more than most. He's lefter than most, and I'd guess he's learning he needs to lean that way.