sorry for the late response. I'm on the digest.
sorry as well for the OT of this, but I just couldn't ignore this one.
The Internet was certainly and absolutely -not-
created as a tool of democracy. It was created by the military for
communications and national defense purposes. This is not some whacko
conspiracy theory ( which I often am a subscriber to ) but pretty
undisputed, objectively researchable fact. It is -not- demonized by
corporations, it is -for the most part- OWNED by corporations. It is perhaps
feared by the government but there do exist theories that the
government enjoys the distraction we all pursue with the Internet.
If the populace is busy enjoying their online dissent freedoms,
a false sense of democracy takes over, keeping people complacent while
geopolitics rage on and old modes reign supreme.
I think the Net might give new relevance to "old" concepts
like Diaspora and social movement,but more likely will just be another tool
to make the citizens feel like they're facilitating change. After all, the
telephone and the PC didn't end Wars, why would the Internet?
Peter
np:
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quoted 11 lines From: idm-digest-help@hyperreal.org
>From: idm-digest-help@hyperreal.org
>To: idm@hyperreal.org
>Subject: idm Digest 7 Apr 2003 01:24:54 -0000 Issue 2121
>Date: Sun, Apr 6, 2003, 9:24 PM
>
> Ryan Goldman reports:
> The Internet was conceived as a tool of democracy.
> Although demonized by corporations and feared by the
> government, the World Wide Web is a community at the
> frontier of change everlasting, giving new relevance
> to old concepts like Diaspora and social movement.