One important (IMHO) remark, I would like to add: a commission of the european union is conducting an investigation on echelon on said grounds that it is a system solely set up to infringe the rights of individuals. But last week the federal court of Germany granted the right to intercept all foreign phone calls to the relevant intelligence agency. Weird? The national security argument that the NSA and other agencies everywhere use, is in fact rather lame. To give one example: Germany has expedited more US diplomats for espionage than of any other country of origin, during the last few years. None of these accused of spying seemingly had military targets. But todays battles between democracies are not fought with that sort of weaponry. In other words: "politics is the entertainment branch of industry"(Frank Zappa) What we are witnessing is the (rare) example of Samuel Huntington being right: there is a clash of civilisations and make no mistake about it, the rift is running through the Atlantic.
anyone remember Noam Chomsky? I thought it rather peculiar, that the connection wasn't remarked earlier, so here it goes (IMHO, as always):
As I understand it, Priestley's ananlysis of the \.-model is a spitting image of self-governing information pools, envisioned some twenty years ago. They are coming with built-in credibility and -most important- are promising an impressive ratio between (theoretical) reach and economical independence. Enter NC: He proposed an approach to the mass media and politics called "propaganda model", which is (very) basically about two rules: 1. The media is systematically dependent of a manufactured social consent. This practically means, that being in control of information it and it's allies start building a public consent and move on to merely nourishing it, after that. They do not (and can not) leave information unfiltered. 2. This does not give way to speculations like all sorts of stupid conspirational mumbo-jumbo, the mass media is simply too much a part of society and too dependent of an economy of scale to ever escape this.
In this sense.\ is one example of how (virtual and social) communities could build their own information sources. And a good sign too.
There is a nice movie and lots of very different books, but I would still like to recommend his untimely thoughts.
Slashdot Mirror
One important (IMHO) remark, I would like to add:
a commission of the european union is conducting an investigation on echelon on said grounds that it is a system solely set up to infringe the rights of individuals. But last week the federal court of Germany granted the right to intercept all foreign phone calls to the relevant intelligence agency. Weird?
The national security argument that the NSA and other agencies everywhere use, is in fact rather lame. To give one example: Germany has expedited more US diplomats for espionage than of any other country of origin, during the last few years. None of these accused of spying seemingly had military targets. But todays battles between democracies are not fought with that sort of weaponry.
In other words: "politics is the entertainment branch of industry"(Frank Zappa)
What we are witnessing is the (rare) example of Samuel Huntington being right: there is a clash of civilisations and make no mistake about it, the rift is running through the Atlantic.
Hello All,
.\ is one example of how (virtual and social) communities could build their own information sources. And a good sign too.
anyone remember Noam Chomsky? I thought it rather peculiar, that the connection wasn't remarked earlier, so here it goes (IMHO, as always):
As I understand it, Priestley's ananlysis of the \.-model is a spitting image of self-governing information pools, envisioned some twenty years ago. They are coming with built-in credibility and -most important- are promising an impressive ratio between (theoretical) reach and economical independence.
Enter NC: He proposed an approach to the mass media and politics called "propaganda model", which is (very) basically about two rules:
1. The media is systematically dependent of a manufactured social consent. This practically means, that being in control of information it and it's allies start building a public consent and move on to merely nourishing it, after that.
They do not (and can not) leave information unfiltered.
2. This does not give way to speculations like all sorts of stupid conspirational mumbo-jumbo, the mass media is simply too much a part of society and too dependent of an economy of scale to ever escape this.
In this sense
There is a nice movie and lots of very different books, but I would still like to recommend his untimely thoughts.
cheers,
dpool