media.07

media.07


Media and the World, A First Look at the 3rd Millennium World Media 


I am speaking to you through a medium that didn't even exist for an
entire 99% of the world just a few years ago. . .whether you call a
medium such as this email, blogging, eBooks, eText, or whatever, it
simply didn't exist for most of the world in previous generations.

Today it is responsible for the fall of CBS News Anchor Dan Rather,
certainly one of "The Power Elite" no matter how thin you slide it,
and for the education of more and more people worldwide.

Previously only such inter-networked items such as "The Super Bowl"
could address an audience of a billion people, but today a billion,
and more, have access to The Internet, a medium which flows both to
and from each of those billion plus people, quite a change from the
era of network television, network radio, newspaper chains, etc.

Of course it all started with Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the
moveable type printing press around 1450, the first invention of an
entirely new era of Mass Production that we eventually came to call
"The Industrial Revolution."

Historians will argue with me on that point, saying Gutenberg Press
was too distant a precursor to be given credit 300 years before The
Industrial Revolution is cited by them, but I respond simply saying
that their perspective is too short, particularly for historians.

They won't deny the following facts about The Gutenberg Press:

1.  It was the first example of Mass Production.

2.  It was the first example of interchangeable parts.

3.  It created machinery capable of a duality of leverages.

4.  It started a new trend towards utilitarian metallurgy, 
    away from an entire history of military metallurical study.

5.  It changed the entire structure of literacy and education--
    thus paving the way for The Scientific Revolution.

6.  It paved the way for free speech, the likes of which hadn't
    ever been seen before, with Martin Luther as an example for
    all to see as to the power of the press, otherwise he would
    have most certainly been burned at the stake by The Church.

We could go on literally for pages as to the major effects of a
world with The Gutenberg Press, but I think you get the idea.


Today we are taking the first steps of a Second Gutenberg Press
in the form of The Internet.

Today a nameless, faceless blogger can bring down Dan Rather.

Just three decades ago even a person as powerful as the #2 head
of the CIA, Mark Felt, had to hide his identity as he tried for
months and months to let the public know what he knew about the
infamous "Watergate" scandal that brought down The White House,
lock, stock and barrel, though President Nixon always remained,
an "unindicted co-conspirator."

For those of you who might think in terms of conspiracy theory,
it might be of interest to consider that President Ford who was
the replacement President for Nixon, was neither elected to the
office of President nor of Vice-President, but was, in fact for
years the only surviving member of The Warren Commission, which
commission was in charge of investigating the President Kennedy
assassination, which had more than its share of such theories.


Today a billion different people have the potential of changing
the world via The Internet, and one of them killed Dan Rather.


What will the effect of that be?


My own prediction is that "the powers that be" cannot abide the
power to reside in the hands of "the people," no matter what it
may say in any number of worldwide government documents.

I said something on this order the day I started puttting eText
on The Internet in what I named Project Gutenberg.

"In your lifetimes it will be possible to carry `The Library of 
congress' in one hand. . .but they will make it illegal."

Today it IS possible to carry "The Library of Congress" in just
one hand, and they have extended copyright coverage many ways--
thus making it more and more illegal for the common person from
any walk of life to own the written record of our civilization.

In my own opinion, now, as it was then, during Watergate, those
people who are said to run the world just can't stand for plain
folk to have that kind of direct access to information.

[See my article "usschools.07" for more details on this.]


Today we have a medium that could change the world as much as a
previous world was changed by The Gutenberg Press.

Do you think those at the top of the heap want us to have kinds
of information resources previously reserved only for them?

Do you think they want us to be able search all the information
that gets out from behind closed doors?

Do you think they want us to be able to talk to each without an
intermediary such as Dan Rather?

Do you realize that Dan Rather didn't tell us anything close to
all that he knew?

Once the system is bypassed, the floodgates will open even more
and more and more leaks such as "Deep Throat," will appear as a
wider and wider range of people have voices that could reach an
entirely new world.

Will it be a "Brave New World?"

Will it be a "1984?"

Will it be an "Animal Farm?"

I think the answers to these questions will become more obvious
to you if you just ask the questions as you hear more about the
efforts to control television and The Internet.

One of the major effects of digital television will be a signal
that prevents you from copying programs as we have back since a
Watergate Era and the dawn of the VCR.  While the courts should
be expected to still give lip service to "The Betamax Case," it
will soon become obvious that your right to a copy of broadcast
media will no longer mean what it used to.