Thanks for posting this Mark.
It attempts to cover a vast amount of territory, and uses bits of history to
build to a conclusion that tells us very little.
What it does tell us, often misrepresenting the real facts, is that there has
been a century long clash between “American Progressivism” and the efforts of
this nation’s founders to create a machine that can endure the inevitable
“hacking of our political machine.”
The article glorifies the progressivism of the early 20th Century, imploring us
to believe that government regulation of “Natural Monopolies,” (my words, not
the authors’) was a major benefit to society and politics. It even goes so far
as to point out the misuse of radio, and later television, as a powerful
propaganda tool by tyrannical regimes such as Hitler’s Germany.
But this completely misses the point. The American Progressivism has been VERY
GOOD at playing the political long game. The fact that a century later, we are
going through many of the same political debates that propelled world history
(and war), informs us that we have been engaged in this battle continuously.
But two World Wars and “American Exceptionalism,’ derailed the progressive
agenda...
For a few decades.
The progressives understand that fundamentally changing the way we are governed
can only happen in two basic ways:
1. Revolution - e.g the October Revolution of 1917 by Bolsheviks led by
Vladimir Lenin.
2. By slowly taking control of the institutions that influence the body politic
- education, communications, and the non-government institutions that have
formed the moral fabric of a two hundred + year old representative republic.
Government control of broadcasting was perhaps the most insidious “long game”
in their arsenal. While the rest of the world quickly embraced broadcasting as
a propaganda tool, here in the U.S. we created the illusion of “fairness,” by
having a commercial oligopoly, seemingly independent of the government. This
oligopoly gained the mantle of credibility by spending decades promoting
American values and exceptionalism.
Ozzie and Harriet slept in separate beds...
Little House on the Prairie was a weekly morality story...
By the way, Rush Limbaugh and Talk Radio started several years before the
Fairness Doctrine was repealed (1984 to be exact). The Fairness Doctrine was
never about “equal time,” nor did it promote unfettered political discourse.
Obviously broadcasting has evolved into the highly partisan propaganda tool
that it was always destined to be. Thankfully, at least the TV oligopoly is
doing everything it its power to kill this now unnecessary medium. Radio can
and will survive...
The Internet is another insidious example of the long game, to achieve control
of our access to information and communications. Given the reality that
government regulation of natural monopolies turned out to be and expensive
mistake, deregulation became the rallying cry of the late 20th Century. The
benefits are highly visible - deregulation encourages competition. We evolved
from a landline telephone monopoly, to a highly competitive wireless
communications infrastructure in a few short decades. Clearly technology eloped
to enable this; but Edwin Armstrong, the father of FM radio, had “technology.”
Sadly it was delayed by decades by government regulators.
The NYTime article points out the impact of George Gilder’s call for: “removing
barriers to competition and massively deregulating the fast-growing
telecommunications and computing industries.”
Having learned from their mistakes almost a hundred years earlier, this time
the progressives called for a hands off approach to the Internet, and actually
allowed competition to invest in and develop this vital new infrastructure.
Then the drums - of regulation and war - started to beat again:
We need to massively increase surveillance of the Internet to protect ourselves
from the threat of terrorism; you can be certain that every bit we place on
thee Internet is captured, and can be surveilled if needed. Unfortunately, we
cannot be certain that there is a firewall between this data and those who seek
to fundamentally change America.
We need NET NEUTRALITY, to assure that everyone has unfettered access to the
Internet. Code words for, “now that we have you hooked on a technology that
allows us to monitor everyone’s communications, we need to start controlling
the message...
The Hacking of America indeed!
Regards
Craig
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