The internet isn’t your pony such that you can support free speech and expect it not to have political consequences.
Information and Access to It = Power
The last few months, the global community has watched as political culture and the law have dramatically attempted to play catchup with technology and its place in our individual lives on both a day-to-day basis, as well as in the lives we share as a world collective.
Information has always equaled power, but we now live in a time where the Internet has allowed for the passage of knowledge beyond cultural and geographical borders at a speed completely unheard of in the past. With the recent Internet blackout by Egypt’s government, it is becoming more and more obvious that those who have access to information—not matter what it may be—hold the power. Discussions of the digital divide stretch back as far as Marshall McLuhan, but perhaps it is only now that we are seeing the fruits of that dialogue.
Who owns information? Who should have the ability to essentially turn it on or turn it off? How are personal freedoms and safety affected? How about the freedoms and safety of nations, as whole entities?
There are no easy answers to these questions. We live in a world that has gradually become more dependent on the internet and the freedom that it provides. Depriving one’s people of said freedom is essentially oppressing them. It may not be a physical genocide, but what Egypt is doing will cripple their population if it continues for any tremendous length of time. One can see the effects of technology-blindness right here in U.S., as so many people are discovering how unemployable they have become without even basic computer skills.
I’m not here to debate whether private information should be shared with the public. Thousands upon thousands of people do it every day on Facebook voluntarily and ultimately, at the end of the day, that argument is better suited as case by case. The matter at hand is the access to it or any flavor of information, in general. If the internet has become one of our primary threads to the many communities and many people outside of our personal bubbles, is it right to cut off that primary life line? I think not and that’s exactly what Egypt is doing. Whether a global blanket of internet access were to exist or international laws in terms of information accessed and distributed via the online world put in place, solutions are complicated.
Only time will allow for the evolution of this situation and hopefully it involves Egypt getting back online.
Open Letter to President Barack Obama
Dear Mr. President,
My decision to vote for you did not come out of the over-hyped belief that you were some kind of savior that would be able to repair the ill state of this nation immediately. I voted for you because I agreed with many of your political stances. I voted for you because I believed in the ideals that you presented to us via your campaign. I believed that your understanding of the evolving climates of communications, technology, and culture spoke directly to my generation and the one immediately following. Recognizing all of these things, however, I do not believe that it would have mattered who won the election -the situation in which this country currently resides is not one that anyone could repair in any reasonable amount of time.
This country does not need a leader that treats every public press conference like a high school positivity pep rally, however. This is not high school and we’re not rallying for a longer lunch period, Mr. President. It’s disappointing that you represent our country with phrases more fit for a bar-fight between two twenty-somethings. We are a young country with an ever-growing young population, but those things do not mean that we are to present ourselves in such a manner. I did not vote for someone whose goal was to be known as “The Cool President”.
You have failed this nation and its people with such frivol when discussing matters such as the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The manner in which you speak comes across as theatrical, melodramatic, and inauthentic. Your choice of vernacular not only dehumanizes, but also cheapens both situations. Lives have been lost and permanently altered.
In terms of the oil spill, what we hear are the words of that twenty-something in the bar with such jabs as, “I want to know whose ass to kick,” and “…make BP pay for the damage their company has done!” Your decision to use so many negative, war-oriented words and phrases in your speech about the oil spill takes away from the fact that the spill is not just a physically-damaging disaster, but also an emotion-wrenching event for everyone affected by it. We don’t want to hear this very human incident stripped down to terms used to describe the war that has taken the lives of so many men and women. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and that action, itself, speaks louder than words, Mr. President, but you’ve neither been open about your actions in these matters nor have you been photographed getting down and dirty with the people its affecting. You tell us that you made a trip to the Gulf Coast after it has happened, but we don’t actually see you out at the beaches or in the water helping to clean up.
What we see is you sitting at a desk. We see no pictures of what’s happening at the oil spill. We see no video of any assistance you have provided. We do not hear you speaking with any of the victims’ families while you give this dramatic speech. We have nothing to connect you to the human despair this disaster has wrought, Mr. President. What we hear are is a string of contrived prose that’s been smashed together to sound formal and governmental. You never speak of working with BP or anyone else to find a solution, to put together preventative plans for the future. You speak only of the government’s control of everything and only of making those responsible “pay”.
Playing the blame game solves nothing, President Obama. What’s done is done. A horrible thing happened and people died. BP has taken responsibility for what has happened and I’m sure they have every intention of paying restitution to those affected. Why not work together with them to fix this instead of playing Big Brother? Why not specify possibilities for the future instead of covering your behind and the behinds of your administration?
You promised us hope and change. We’re not expecting life to go back to the way it was eight or ten years ago, Mr. President. We’re not expecting you to magically fix everything that is wrong with this country because, frankly, you aren’t Superman. What we’re expecting is for you to act like a grown adult, to take responsibility for what’s happening, to represent us to the rest of the globe in a mature manner, to work toward the future instead of focusing so much on the past, and to acknowledge in what may be construed as “layman terms” the tremendous loss that we, as a nation, feel in terms of the oil spill and the war.
What happened to that guy?
Sincerely,
Sal Christ
