> From: Nick Arnett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > > Behalf Of The Fool > > ... > > > > Eh? How is this an attack on free speech? I don't agree with the > > tactics, > > > but I don't exactly see Fox as a great defender of free speech, either. > > > > It's an organization that is attacking forms of speech (in this example, > > among others, TV shows), that they do not agree with, by any and all > > means possible. > > It's *just* a boycott. That's hardly "any and all means possible." Your > hyperbole undermines the credibility of your argument.
It's more than a boycott, it goes well beyond just being a boycott. They are not just boycotting the show, they are boycotting those who dare to advertise during the show. They put pressure on these advertisers and use and means necessary to dissuade them from running advertisements during the show (I am not a fan of advertising). When you have a large network of fanatics that are willing to create excessive amount of bad publicity for an advertiser, they can pretty much blackmail and extort any major advertiser away from anything they consider, baa-ad. They also use other sleazy tactics to attack, this is just one example. I think the boondocks example is perhaps a better example. Last year a bunch of conservative fanatics got the strip knocked off of a whole lot of newspapers. They are doing the same thing now. > > These are the same kinds of people that, like the > > Taliban, would if they could, impose their religious views on everybody > > and eliminate the first amendment. > > Got any evidence of that? I think you're making an unjustified assumption. > And the comparison to the Taliban is ridiculous -- far less rational than > those you're trying to argue against. It's one heck of a leap from > boycotting to terrorism. I wasn't suggesting anything involving 'terrorism', I was suggesting other features of the Taliban rule. How about a different analogy. Popery in the middle ages (not that medieval popery was less violent than the Taliban (perhaps much more so)). A theocratic 'god' rule. They put 'crime scene investigation' on their list of top 10 worst shows, at #3. Unless I am mistaken, csi, is not a drama or fictional, but shows professionals in action. Apparently anything that teaches people how to think logically, using the scientific method, is baa-ad. Must protect the children from concepts like a spherical earth, and evolution. > > In this particular case they are > > trying to starve the show they are attacking of it's principal sponsors > > and access to funds. > > I don't find it any less disturbing that a small group of religious fanatics > can influence television programming than the fact that a small group of > advertisers can do the same. The tobacco companies, which have had far more > influence over media than any religious group, have killed more people than > the Taliban. Neither religion nor greed are going to be eliminated, so the > real solution is to reduce the cost of distributing media, to the point > where it's so cheap that nether the greed-heads nor other special interests > can wield so much power. Fight palladium. > > Here's a link showing the same kind of thing, in a different way: > > http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/2002/09/21/ > > > > Instead of attacking the speech itself they are attacking the ability of > > those they are against to have that speech, they are attacking the medium > > itself. That is why it so much more despicable. > > Imagine if Boondocks reached the same audience via the Internet, perhaps > through a P2P distribution system (i.e., something with no central server), > with no advertising. That change in distribution would render small groups > powerless to bring it down. It would take away the influence of *any* kind > of power center. Fight palladium. Fight intellctual property. This is what WindowsXP and officeXP already do: They tie specific instances of each directly to the hardware. You have to 'activate' WindowsXP within a week of installing it, and it creates a number derived from your specific hardware setup that is sent to Microsoft. Then Microsoft sends an 'activation key' back to your computer. You can't install that same version of XP or officexp on different computer. You can't add hardware without having to 're-activate' the installation. Now lets talk about CPRM. CPRM makes it so a trusted operating system can write data to a hard drive that only that trusted operating system / trusted application can access. The data cannot be copied in any known way. Add in TCPA. TCPA is a few functions and a cryptographic key that will start being put on all new Intel and AMD processors beginning with the next versions to be released at the beginning of next year or sooner. CPRM and Palladium will rely on this 'trusted' key and functions to do end to end encryption of everything that is transmitted through your computer. Keyboard data will be encrypted, right up to the program that received the keystroke data, which will then use that keystroke data. The 'secure audio path' will do end to end encryption from when a file is download or read from a CD to the output on the soundcard. The same with video / graphics to your monitor. Even the cables that connect your computer to your monitor, or your stereo will only transmit encrypted data. With TCPA / Palladium, all programs that run on the computer will be authenticated by some authenticating authority, like Microsoft. Gnutella will not run a palladium computer. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/27232.html > Banning such boycotts would return power to the handful of big media > companies and their advertisers, who currently control nearly 100 percent of > what a large percentage of our population knows about the world outside > their immediate experience. That situation is a far greater threat to > freedom than any religious group (unless you consider the worship of power > and wealth to be a religion, in which case the media *is* a religion). Mammon. I like neither the religious nor the powerful corporations. > > > Seems to me that anything that breaks down the concentration of power > > in big > > > media is a move toward greater freedom of speech, not less. > > > > Yes. But I don't see how this relates to that article. > > Simply because a successful boycott against any advertising-based medium > diminishes big media power. Use proxomitron, and webwasher. And turn off active scripting. Now no advertiser can reach you through the Internet. > > With Michael > > Powell in charge of the FCC, do you expect anything more than the > > complete deregulation that has let 1 company (clear channel) buy 1200 > > radio stations? It looks very much like the exact same thing is going to > > happen to TV. Already about a dozen or so media giants control 70-90% of > > the media you read, listen to and watch. > > A dozen? That would be nice. It's more like five. And you're preaching to Yes. About a dozen. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/giants/ This link doesn't highlight other big mega players like clear channel, etc. > the choir with that sentiment. I've been speaking publicly about that issue > for about ten years now. Have you ever read "The Internet and the > Anti-net," which I wrote for the second World Wide Web Conference? (See > http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/IT94/Proceedings/Overviews/arnett/Antinet h > tml.) It's the piece that led to my friendship with David Brin, among other > things. I still get e-mail about it, eight years after publication. It's > required or suggested reading for a number of college media classes, > translated into several languages. > > I think you'll see that we're pretty much on the same page on this issue. > We see boycotts differently, though. It seems to me to be a legitimate > response to the concentration of media power. I'm not of the religious > right and I don't think they'd be any less corrupt than the media companies > if they controlled the airwaves... but the fundamental problem is the Different paradigms. Money control Vs. Thought control. They do overlap, but their primary concern is different. > structure of media distribution, which needs to change so that *no one* can > seize so much power. Any Christian who imagines that the world would be > better off with a church-run government needs to put down the Bible for a > moment and read Santayana: "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat > it," and then a history of the Reformation. Fundamentalists aren't generally all that competent, usually (He mentions it in His last book). Thinking about how I would do things if I were a terrorist mastermind, I would have a completely different organizational structure, and I would do things differently. The _First_ plane would hit a joint session of congress, with hopefully the president in attendance. The second plane would hit the Hoover dam. The Third plane would hit the Vatican. Etc. > If you encounter Christians who seem to be aiming to run the country, feel > free to remind them that Christ taught otherwise. A few good verses might > be "My kingdom is not of this world," and "Render therefore unto Caesar > the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's." Or > point out that pre-Reformation Europe under the domination of the Church of > Rome was one of the most corrupt societies the world has ever known. But > hey, I'm preaching to the choir on that one, am I not? There are a lot of people who would return us to the power of popery. I know people that showed no remorse after the 911 attack. Their reasoning? God was going to come and destroy most people anyway in his battle of Armageddon (which is just around the corner), while saving a select few (elite) true believers / followers (which they believed they were) to save. These are the same kind of people who spend all of their time trying to 'save' others, because they have some special understanding of biblical 'trvth'. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
