http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/31/AR2009103102365.html?hpid=newswell
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/31/AR2009103102365.html?hpid=newswell
New Media Empowers All Forces
In a U.S. Helsinki Commission hearing on new media in authoritarian regimes, Morozov last week warned that new media "will power all political forces, not just the forces we like."
Despite efforts to encourage the growth of pro-democratic groups online, he said research into the blogospheres in Egypt, Palestine and Russia suggest that the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and groups of Russian nationalists and fascists are among the most active users of blogs and social media.
"Blind support for promoting blogging and social networking may have a lot of very unpleasant unexpected consequences," Morozov said.
While it's true that governments may have lost some power to Internet-based modes of communication that empower many voices, he said authoritarian regimes have benefited from those same communication channels in other ways.
"The Internet has made it much more effective and cheaper to spread propaganda," Morozov told ABCNews.com.
Yep. And if we look at the Iranian election protests in hindsight, the Iranian government likely benefited more from their ability to track and choke off social media use than protest organizers benefited from their use.
Services like Twitter were useful for conveying the message of the protesting elites outside the country but were less useful in organizing events because of limited penetration and the ease with which the government could choke off Internet and aspects of cell service (like SMS).
In interviews with teenagers between ages 13 and 19 living in poor and violent neighborhoods in St. Louis, Missouri, sociologist Jody Miller found that incidents of gang rape were alarmingly high. Of the 75 kids Miller interviewed, 45 percent of boys admitted to "running train" -- local slang for gang rape. About one half of girls reported being sexually assaulted and one-third said they'd been attacked more than once.
Yikes.
"But while the military operation and the attacks away from the frontline are getting the headlines, it seems to Londonstani that the predictable see-saw of Pakistani politics is thinking of double backing on itself once more. There are whisperings amongst the English speaking super elite, the taxi drivers and the very low level government clerks that maybe it's time the army took over once more."
Prediction: the military will be back in the saddle by the end of 2010. Tough spot for the civ gov: they look weak if the campaign in the tribal areas goes poorly and the Army takes the credit if it goes well.
"President Daniel Ortega appears to have won the right to seek re- election in 2011, though opponents call the decision illegal and vow to fight it."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/world/americas/21briefs-Nicaragua.html Ortega, Chavez, and Zelaya seem to like democracy right up to the point at which they might actually have to step aside.New Way to Tap Gas May Expand Global Supplies
Huge new reserves of natural gas, especially in Europe, could alter the political landscape for energy, experts say. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/10/business/energy-environment/10gas.html
