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Internet and freedom for political power
Topics: kucinich, internet, Ron Paul, Edwards, clinton, Obama, president, Politics, Freedom, Philosophy, ethics, television, media, election
Posted by nickdziegler Fri Dec 21, 2007 15:17:13 PST
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0 responses 0 comments In the United States, the processes of our political competitions are famously analogous to the processes of our capitalist economy.  It is a broadly leveraged criticism that a candidate's position on an issue is, unfortunately, subject to the laws of supply and demand.  In a roughly democratic process, the candidate should represent the people, but in order for the integrity of that representation to last beyond the date of election, the candidate should personally and sincerely exhibit the qualities that the voters desire.  People lament the selling of pretense as conviction, and yet quite often (with good intentions) buy into the idea that they are choosing between two inadequate choices.

Often in close proximity to this argument is the assertion that much of this is media-cultivated or even deliberately media-controlled.  This accusation derives its merit from the plainly visible inference that, just as the candidate desires being elected, the media desires being consumed.  Television is perhaps the most widespread form of media consumption in this country, and it is well known that conflict can increase ratings.  People, with the sincere intent of becoming informed, consume television news programs, while these news programs often wish to create conflict for interest.  And so, in times such as a presidential race, front runners are selected and pitted against each other.  This is simultaneously an advertisement for each, and simply by watching popular news programs it becomes easy to predict which candidates have even a chance of being elected.

It is therefore an important question to ask:  are these candidates being featured as front-runners because fully informed voters have chosen to support them based upon their sincere integrity as leaders, or are these candidates the front-runners in support polls because they have been featured on television news?  This chicken-or-egg proposition is one that feeds much criticism, much apathy, and much frustration, but ultimately goes unnoticed on a large scale.  Fortunately, this increasing relevance for alternative information sources is accompanied by an increasing accessibility of those sources.

The internet, for many of its users, represents a relatively unobstructed intellectual freedom.  In the non-space often termed cyber-space, people are distanced from their objective concerns as immediate physicalities and presented with a world of ideas expressed in language, images, and video.  Publishing is free and instantaneous, which results in a vastly heterogeneous body of content.  Unlike television, a person such as myself can create anything that can be displayed in a two dimensional manner and have it available to millions with a negligible amount of effort, with no cost, and expect immediate feedback if I desire it.  The internet is a manufacturing plant for debate, and while this debate ranges from the circular ad hominem spat to the cordial and focused disagreement, these debates are the product of a very valuable liberty, and that liberty represents what can very well save our political processes from the pretense and distracting competition of irrelevant values that is the woe of so many voters plagued with legitimate feelings of inefficacy.

The freedom described above is being enjoyed most of all by candidates who don't have the mainstream attention that advances other campaigns.  Unsurprisingly, these are candidates that don't fit the traditional political mold; these are candidates that exhibit a sincerity their increasing base of supporters would likely describe as irrefutable.  These are candidates who claim, often convincingly, they can eliminate those feelings of inefficacy, that apathy, that cynicism.  They claim to be for the people, already, not as a result of interest group buyouts or in response to voter criticism or praise.  In the cyber-space world of ideas, they seem more like people than soundbites in opposition, selected with questionable intent.  Some might see using the internet as merely another way of appealing to a demographic, but perhaps it is simply a way of transmitting ideas, uninhibited and undiluted.

I must confess:  I looked up the information to post an article to this paper with the intent of writing about a candidate I support, Dennis Kucinich, but decided writing a letter strictly about one candidate selected by myself, essentially an advertisement (as is this paragraph, perhaps) would not be in spirit with the liberating technology that helped me find a candidate I agree with.  Rather than elaborate on why he has my support, I would rather urge all others to use every means at their disposal to find information, from all the innumerable angles that exist (there are more than two), and to reclaim the power that the vote is meant to represent.  Vote for, and not against.  Choose a candidate because he or she represents you, not because of the two towering facts, he or she is the less ugly.  Without being hyperbolic, the world wide web may grant us the freedom of information necessary to secure our freedom politically, socially, and ethically.

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