From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Tue Mar 21 2000 - 21:12:08 MST
Technotranscendence wrote:
>
> On Sunday, March 19, 2000 5:21 PM Michael S. Lorrey retroman@turbont.net
> wrote:
> > You are automatically assuming that the original works of the artist
> > were a clear perspective.
>
> I would not assume so, though, by the same token, I'd rather not have the
> government deciding these things, especially since its interests might never
> be in line with a clear perspective. Witness last years campaign against
> Serbia by the US government. Didn't the State Department do its best to
> paint the Serbs as bloodthirsty demons and the Albanians as helpless
> victims?
>
> But aside from this example, one might claim, well, there are people who
> slant things in other ways, so why is the government doing so worse than any
> others? First, the government is, sadly, assumed by many to be the correct
> point of view in anything. This means the government line is taken to be
> correct. You know how people trust the FDA to regulate drugs and the like?
> So, government is not an equal player here. When a company slants
> something, generally, most people are suspicious if not cynical. With
> government, this is not so.
>
> Second, government is not equal in other ways. Since it makes and enforces
> laws, it cannot be equated to others players in the information market. It
> has an interest in staying in that position of rule making and rule
> enforcement -- one in making itself appear to be doing a great job or the
> best possible job and to also appear as a knight in shining armor when any
> problems do arise. (On the latter, note how Hillary Clinton recently headed
> up the government campaign against giving Ritalin and Prozac to kids. This
> is the same government who approved it for such uses! There was no talk
> along the lines of, "Oops, we made a mistake.")
>
> > Orwell never spent any time in a communist
> > nation, he only knew what he heard by hanging out with the Cambridge
> > bred aristo-communists popular in Britain in the 30's. Ask Sasha
> > Chislenko what he thinks...
>
> Orwell also spent some time in Spain during the Spanish Civil War
> (1936-1939). He even joined a militia there. He did get to see how
> Communists, especially Stalinists, operate up close and personal. In fact,
> he wrote a book on it, _Homage to Catalonia_ in 1938. This is a far cry
> from just hanging out in Cambridge.
Yes, I heard about that the other day on the anarchist newsgroup. His
animosity towards Stalin was because Josef supposedly didn't keep his
promises to the spanish communists. However, Spain was hardly a
communist country at that point, it was merely a rather ravaged country.
Its good to see he stood up for his principles, even though once he got
a taste of the integrity of that side, he wound up naming names to
British Intelligence the rest of his life...
Mike Lorrey
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