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Indybay Feature
Left's Silence About Google Is Extraordinary
There is a curious and deafening silence about Google's deal with the repressive Chinese government in the Left Alternative media.
Where are the anti-corporate, anti-globalist voices?
What follows is a hurried hypothesis about why this is so. Hopefully some more talented analysts and writers will explore this idea.
Where are the anti-corporate, anti-globalist voices?
What follows is a hurried hypothesis about why this is so. Hopefully some more talented analysts and writers will explore this idea.
I am hoping I am wrong. I am hoping I missed something.
I am worried that I have not.
If one takes a cursory look at the media reports and opinions about Google's siding with the Chinese government to limit freedoms of its populace one may note an almost complete absence of the story, or its emphasis in the progressive, left blogs and journals with a presence on the internet.
Salon, Tompaine.com, Counterpunch, CommonDreams, Information Clearing House, Truthout, DissidentVoice.org (others?):
All are either are silent about the Google Deal-- or downplay the story by failing to highlight it.
As I said, I hope I am wrong.
Meanwhile the mainstream media, particularly business and IT publications, seem to be taking up the story-- if not exuberently-- at least with some pointed articles and essays.
Why is this?
Questions:
Have the progressive left publications been lulled by Google's reputation to do good? have they become enmeshed and dependent on Google's power and largesse?
Is there a link between this focus (or lack of focus)-- and the continuing silence in the Left about the true events and causes-- or at least the facts--of and about the events of 9/11 (as exemplified most by Noam Chomsky who trivializes theories that the U.S. government was involved in making 9/11 happen)?
Do the progressive and left publications fear losing their growing traction (exemplified by an American majority now opposing the war in Iraq and deciding that Bush is a liar) in countering the Bush Cabal as they try to build a media infrastructure to counter the Right-Wing's predominance in the media? Are they silent for strategic objectives-- just as the Democrats are quiescent about Impeachment, Alito, etc. because rather than confront evil as it happens-- they hope for victory in future elections?
Freedom, democracy, truth should be a constant focus of the Left. Sometimes truth is inconvenient-- but it should be sought-- not hindered or retreated from. Other example of leftist silence: pornography, the sex trade, human exploitation. Much of the Left takes a libertarian approach to these issues by emphasizing choice over enviornmental determination. To be silent on these issues is to kill debate about the objectification of people as things-- and give the moral high ground to the Right which cares little for the moral high ground-- but cares everything about criminalization and keeping the status quo.
Make no mistake-- Google's hubris about its agreements in China signals a major conflict in the war for democracy, human rights, and free speech. This is no time for the Left to be silent-- or to concede morality or the debate to the Right.
No matter how tempting alliances with the internet power brokers are.
the basic story:
I am worried that I have not.
If one takes a cursory look at the media reports and opinions about Google's siding with the Chinese government to limit freedoms of its populace one may note an almost complete absence of the story, or its emphasis in the progressive, left blogs and journals with a presence on the internet.
Salon, Tompaine.com, Counterpunch, CommonDreams, Information Clearing House, Truthout, DissidentVoice.org (others?):
All are either are silent about the Google Deal-- or downplay the story by failing to highlight it.
As I said, I hope I am wrong.
Meanwhile the mainstream media, particularly business and IT publications, seem to be taking up the story-- if not exuberently-- at least with some pointed articles and essays.
Why is this?
Questions:
Have the progressive left publications been lulled by Google's reputation to do good? have they become enmeshed and dependent on Google's power and largesse?
Is there a link between this focus (or lack of focus)-- and the continuing silence in the Left about the true events and causes-- or at least the facts--of and about the events of 9/11 (as exemplified most by Noam Chomsky who trivializes theories that the U.S. government was involved in making 9/11 happen)?
Do the progressive and left publications fear losing their growing traction (exemplified by an American majority now opposing the war in Iraq and deciding that Bush is a liar) in countering the Bush Cabal as they try to build a media infrastructure to counter the Right-Wing's predominance in the media? Are they silent for strategic objectives-- just as the Democrats are quiescent about Impeachment, Alito, etc. because rather than confront evil as it happens-- they hope for victory in future elections?
Freedom, democracy, truth should be a constant focus of the Left. Sometimes truth is inconvenient-- but it should be sought-- not hindered or retreated from. Other example of leftist silence: pornography, the sex trade, human exploitation. Much of the Left takes a libertarian approach to these issues by emphasizing choice over enviornmental determination. To be silent on these issues is to kill debate about the objectification of people as things-- and give the moral high ground to the Right which cares little for the moral high ground-- but cares everything about criminalization and keeping the status quo.
Make no mistake-- Google's hubris about its agreements in China signals a major conflict in the war for democracy, human rights, and free speech. This is no time for the Left to be silent-- or to concede morality or the debate to the Right.
No matter how tempting alliances with the internet power brokers are.
the basic story:
For more information:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/01/179792...
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those critical interventions have received hostile-defensive response, but they haven't quite explained how trying to force your view of freedom on the chinese people, or more precisely, demanding that a corporation do it for you, is anything other than, to put it country simple, chauvinistic cultural imperialism.
the only reply to this so far is one of those sort of universalist, of-course-everyone-in-the-world-shares-my-liberal-democratic-values (or is a fascist) types of knee-jerk responses. maybe you can do better...