Technologies of the New York march

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Dave Burstein <dave () dslprime com>
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 21:58:09 -0500
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Technologies of the New York march

> Dave

Three technologies played a crucial role Saturday.
* I was surprised old-fashioned radios were everywhere, some smalltransistor
models and some boomboxes. The police contained most of thedemonstrators,
myself included, up to a mile away from the speakers,without any way to hear
the event. WBAI-FM, New York's community radiostation, suspended all other
programming and carried the event live. Thatproved to be the only way most
could hear. 
* The web was crucial for the organizers of the march. I remembertraveling
20 hours in crowded car to get together to organize an eventyears ago; many
political people I know now do most work by email.
* Wireless phones coordinated the field people trying to keep the demoin
some order, despite twice the expected attendance and policeregulations that
were very counterproductive, creating a false security.Howard Rheingold in
Smart Mobs tells remarkable stories of how the anti-Estrada movement in the
Philippines was pulled together by cellphone text messages.
Resurgent community radio brings the issues of "media concentration" at the
FCC into sharp relief. While WBAI reported from the left, Rupert Murdoch's
New York Post had a front cover with doctored photos of the French and
German U.N. ambassadors with a weasel replacing their heads. I hope that
even many of those who believe that war opponents are weasels can agree with
me that a country is better off with media that covers both opinions.
Concentration in an industry like vitamins of telephony leads to higher
prices; in broadcasting, the stakes are whether our democracy hears diverse
opinions. 

     These freedom of speech issues carry over and may become the next
battleground over the fast internet. The technology is ready to deliver the
third internet, fast enough to watch. But it looks like most homes will only
have a choice of two providers, one cable and one telco. They have a
financial interest - and active plans - to restrict your reliable internet
connection to less than the meg or so required for TV quality video. (That
includes those advertising 1.5 meg but designing a network that makes that
false advertising much of the time.) Instead, SBC, Comcast, Nortel, and
Cisco talk at industry events about revenues they expect to gather from
"content delivery" - a toll on the internet that will effectively limit
choice.  
 
     With four comments on the march already posted, I would have saved that
thought for another time. But your last posting

"they proceeded to attack and destroy the Starbucks"

was very different from the crowds I spent several hours among. All I saw
were peaceful marchers, singing and chanting slogans.  With probably 200,000
people, many of them young and desperate to stop a war, I'm not surprised
some broke windows and signs. But people like that were perhaps one in a
thousand.

Dave Burstein


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