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...for the times, they are a... you know the rest.
This Salon article popped up on Twitter, repeated dutifully by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shadesong who is spending her day echoing the revolution in Iran so that there will be one more voice to add to the volume and help carry it to further audiences.
The whole situation there is making Warren Ellis and Transmetropolitan seem very prescient: violent government crackdowns caught on camera and broadcast around the world, information slipping in and out of holes that move around the internet faster than they can be closed. AmazonFail showed us how quickly things can blow up on the internet when information spreads organically and virally across distributed clouds of people. Iran is showing us just how much difference this can make.
The article linked above has this to say, from someone on the ground:
The government of Iran can no longer claim to represent the people. The claim of Republic is thus no longer useful. But how well will the government be able to maintain its power now that this pretense has been cast aside, now that they're attacking their own people with electric batons and machetes with the whole world watching? It's that last part that's key, because this is far from the first time that people in power have done horrible things to people without it. The Islamic Republic is dead, but what will replace it is far for clear-cut.
The world is changing. The birthing cries of the internet have been interpreted as the deathknell sounding for many things: the profitability of music and movies, the proliferation of basic literacy, the skills of social interaction and human empathy, and... as someone noted on Twitter (there's so much ReTweeting right now I wouldn't know who to attribute it to originally)... civic involvement.yuki_onna said something along these lines in one of her recent posts:
She was talking, of course, about the response she received to her announcement about her Fairyland project and the circumstances surrounding it.
The internet doesn't make people stop caring any more than it makes people stop reading or enjoying other entertainment media, and it doesn't make people stop fighting for what's right. It just gives us new ways to do these things.
It's up to us to seize them.
This Salon article popped up on Twitter, repeated dutifully by
shadesong who is spending her day echoing the revolution in Iran so that there will be one more voice to add to the volume and help carry it to further audiences.The whole situation there is making Warren Ellis and Transmetropolitan seem very prescient: violent government crackdowns caught on camera and broadcast around the world, information slipping in and out of holes that move around the internet faster than they can be closed. AmazonFail showed us how quickly things can blow up on the internet when information spreads organically and virally across distributed clouds of people. Iran is showing us just how much difference this can make.
The article linked above has this to say, from someone on the ground:
Either way, have no doubt, the IRI, the Islamic Republic of Iran, is over. A leading cleric has already announced that we are no longer ruled by the Islamic "Republic" (jomhuri e Islami) but the Islamic government (hookoomat e Islami). Whether now or in a few months or years, the game is over.
The government of Iran can no longer claim to represent the people. The claim of Republic is thus no longer useful. But how well will the government be able to maintain its power now that this pretense has been cast aside, now that they're attacking their own people with electric batons and machetes with the whole world watching? It's that last part that's key, because this is far from the first time that people in power have done horrible things to people without it. The Islamic Republic is dead, but what will replace it is far for clear-cut.
The world is changing. The birthing cries of the internet have been interpreted as the deathknell sounding for many things: the profitability of music and movies, the proliferation of basic literacy, the skills of social interaction and human empathy, and... as someone noted on Twitter (there's so much ReTweeting right now I wouldn't know who to attribute it to originally)... civic involvement.
yuki_onna said something along these lines in one of her recent posts:
People say the internet alienates people, isolates them. I have no idea what they're talking about.
She was talking, of course, about the response she received to her announcement about her Fairyland project and the circumstances surrounding it.
The internet doesn't make people stop caring any more than it makes people stop reading or enjoying other entertainment media, and it doesn't make people stop fighting for what's right. It just gives us new ways to do these things.
It's up to us to seize them.
