We don’t control the machine, it controls us

In the Emerging Technologies course I am taking from the Uof M, we have to edit a Wikipedia entry on Lifelong learning which has given students some trepidation, including ,myself.When I checked the Privacy Policy this troubling item was found:

It is the policy of Wikimedia that personally identifiable data collected in the server logs, or through records in the database via the CheckUser feature, or through other non-publicly-available methods, may be released by Wikimedia volunteers or staff, in any of the following situations:

1. In response to a valid subpoena or other compulsory request from law enforcement,
2. With permission of the affected user,
3. When necessary for investigation of abuse complaints,…………………

Therein lies the rub!! Who decides what is valid. Given the debacles in the US over privacy invasion, there is little doubt that when information about you is  needed, it will be gotten whether it is valid reason or a concocted pretense.

Where are all the civil libertarians? Where are all the protest singers? Neil Young tried (with such rich amounts of political fodder) to create  indignation in his devoted fans and society in general but  I don’t know if anyone is listening. Just as they are ignoring  Dennis kucinich, Bill Maher, Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Noami Klien, John Ralston Saul  and a list of other skeptics and critical  free-thinking individuals.

These writers  keep making sense to me and a lot of individuals worldwide but seem to not gain mainstream media coverage in the soundbite-age.But,even if we were to  mobilize like the Campesinos in Bolivia and all the multitudes of all the nations were listening, we are crippled by an overarching system that dictates  to us by controlling our economic systems , our media,  our food supply and our energy. How can a level, democratic, playing field exist in a global system that favors hegemony, and growth and all costs for the power brokers and the top 2 percent who control all the world’s wealth. To deny this reality is to be like McLuhan’s fish, unconscious of the medium that surrounds,sustains and transforms him. This media-perpetuated unawareness for the fish means that when the water dries up to a mudhole and finally a mud-cracked dessert, he will no longer be able to play the tradition ‘point-the-local-finger’ game or the ‘put-your-hopes-in-science-and -echnology-to-make-it all-better-game’ or even the ‘trickle -down- adjust-the-market-to keep-everyone happy’ game, since there will be no pond, pothole or or moisten grassy glade in which to host the game.

The democractic tools and the enlightenment that I hope does come with them must  take into account the  the  the social and political state of the world. Not to do so exhibits the hubris of the web 1.0 world and indeed the North American world since the turn if the last century.