The You of My Song: Notes from a Voluntary Exile

Most of us agree that free access to reliable information is essential for democratic societies. Until recently most of our information came from books, magazines, newspapers and radio and television news. Most of this news arrives late, in bits and pieces, and comes straight from “official spokespersons” via the mainstream media. Not only that, we only get it one day, and then it’s gone. It’s practically impossible to go back and find anything we’ve read or seen or heard. We’ve already wrapped the garbage in it and thrown it out.

The World Wide Web has changed all that, both for professional researchers and concerned citizens. I am convinced that, if anything is going to be done to rectify the current world situation, the Web will play a determinant role. It already does, but I think that role will become increasingly important. We need only look at the Web’s unique characteristics to see why:

• It functions day and night, every day of the year.
• It’s present in almost everyone’s homes.
• It’s instantaneous. Just connect and you’re off.
• It’s constantly updated, every minute of every hour of every day.
• It’s permanent. It’s there waiting for you when you need it.
• It presents all shades of opinion, so you can contrast them and make up your own mind.
• It’s searchable, so you lose no time in getting to the topic you’re interested in.
• It’s content comes in text, audio and video, making the information both more accessible and more convincing.
• It’s interactive. You can even contribute your own content to the Web.

Never in human history has there been a news medium with such advantages for the population. People can be informed as never before, and they can publish their own views if they see fit. And if they want to mobilize around an issue, there’s email, which makes communication faster, simpler, and cheaper than ever before.

There is one major inconvenience, however. It’s harder than ever to plead ignorance, that you hadn’t heard, that you didn’t know. With up-to-date, reliable, contrasted, multimedia knowledge so close at hand, so inexpensive and so easy to navigate and classify, you have no excuse. Unless you’re a toddler, or you’re brain dead, you must know. You can’t not know. So you–and your fellow citizens, all of us–have a grave new responsibility. We can now be held accountable. Accountable for Afghanistan, accountable for Iraq, accountable for the erosion of civil liberties in our own countries. These debts to ourselves and the rest of the world are not abstract or imaginary. They are real and urgent. Is there anything we can do to offset this debt, to fulfill this accountability? Yes, there is, and it’s not even complicated. It’s easy: Do something to help. And the Web shall make you free.

My last post referred to a New Yorker video interview with Seymour Hersh. If you liked that conversation between Hersh and New Yorker editor-in-chief, David Remnick, there are lots more on YouTube.com. This one is required watching, it seems to me:

Or this one, on Al Jazeera (one of the “alternative sources” worth watching):

Enjoy! Do something to help! See you later in the week.