Changing History

[Griffin NoName]

.............we're at a point in time where, due to modern methods of communication, the control of the 'dominant group' that's been utilizing both for their own ends (especially in the US) is slipping precariously.

The combination of available information and more diversity in the spread of  information (the power of the blogosphere, to a great extent, as well as internet availability of news sources from other countries) has destabilized the tight control of information.

Example? Had there been live blogging and photos of the entire Iran/Contra mess, Reagan would have been impeached back then, and the Bush Dynasty would have been averted.

So how would modern communication have changed famous moments in history?

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[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Lots of it would be averted. And the more recent (and boring parts) might be a little more interesting.

[Swatopluk]

Now the revolution (not taking place) is televised .

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I am somewhat skeptical. How many mountains of dirt have come from the current white house without affecting the ability of the incumbent to generate more (using techniques borrowed from H. Göring)?

[Griffin NoName]

Hey let's not be depressed about it !!

Poor Princess Elizabeth, later to become Queen Elizabath I, was locked up in the Tower on the basis of flimsy evidence including the supposed burning of a note supposedly implicating her involvement in plot to overthrow her elder sister the Catholic Queen Mary. In the Tower she supposedly began a relationship with Robert Dudley and set in train a whole other series of events.....

Nowadays there'd have been jobs for the boys tracing back the internet cafe users and Queen Elizabeth's reign may have been entirely different. She might have even married the King of Spain. England might have been blown up by the Basques and Tony Bliar never got it together with Bush.

And just think what the original English settlers in America might have got up to........

[Sibling Chatty]

I am somewhat skeptical. How many mountains of dirt have come from the current white house without affecting the ability of the incumbent to generate more (using techniques borrowed from H. Göring)?

Their TOTAL manipulation of the CORPORATE main stream media is responsible for a lot of that.

Outrage fatigue seems to have really set in as well...
http://tinyurl.com/3yue36

<<I know how it is. You've had it up to here. There are only so many stories about blood and death and pain you can take, only so many times you can hear about random shootings and corporate malfeasance and how BushCo's squad of scabrous flying monkeys have, say, supported torture or endorsed wiretapping or gouged the nation for another $200 billion to pay for a failed war. Your nerves are raw and your heart is tired and the media will just not shut the hell up already about the sadness and the war and the mayhem and the Cheney and the doom doom doom.

It is outrage fatigue, and it is epidemic. It's that feeling that we are being hammered unlike any time in recent history with so many appalling and disgusting and violently un-American incidents and scandals and manipulations that our b.s.-detectors are smoking like an old V-8 engine on a hot summer's day and it's all we can do to get up every day without screaming.

What's more, it's not the mere quantity of moral insults, either. It's the bizarre absurdity of the subject matter, the things we are being forced to consider, or reconsider, that seem to make it all so horrific. >>

Once again,  http://tinyurl.com/3yue36

We're browbeaten and cowed into going along, because during the time the country was in shock over 9/11, the plotting, conniving NeoCons took over, and like a cukoo stealing a nest to raise its young...
http://tinyurl.com/2wtknf
the nation was deceived into accepting this level of greed, immoral and illegal behavior, and flat out lying and then lying to cover the lies. We're unsure of how to get the parasites out of our nest. they've taken it over, they're bigger and have more power (and ability to hurt us deeply , as individuals or as groups) and we've GOT to find a way.

We just know we can't depend on Congress. The supposed opposition seems to be a Fifth Column, a pack of quislings, ready to fall into the slavish devotion to the corporate masters as soon as they can.

America is being slowly killed, and the zombified corpse they will prop up in its place stinks.

[beagle]

So how would modern communication have changed famous moments in history?

There would have been no paper copy of the Zimmerman telegram in a Mexican sorting office for British intelligence to show the U.S., America wouldn't have entered WWI which would have been declared a draw.  There would have been no Treaty of Versailles, WWII wouldn't have happened, The Cold War would have been settled by a tennis tournament between JFK and Kruschev.
Strangely enough the only long term effect would be that the chandeliers in the cabinet room at No 10 would be cleaned slightly less often. Historians are still pondering this.

We're unsure of how to get the parasites out of our nest. they've taken it over, they're bigger and have more power (and ability to hurt us deeply , as individuals or as groups) and we've GOT to find a way.

And the auditors have just rubbished their accounts for the 13th consecutive year.  Or weren't you talking about the EU Commission 

[Swatopluk]

The world wide telegraph net (The Victorian Internet as one author called it) was probably a greater revolution than the modern internet. It moved the decision making process from the periphery (viceroys etc.) to the center (something the diplomats abroad resented because it took away their freedom). It also removed the pacifying delays that kept the system relatively stable because a crisis abroad had a chance to cool down (or burn out) before the know-nothings in the capitals could pour extra oil in. With instant communication everything speeded up requiring fast (and therefore often bad) decisionmaking. The press played a less than mitigating role too (take that Murdoch ancestor Hearst for example). Even before that the optical telegraphs had the effect that the army mobilization time was reduced to 3-7 days (3 days to call to arms, on the 7th day the border would be crossed). As a result the European powers were on permanent war footing. Before WW1 there was a belief that the first 24 hours would be decisive leading to military plans that did not allow for diplomatic solutions. For example the German war plan required the occupation of (neutral) Luxembourg to seize the railway heads before France could do the same. The need for speed allowed no flexibility. Think away rail and wire and WW1 would have been impossible.
In short the progress of communication technology had also a lot of negative effects we have to live with today (apart from bringing us Paris Hilton reports 24/7).
On the other hand we would probably not be here, if during the Cold War both side had possessed ICBM but no early warning systems.

[beagle]

I remember Queen Victoria had a communications room in Osborne House on the Isle of Wight from which she could get reports from India within a day (quite nippy for those times).  Unfortunately nobody thought it worth preserving when the house was refurbished later. Might have been fun to read her inbox.

[Griffin NoName]

... well only slightly..

Why aren't we all fitted with black boxes so when we break down they can tell why?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Their TOTAL manipulation of the CORPORATE main stream media is responsible for a lot of that.

Actually I think it is more related to our almost infinite ability to delude ourselves. How many times we DO know that something is wrong but we keep quiet because it isn't 'worth the effort'? More so, in a number of cases it really isn't:

The mechanic is cheating you by telling you that you need something that you really don't, you suspect it but if the hit isn't that big and the item 'may' help you in the end, you play along.

The point is that -say- to a staunch pro-lifer the evils of the right are necessary. Think that in the end we all think that way one time or another (the classic 'lesser evil'). Certainly, the right in the US has been very successful on their techniques to keep their status quo, and while their popularity has been eroded we don't see 'pitches and forks' on the streets, so to speak, partially because most of us don't want to get out of our comfort zone, but also because when the previous generation tried in the 60s, regardless of the triumphs of the time (like the laws against segregation), the general perception is that it failed miserably (heck, wasn't Nixon even re-elected?). If with those massive demonstrations the authoritarians prevailed (not only in the US, mind you, Paris and Prague among others had their share IIRC) what can we expect from a few bloggers?

The sad truth is that you have deal with the inertia of the system, and the ones taking the decisions (political & economical) much rather keep things quiet for the sake of their investments. Only when their bottom line is affected by the same things that affect the rest of us, they will try something different and even then it is quite unlikely for them to play fairly (one of these days ask me about the failed coup against Chavez).

Did I mention I am skeptical? 

[Sibling Chatty]

... well only slightly..

Why aren't we all fitted with black boxes so when we break down they can tell why?

Designer--not so intelligent??

[beagle]

... well only slightly..

Why aren't we all fitted with black boxes so when we break down they can tell why?

Designer--not so intelligent??

It's cheaper for the NHS to get the information by Post Mortem?
They will fit you with a box which monitors you for a day or so, but my experience is you will then never get told the results...

[Griffin NoName]

... well only slightly..

Why aren't we all fitted with black boxes so when we break down they can tell why?

Designer--not so intelligent??

It's cheaper for the NHS to get the information by Post Mortem?

Sure you don't mean more "cost effective" ?

[Sibling Chatty]

Ah, the infamous 24 hour heart monitor/Holter monitor.

It's actually a very intensely guarded secret, but that's NOT a monitor. It does nothing medical (thus no report) they just use those to make you think they're doing something, and it actually just makes an audio recording that they listen to and giggle.



Well, it makes as much sense as anything else...

[Griffin NoName]

....it actually just makes an audio recording that they listen to and giggle.

They don't just listen, they watch the treble and bass go up and down as well Chatty.

[Sibling Chatty]

I'm beginning to believe that we, the 'civilised world' don't change history more because we're too complacent, too lazy, too self-centered.

Disasters elsewhere, unless they're weather related or something explodes--who cares? Genocide?? OH, sorry, not interested.

For well over 100 years, the Congo has been a killing grounds.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/genocong.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/congojournal/
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16650434

Rwanda, Darfur...all the 'trendy' names to bandy about...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/24/5410/

What the hell are we waiting for? But...what can one person do?

[Griffin NoName]

Someone posted on that site:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

I'm beginning to believe that we, the 'civilised world' don't change history more because we're too complacent, too lazy, too self-centered...................................

What the hell are we waiting for? But...what can one person do?

We can speak out.

I don't know how "we" can change it. But we can keep speaking out.

I don't I admit go out of my way to speak out, but I don't ever let it go past me when I fall over any of it without speaking out.