Letter to Z:

Norman Solomon is quite right that "there is nothing inherently democratizing about the internet." [MediaBeat, July/August 2001]. The same is true for any technology: we should not assume a hammer is inherently a tool for good. A more critical question however is whether the hammer can be used for building something constructive: can the internet be used to promote democracy?

When Rich Winkel and I launched misc.activism.progressive (MAP), the UseNet's first progressive moderated newsgroup in 1991, it wasn't about predicting what technology would do; it was about exploring and asserting what technology could and should do. This is how by 1993 MAP became a source of news and analysis for over 60,000 people, with far less than 1 percent of the resources of The Nation magazine. Technology certainly did not guarantee this outcome, but it did make it possible.

MAP grew as an expansion of ACTIV-L, an internet listserv of 1,000 readers, which in turn grew out of the Activists Mailing List (AML), an email list of some 100 people. I started AML for participants of an internet-based media campaign organized together with John Lamperti and Mary Pugh, in response to the brutal US-sponsored murders of six El Salvadoran Jesuits, their housekeeper, and her daughter. As this shows, one can't know in advance what benefits may result from exploring what new technological tools, used properly, can do for the movement.

The fact that elites have been using the internet to promote their agenda, and continue to do so, does not imply we should shun the internet, but only highlights the need to explore ways of using this powerful tool towards our ends. To renounce its use, giving elites a monopoly, would be "a gift to one's enemy," to borrow Chomsky's description of the analogous dangers of anti-science sentiments in Left circles. Solomon's cautions certainly have their place. Perhaps they are even worth expanding, depending on one's judgment about the prevalence of technophilia, which is about predicting what technology will automatically do for us, rather than examining what we could do with this tool.

Can the internet be used to promote democracy? Borrowing Solomon's terminology, it is doubtless a relatively more level "battlefield" when the cost of owning and operating a virtual radio station or hub like www.indymedia.org is lower -- under 1% of the cost of bricks and mortar broadcasting infrastructure. A battlefield favors those "with billions of dollars behind them" in direct proportion to the costs of entry and operation. Therefore it would be a grave mistake to renounce arenas which drastically reduce such costs. From resistance to the Gulf "war" to Seattle and beyond, the contributions of MAP, today's indymedia, and other internet projects are notable. Such endeavors can make it easier for people to join together globally. The "corporations of the world" have already united; to survive, we too must unite globally.

Readers interested in exploring how a combination of creatively harnessed technology and old-fashioned organizing can be used towards democratizing the media and the economic system itself are invited to join us at www.EconomicDemocracy.org. There, related issues like access for the poor and sustainable funding are also addressed. Will the revolution be webcast? That is not a question for speculation or prediction, but rather one for creative exploration, and action.

Harel Barzilai