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Tuesday, June 11, 2013

No net?

Now don't consider me a conspiracy theorist.  I just want to take us through possible scenarios as a worst case.
Ann-Marie Murrell has a deeply disturbing article on the Townhall website today. http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/ann-mariemurrell/2013/06/11/a-world-without-the-internet--are-we-prepared-n1617221
What she is saying is that Obama may try to shut down the internet using some sort of excuse about internet security--shutting down terrorist talk on the Net or some other thing--but then conservative websites will suddenly become inaccessible. And government seizes the website's computers.  This is what happens in China almost continually with "western thought" and Christian websites being shut down at will.  Of course it would take some national emergency in USA to do this for long, but what, she asks rhetorically, could we do? Why do I bring up China?  Because Obama is discussing Internet Security with that new Chinese dragon, Xi. 

Some possible answers.  First, a tyrant is most likely to attack and censor a website.  Private emails would remain.  But if they went after political dissidents and shut down email accounts or hauled conservative bloggers in, that would represent another step up in threat.  Finally they might shut down all but government speech on the net--China has done this from time to time.  What then?

First, know this.  China has had a lot of problems squelching political dissent because it is so hard to silence phone and internet chat about daily things.  Hence the government is under constant duress having to answer questions about aparachiks mishandling things like leaving some small village without rescue during a earthquake or hauling some village women in for forced abortions.  It's just hard to get away with tyranny if you are a tyrant these days.  People talk and have electronic means. But if the net is censored, and it is heavily censored in China, and emails/tweets/facebook is completely stopped, what then?

Townhall meetings.  Unless the government wants to try to round up normal citizens, we are still free to speak as we wish in public.  Remember there is only one policeman for every 2000 people even in large cities and who is the cop in Sharon Springs, Kansas? Just call a town hall and have a phone tree to announce. Could take place in your city park or anywhere.  It would make big headlines in the local paper.  There would be loyalists to the regime on hand, but that's okay.  It's still considered a free country. But what if they track telephone conversations?  How would people know to come?

A clue to strategy is given by the house churches of China. There is a notification tree of people who spread the word and meetings are in private homes which are very hard for the government to find.  Use of editorial information could take place via paper copies the old fashioned way.  But most printers have a copying feature nowadays so anyone can copy stuff. Paper can be passed around the way they passed around Christian pamphlets and Bibles in USSR for years. 

The cell phone revolution would give any government crackdown fits.  Without phones, the economy comes to a hault. But things get recorded and transmitted by phones.  Even Iran, a primitive country with a lousy economy, can't shut down the dissidents and their phones.

All in all, I rather doubt Murrell's scenario.  I don't think even a Stalin could shut things down for long without being thrown out.  But then look at what happened to countries that went fascist.

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