Computer Power To The People
Peace through Reason (prop1@prop1.org)
Thu, 08 Jan 1998 21:42:06 -0500
Ellen, would you RESEND your post below to <HPN.aspin.asu.edu> ??
Just saw your post on FNB list.
Just think if we had computers, not just xerox, during the antiwar years.
Peace through copmputers (and nonviolent direct action)!--High Holy Tom
__________
Do we really want to train more people in the use of computers?
Emphatically yes. For so many centuries ordinary people have been
powerless because information has been controlled by a few well-paid
people. During the Dark Ages people were denied the right to read.
Libraries have been burned in dictatorships. People have been denied
access to each other.
But now, with the World Wide Web, ordinary people can communicate, share
information, do research, make friends around the world. Are any of you
old enough to remember having a pen-pal behind the Iron Curtain when you
were a kid? I am. It was weird believing there was NO WAY I was going to
ever see this girl face-to-face. It took months to exchange letters. Now we
have no Iron Curtain, except perhaps that surrounding Iraq at the moment.
We can communicate easily, instantaneously. It's getting harder for the
governments to lie to their people. Fortunately a lot of activists have
seen the exciting accessibility now available (not only to tell, but to
learn -- you should see how much information you can get by doing a
websearch, both public and through the government-wide database!)
I personally don't advocate children be taught computers to make money. I
say they should be taught computers, and the U.S. Bill of Rights, and the
U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, and how to repair bicycles, grow clean
healthy food, and clean up evironmental disasters. Balance in all things.
Ellen Thomas
Proposition One Committee |
Peace Park Antinuclear Vigil
PO Box 27217, Washington DC 20038
202-462-0757 -- fax 202-265-5389
prop1@prop1.org -- http://prop1.org