I got in hot water for suggesting that - while of course the Iranian people's struggle for democracy deserves 100% support - the "Twitter Revolution" was in fact mainly middle-class Westerners jerking themselves off for TEH DEMOCRAZIES, combined with CIA/Mossad psyops. I think I've been proved right by the military coup in Honduras. No Twitter frenzy about that, except from the leftie usual suspects. Why? Because President Zelaya is a horrible leftist and ally of Hugo Chávez. Therefore, the Western mainstream media won't support him (and they make up arrant lies about what the non-binding referendum was supposed to be asking).
Therefore, there is no massive memetic push to drive the intarwebz into moralistic frenzy. The ensuing lack of anyone giving a damn about Honduras truly indicates how much the outpouring of showy grief over Iran was simply an artifact of a very sophisticated public relations campaign, by forces allied to the current global ruling class.
Hat tip in particular to BoRev, who points out that the protestors in Tegucigalpa are currently dodging bullets on the street, "which is like Twittering for poor people".
Check Trending Topics. Honduras is up there.
ReplyDeleteIf something happens, people will talk about it, online as well as elsewhere. It doesn't always signify that there's a great "memetic push". The signal to noise ratio on Twitter is amazing.
(What of the fact that the Iranians are mostly arrested and tortured, now? There are very few using Twitter any more.)
Yeah, I noticed Honduras is up there on Twitter. And overwhelmingly it's pro-coup chatter and links to pro-coup opinion pieces. Some people are being forthright as saying that it's not democracy if you elect socialists. If only my Spanish was good enough to be able to get more than the general idea from Telesur...
ReplyDeleteI think it is more that, geopolitically, no one really cares about Honduras, especially in comparison to Iran.
ReplyDeleteIt is a "Oh, some little Latin American country had a coup. Surprise!" kind of thing.
(This is not an endorsement of that opinion.)
So many delusions, so little time.
ReplyDeleteAsk yourself why the Iranian people asked Twitter to delay their maintenance shutdown.
http://littlerichardjohn.blogspot.com/2009/06/140-characters-in-search-of-revolution.html
a) There's no such thing as "the Iranian people". Did you mean to say "my political allies in Iran?"
ReplyDeleteb) It was the US State Department who demanded that Twitter be kept open.
c) A dozen protestors for democracy have died in Honduras, which I think is about 500 in Twitter years.
d) Obviously the Twitter-using section of the Honduran population approve of the coup (and the attendant suspension of civil liberties for poor, brown people), which of course confuses the Twitter-using section of the population elsewhere. It's a class thing.
e) What is the motivation behind beginning your contribution to the debate accusing others of "delusions"? Do you think beginning with a personal insult will trigger an emotional reaction from your opponents which will render them more susceptible to your arguments?
You're so wrong it hurts to look.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between Honduras and Iran is the degree of internet sophistication. Iran is the second biggest blogging community in the world, and the most sophisticated. Therefore, the case is surely that if the young people of Honduras had been generously supplied with OLPC machines from the start, the global internet campaign would have been much more significant. More access to global publicity required, not less.
Unlike the original Luddites, you have nothing to lose from new technology, while others have a lot to gain. Which makes you an old-fashioned dogs-in-the-manger more than anything else.
Either that or you simply cannot understand the importance of publicity to any political cause. Which means you don't understand politics at all.
Thanks for your comments. Could you give your opinion on the central point of my post - why the internet frenzy from Westerners about Honduras is limited to the usual leftist suspects, rather than a cause célebré? The point is not about Twitter as a device, it's about what "memes" take off among the population of the intarwebz, and why.
ReplyDeleteIf you're interested, the Honduran resistance are indeed online - hondurasresists.blogspot.com is only the tip of the iceberg.