terryjohaldotcom

Culture Warrior?

This is a very depressing thing to read early in the morning.

Keith Windschuttle has been appointed to the board of the ABC. This is just another step to the Howard neutering of a what I believe makes Australian culture great - tolerance and diversity.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan said Mr Hurley's business and management experience would be an asset to the ABC, as would Mr Windschuttle's background in media, journalism and publishing.

"Mr Windschuttle has 20 years' experience lecturing in Australian history, journalism and social policy at a number of Australian universities. He has also been a visiting or guest lecturer at a number of universities in the United States," she said. [ref]

Well, if that was the case, then perhaps Stuart Macintyre should have been considered as well. If only it were about a fair go.

Irrepressible.info

Amnesty International has launched a new campaign, Irrepressible.info, that will bring together all their campaigns about the repression of the internet and the jailing of net dissidents. It will focus on both the role of governments as well as corporations on repression of the internet.

"... the internet itself can become a tool of repression where the monitoring of communications, the censoring and filtering of information and the amassing of immense databanks of information enhance the ability of authoritarian governments to restrict the freedoms and basic human rights of their citizens. Such national restrictions can affect not just those living within that country but anyone who  seeks to impart or receive information in relation to that country." The Internet And Freedom Of Expression: A New Frontier For Human Rights? [pdf]

"... there is a real danger of there being ‘two internets’– one that is an arena for the free and peaceful exchange of ideas, and another thatis a tool for political oppression. It is a danger that threatens to undermine the very principleon which the internet was founded." Irrepressible Information [pdf]