geektivists<\/a>")<\/p>\nare concerned about the way the Internet is regulated, legal treatment<\/p>\n
of software monopolies, excessive intellectual property rights, and erosion<\/p>\n
of privacy. I know them well; I have often been the sole academic at Washington<\/p>\n
strategy meetings involving their issues. I encouraged the student’s dissertation,<\/p>\n
because I am dissastisfied with the general approach of the progressive<\/p>\n
national groups—an approach that derives from Ralph Nader and the<\/p>\n
other consumer advocates of the early 1970s. They analyze complex issues<\/p>\n
to determine what is in the "public interest"; identify enemies;<\/p>\n
"expose" their crimes and misdemeanors; develop a simple, marketable<\/p>\n
"message" through public opinion research, and then "mobilize"<\/p>\n
popular support by making people angry. I find this approach ethically<\/p>\n
dubious, because it isn’t sufficiently democratic (respectful of ordinary<\/p>\n
people’s opinions and capacities) or deliberative (willing to recognize<\/p>\n
alternative points of view). By making people angry, it often discourages<\/p>\n
them or turns them away from politics. Above all, approach tends to fail<\/i><\/p>\n
when pitted against professional corporate lobbying campaigns. Thus I<\/p>\n
think that the proposed dissertation could be useful for activists well<\/p>\n
beyond the telecommunications field. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I agreed today to serve on the dissertation committee of a graduate student who wants to study the political strategy of the "progressive" public-interest groups that lobby for changes in federal communications policy. These groups (the so-called "geektivists") are concerned about the way the Internet is regulated, legal treatment of software monopolies, excessive intellectual property […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet-and-public-issues","category-revitalizing-the-left"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4134\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}