Watchmen may have reintroduced the world to Dylan at just the right moment in history...

[alexandraerin]

...for the times, they are a... you know the rest.

This Salon article popped up on Twitter, repeated dutifully by shadesong who is spending her day echoing the revolution in Iran so that there will be one more voice to add to the volume and help carry it to further audiences.

The whole situation there is making Warren Ellis and Transmetropolitan seem very

Comments

[sage_blackthorn]

Did you ever play Sid Meir's "Alpha Centaury"? This reminds me of something they programed into the game that pops up when you build the "Planetary Datalinks":

"As the Americans learned so painfull in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against Tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last loose their grip on information flow will burst with freedom and vitality, but the free-nation gradually constricting it's grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master"
--Commissioner Previn Lal,
U.N. Declaration of Rights.

The game was released in 1999, and looking back on it there seem to be so many little prophetic warnings in it. But this one about the need for freedom of public discourse being essential to health of a nation stands out in my mind. (Based as it is on the American First Amendment right to freedom of speech "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.") The ability to criticize those in charge without fear of retaliation, to address percieved grievances, to speak one's mind, state one's opinion on a matter and open up a discussion about a topic seems to be to be essential not only to health of a nation, but to any community, be it actual or virtual. I would seriously worry about any one attempting to "censore" the internet. But the flip side of that coin, since anyone can post virtually anything on the internet whether it's true or not, is that each and every person reading it must verify it themselves and decide for themselves if it is true or not.

Best game evar

[sephiraraynes]

*high-fives blackthorn*