From: Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 01:45:55 +0800
To: Seth Finkelstein <cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Re: What Cultural Monopoly?
In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19970604062506.03bc0cd0@panix.com>
Message-ID: <3.0.2.32.19970604133401.035f34dc@panix.com>
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>	If even you are red-baiting me now, it's time to pack it in.
>I've lost. There must be easier ways to spend my time, like taking up
>persuading mules as a hobby. Time for another vacation from the list.

Don't go Seth.  We need you.

>	The point was using real-Communist as a test of availability
>(I keep saying real-Communist to ward off the stupid comments like
>someone saying "Mario Cuomo").

Gerald Posner had a TV chat show for a while with Marlo Thomas' husband.  I 
don't think he's on any more but he is a genuine commie.

Have you tried your local Pacifica affiliate in Cambridge WMBR 88.1 FM.  Here 
in New York we are blessed with genuine Marxists on WBAI an actual Pacifica 
station:

http://www.pacifica.org

"The stations of Pacifica Radio include KPFA Berkeley, KPFK Los Angeles, WBAI 
New York, KPFT Houston, and WPFW Washington, D.C. as well as 43 affiliate 
stations."

We also have genuine Marxists on WLIB (a *commercial* station):

http://www.wlib.com 

"WLIB 1190AM is the soul of New York's Black Community. It is the collective 
mind and experience of a people. It is the spirit and hope of the race. WLIB 
is the very heart of African American, Caribbean and African Culture, 
representing millions of residents in the New York, New Jersey, and 
Connecticut metropolitan areas."

>	But despites the "thousands of stations where you can hear
>lots of different people", as Lizards said, the spectrum is fairly narrow.

That was then this is now.  As soon as we can muscle the FCC out of the 
picture and throw open the whole spectrum to efficient modern utilization and 
as soon as we deploy ADSL, Cable Modems, etc for high bandwidth net access
and 
get good audio and video netcasting opportunities, there will be plenty of 
room for all sorts of ideas and the diversity of people's *interests* will 
guarantee that the whole spectrum of ideas has a place.

>	Note as *effective* (not theoretical) audience goes up,
>ideological span goes *way* down. This has bad implications for the
>evolution of the Net.

Since anyone will still be able to put up any kind of a website, the span
will 
be just as wide now or wider than ever in the future.  As it is now than in 
the past.

That's what happened with books.  Today, it is easier to obtain a wider range 
of books than ever before.

>	Straight from the source, the things that will be expressed
>are that which make the radio station owners rich. He said it, I
>didn't. That's not the same at all as that which people would want to
>hear, even for obvious reasons as marketing pressures to more wealthly
>audiences. 

That's under the current economic model.  Even today, had frequencies been 
allowed to be traded freely from the beginning, we would have more diversity 
because we would have more stations.

>Trying to pound even these tiny insights through the yammer
>noise is just taking too much energy.

I know what you mean, Seth.

I'm still trying to get you guys to name some actual person in the U.S. that 
lives in a smaller or less diverse media environment than a person similarly 
situated would have lived in before.

DCF

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