Is the Internet an Effective Forum for Public Debate?

What this speaker needs to take into account is the number of people in modern times as well as all the fragmented opinions that continue to grow UNMONITORED. This outdated idea of the common as a platform form public debate via opinion is naive considering the chaos that would possibly ensue. "designated" areas are a necessity in our times.
This man should turn his fire on the English government, which certainly needs it.

rofl the guy whos pc got flagged for saying bomb was probably playing cs.

he's the man!

And I love the way he nails the lie that the Net's a safeguard against creeping authoritarianism. As the embattled secular and democratic Egyptian Left says, 'They let the dogs bark.' The poet R.S. Thomas put it more subtly:

Period

It was a time when wise men
Were not silent, but stifled
By vast noise. They took refuge
In books that were not read . . .

Two counsellors had the ear
Of the public. One cried "Buy"
Day and Night, and the other,
More plausibly, "Sell your Repose."

I love the way Alexander Cockburn says 'oorf' instead of 'off'.

He echoes Herbert Marcuse's comments about how the centers of power create the illusion of democratic participation while all the time going about their own agenda. In our own times, they use the net to reinforce their deceptions. With only a choice betwixt the Dems. and Repugs., and with the centers of power in either party only offering a possible pull-out in Iraq by 2013, a perceptive person might not even bother with the electoral process.

FORA TV gets its videos through partnerships with organizations like the Aspen Institute, the Commonwealth Club, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Long Now Foundation (Stewart Brand) and C-SPAN. (Seed money from Hearst)

Cockburn's pessimism is justified. What appears Democracy today may well evaporate as web presence becomes monopolized. First we get what appears open debate-- just as we got "value" and "choice" when the first WalMarts and K-Marts appeared.

I definetly do share most of his political views but I don't think intelligence has much to do with it. He actually cares about the people and real freedom. As do I

I definetly don't share most of his political views, but it is certainly most refreshing to hear viewpoints from outside of the Democrat/Republican and Labour/Liberal spectrum. And he is beyond question a very intelligent man.