>>>>As an outsider looking in, though, I'd have to say that having only two REAL political parties that, worst of all, control all the levers that could lead to more real choices for the people, just about guarantees lousy government there in perpetuity.
>>>
>>>
http://www.techmocracy.net/gov>>>
>>>Needless to say, while there is a tight grip on some of them, I don't think all the levers are controlled.
>>
>>That's the whole point - there must always be some minor focal points to which to lure the potential opposition leaders and trouble makers.
>
>The webpage above describes the internet as the focal point, which isn't minor at all.
And it's probably installed as one of default content links on each update of Internet Explorer, so everybody will know where it is?
The trouble with the Web is that everything's out there, but only if you know what you're looking for, and if you have the patience to search and surf. I wouldn't have heard of this location had you not pointed me to it. So, how big a percentage of the audience does that one cover?
>>So it only takes controlling
sufficient number of levers, and having a token number of uncontrolled ones, just to prove you aren't controlling everything.
>>
>>During Milosevic, we had a few media outlets which were very strongly opposing him. The only problem was that they could reach about 2% of Belgrade, and 0% of the rest of the country. They had websites, though, but then less than 1% of the people had access to the web...
>
>Fortunately the stats are a bit higher than 1% here in the US!
But unfortunately, the percentage of those who look for independent sources of information there is probably still below 1%.