Bill Clinton seems to think there are parallels between the present time and 1995. I agree there are some similarities, but the difference is great also. In 1995, the Internet was a babbling infant commercially only two years old. Now the Internet is a raging beast of enormous import and size.
George Orwell predicted a police state where our every thought and action was observed by an oppressive government. That has more or less come to pass without force. We have marched into the pages of Facebook and MySpace and confessed our sins as easily as nuns at a convent. All an agent of law enforcement or oppressor, depending on your point of view, need do is have a good algorithm and scan the databases of life in the world found on the social media websites.
I will not judge whether this is a good thing or not. It certainly makes for a safer world as terrorists plot online and are habitually caught before they can act. The other side of that coin is the potential for suppression of legitimate dissent.
I like to think Marshall McLuhan would be gratified to know his prediction of the Global Village is coming to pass for better or worse.
