A Hurrah to Tom Paine.

Yesterday was Tom Paine Day. He fought for free speech.

I found this at Wired 3.05

"Thomas Paine was one of the first journalists to use media as a weapon against the entrenched power structure. He should be resurrected as the moral father of the Internet."

"If the old media (newspapers, magazines, radio and television) have abandoned their father, the new media (computers, cable, and the internet) can and should adopt him," writes Jon Katz, who believes Internet is the place where Tom Paine's values prosper and are validated millions of times a day.

"The Net offers what Paine and his revolutionary colleagues hoped for- a vast, diverse, passionate, global means of transmitting ideas and opening minds. That was part of the political transformation he envisioned when he wrote, "We have it in our power to begin the world over again." Throngh media, he believed, "we see with other eyes; we hear with other ears; and think with other thoughts, than those we formerly used," writes Katz.

Bloggers are the present day pamphleteers: most of us are irresponsible, spew nonsense, and have no credibility; but that is the point of free speech- the right to speak and be heard.

Today, here in India, NDTV's action has brought to prominence the threat to free speech. We can't do much about that. 

But let's at least remember Tom Paine today.