Dear Doves,

After reading the following 'letter', it occured to me that the trib-saints are going to have a rough time staying below the radar without an untraceable means of worldwide communication. Any thoughts on how we, who hope to be raptured, might help those Christians who are left behind achieve some form of relative security for the duration?

Marie Komar

The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest
http://www.omegaletter.com
Vol: 36 Issue: 16 - Thursday, September 16, 2004

The Rise and Fall of the Blogosphere
by Jack Kinsella

The mainstream media has been rocked back on its heels, having discovered
a place it was evidently unaware existed.

News organizations like the New York Times, CNN and, in particular, CBS
News, are, for the first time in their existence, being forced to give
account by the New Media nicknamed the 'blogosphere'.

At this point in their development, blogs are best described as web sites
that are updated frequently, most often with links to other sites and
commentary on the other sites' content.

The content of blogs combine musings, memories, jokes, reflections on
research, photographs, rants, and essays, though we would argue that it is
not the nature of the content that defines it.

Blogs can be devoted to only one topic, or they can reflect what the
author is interested in at any given time.

They can have one author-authors of blogs are known as "bloggers"-or
multiple authors.  Your Omega Letter is a blog, as are our forums, and we
are, collectively, bloggers ourselves.

What characterizes blogs are their form and function: all posts to the
blog are time-stamped with the most recent post at the top, creating a
reverse chronological structure governed by spontaneity and novelty.

In the blogosphere, there is no editorial hierarchy, no institutionalized
mentality, and no overarching agenda.

When Dan Rather presented his forged documents to support CBS's 'expose'
into George Bush's National Guard record, Rather did what he had always
done.

He produced and broadcast a highly polished segment in which the argument
was framed to its advantage, with the facts favorable to CBS cherry-picked
for presentation while annoying contrary facts were ignored.

Rather carefully edited the comments of 'experts' -- appointed by CBS --
and packaged it all together, confident that the rest of the mainstream
media would pick up the story and run with it.

And run with it they did.  The next day, every media organization from the
New York Times to Fox News reported the story as fact.  Nobody questioned
the heir to the mantel of Edward R Murrow and Walter Cronkite.

But nobody told the bloggers that Dan Rather was without error. So they
did what nobody else in the mainstream media did.  Fact checked.

Within hours of Rather's broadcast, genuine experts from the four corners
of the earth fact-checked Dan Rather and discovered within hours the flaws
that CBS was unable to discover after 'four years of investigating the
story', as CBS claims it did.

Noted a Washington Times editorial; "Who knew that there are experts who
specialize just in the history of IBM selectric typing balls, or the
kerning capacity of computer printing (the carrying of the tail in the
letter "y" under the space of the preceding letter, as in the word "my."
Typewriters can't do it; computers can.) "

Who knew, indeed?  Who would have dreamed that there were millions of
smart people all over the world sitting at their computers, ready to join
the quest for the truth?

Assessment:

Former CBS executive Jonathan Klein expressed the media's disdain for web
loggers when he blurted out in exasperation, "You couldn't have a starker
contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances at 60 Minutes
and a guy sitting home in his living room in his pajamas."

Klein is correct.  The checks and balances at 60 Minutes are no match for
the collective wisdom of millions of bloggers scattered in every country
on the planet.  So in his view, something must be done to protect the
world from the influence of armies of unregulated, pajama-clad thinkers.

So it is no surprise that most of the mainstream media, like most
governments, favor ways to censor the internet, but hasn't been able to
figure out exactly how to do that yet.

The UN is working on a way to internationalize the internet under its
supervision. The EU is working on something similar that they can control.
Most Arab countries, and totalitarian and near-totalitarian states, like
China, for example, have developed methods of censoring internet traffic
and ways to prosecute offenders.

According to Scripture for the last days, when the antichrist comes to
power, he will exert total control over the flow of information to the
degree he will be able to convince the world that he is a god.

That would include controlling the internet -- and the power of the
blogosphere, as demonstrated by the CBS story, is worrying more people
than just the mainstream media elite.

If Dan Rather can't get away with a lie, how can the Kremlin or the
Chinese politburo or European or American propagandists hope to overcome
the experts out there in the blogosphere?   You can bet that there are
meetings going on at the highest levels of government, world wide,
discussing the problem of an 'unregulated internet'.

But, for now, the internet blogosphere remains relatively free to expose
the truth despite the best efforts the world's premiere mind control
experts -- both government and media -- can devise.

This 'blog' that you are now reading is also being read by subscribers and
readers in every corner of the earth where the internet reaches. And the
internet reaches into any place where there is a computer and a telephone
connection.

With the advent of satellite phones and wireless technology, the internet
can reach into the deepest darkest corners of the Dark Continent, into the
Land Down Under and to the top of Mount Everest.  And for now, it is still
widely unregulated.

But the handwriting is already on the wall for the internet and the
blogosphere.  It is become too powerful to be allowed to remain in the
hands of 'guys sitting at home in their pajamas' -- and deprived of all
those checks and balances that allowed CBS to attempt to influence a
presidential election by the selective use of forged government memos.

Matthew 24:3 records, "And as He sat upon the mount of Olives, the
disciples came unto Him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these
things be? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the
world?"

Jesus went on to tick off a list of signs of His impending return,
including deception, wars, rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes,
pestilences, persecution, false prophets, rampant sin, etc.  (24:4-13)

All this stuff has topped the news headlines for the bulk of my adult
lifetime.

The Omega Letter is a blog dedicated to training up and preparing
Christians to give the 'reason for the hope that is in you'  and to equip
you with answers to the skeptics as you preach the Good News of the Gospel
for the last days.

As such, there are already places, like in some Arab countries, where
weblogs like the Omega Letter are already illegal.

Our 2Checkout merchant provider refuses to allow the Omega Letter to
receive donations through its merchant portal because its rules forbid
processing donations for groups whose content is illegal in countries
where 2Check does business.

Consequently, pressure is being brought to bear on us, via our finances,
in an effort to either shut us down, or alternatively, to force us to
modify our content.  (And it is having an effect -- revenue for the period
since 2Check shut down donations is down more than 50% from the month
before. There are a lot of creative ways to stifle bloggers, if one looks
hard enough to find them.)

The internet has only been around for the last decade or so, and its
unregulated power has already become a threat to the existing order of
things.  Its time as an unregulated free thought zone is therefore
limited.

In light of THAT fact, Jesus' next comment takes on a new sense of
urgency:

"And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a
witness unto all nations; and THEN SHALL THE END COME." (Matthew 24:14)