roundtable: Article from The Nation on Gingrich

roundtable: Article from The Nation on Gingrich

Article from The Nation on Gingrich

W. Curtiss Priest (BMSLIB@mitvma.mit.edu)
Wed, 15 Feb 95 09:45:32 EST 

Message-Id: <9502151452.AA04964@a.cni.org>
Date:         Wed, 15 Feb 95 09:45:32 EST
From: "W. Curtiss Priest" <BMSLIB@mitvma.mit.edu>
Subject:      Article from The Nation on Gingrich
To: Telecommunications Policy Roundtable <ROUNDTABLE@CNI.ORG>


NOTICE: Copyrighted material, do not redistribute unless you
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February 6, 1995 The Nation.                                          154

CyberNewt

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A week after he wrapped his mitts around the
Speaker's gavel, Newt Gingrich stood before
a packed Washington hotel ballroom in the
role he seems to relish most: that of historian/
philosopher/visionary. He rambled on about
change, freedom, the Information Age, the Third Wave of
social development, the decline of bureaucracies, the decen-
tralization of power, the establishment of a "citizens' move-
ment"--all the familiar themes. The occasion was a one-day
conference of cyberjocks convened by the Progress and Free-
dom Foundation, and Gingrich's formal subject was "From
Virtuality to Reality." But the Speaker had more in mind than
advancing his well-known interest in futurism and sci-fi. His
aim was (and is) to hijack the cyber-revolution on behalf of
the conservative movement.

The operating premise of the Progress and Freedom Founda-
tion, a tax exempt outfit created by a Gingrich sidekick, is that
as the world moves from an age of industry to an age of in-
formation--the so-called Third Wave, cresting in the after-
math of the agrarian and industria1 "waves"--the "political
infrastructure of the United States is ill prepared to meet the
challenges and opportunities." So the foundation brings to-
gether futurists, policy analysts, telecommunications experts
and computer mavens to ponder what it all means and advo-
cate proposals for "renewing American civilization." The
message behind Gingrich's prominence at the P.F.F.'s confer-
ence was clear, and was conveyed in the next day's headlines:
Gingrich is thinking ahead. He's a leader.

He is also a clever fellow. The conference assembled gen-
uine futurists--most notably Alvin and Heidi Toffler of Fu-
ture Shock and Third Wave fame, who have been friends of
Gingrich's for two decades--and champions of supply-side
economia and cultural conservatism, such as George Gilder
and George Keyworth Jr., President Reagan's science adviser
and a Star Wars aficionado. (In 19 73, Gilder wrote an anti-
feminist tract, Sexual Suicide, declaring that "the woman's
place is in the home.") AU were together to scratch heads about
"Democracy in Virtual America." Some participants spoke
of the positive technological consequences of cyber-politia:
Political parties can have volunteers working from home; po-
litical meetings can be held on-line. But the discussion was
far-reaching. New Age Republican Arianna Huffington. a
foundation board member, assailed Heidi Toffler's call for
more women legislators and decried the "mistaken belief
that the mind alone can conquer everything." Much mention
was made of the "devolution of power." Everything was attrib-
uted to the Second Wave (bad) or the Third Wave (good). The
welfare system is Second Wave; so is stimulating the economy.
(The Tomers consider the nuclear family and California's
Proposition 187 to be Second Wave, but the Newtites don't want
to hear that.) What's Third Wave? Smaller government, states'
rights, privatizing school systems, unfettered free enterprise.

Gingrich is seeking cyber-cover for age-old conservative
precepts. For years, he has sincerely celebrated the informa-
tion revolution and advocated an aggressive space program.
(The current issue of the P.F.F.'s newsletter calls for coloniz-
ing Mars; it also contains a list of "American proverbs," in-
cluding the maxim, "He that does not work, neither shall he
eat.") And foundation literature admirably proclaims that
with the coming of a cyber-world, "the opportunity is now
before us to empower every person." But Gingrich's cyber-
embrace is about politics, high and low. "The conflict between
Second Wave and Third Wave groupings is the central politi-
cal tension cutting through our society today," declares the
P.F.F.'s "Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age." In other
words, the basic political conflict is between a decrepit old
order of paper-pushing central bureaucracy and a bright new
one of computer-enhanced individuality and demassification.
The foundation is run by Jeffrey Eisenach, who formerly
headed GOPAC, Gingrich's secretive and bitterly partisan po-
litical action committee. Days after the November elections,
Eisenach held a closed-door Capitol Hill briefing for Repub-
licans only. There Frank Luntz, whiz-kid G.O.P. pollster and
foundation fellow, credited Eisenach with devising the Con-
tract With America and presented polling data, according to
a Democratic House aide who was forced to leave the room.
This meeting may have violated tax laws that prohibit tax-
exempt groups from partisan activity.

There is nothing particularly futuristic about the funding
sources behind the P.F.F. and its conference. Telecommuni-
cations firms subsidize the group: AT&T, BellSouth, Turner
Broadcasting System, Cox Cable Communications. Otha do-
nors to the P.F.F.'s $1.9 million bank account include conserva-
tive foundations, Wired magazine, high-tech firms, military
contractors and drug companies (another foundation passion
is attacking the Pood and Drug Administration).

When Senator Phil Gramm spoke at the conference lunch-
eon, the tables closest to the podium were reserved for cor-
porate benefactors: Eli Lilly, Seagram's, Philip Morris, S.B.C.
Communications (formerly Southwestern Bell). Not much of
a figure on the cyber-frontier, this G.O.P. presidential wan-
nabe had little to share on "virtual democracy," and instead
gave a stock campaign speech. "Ideas, not vested interests,
determine the outcome of the debate," he said. His brave new
idea: massive deregulation.

Grammism bloomed at the afternoon panel. Michael Roths
child, identified as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, began by as-
serting, "The economy is not a machine The economy is a
rain forest." You can tinker with a machine, retool a machine,
slow down or speed up a machine. But anyone who proposes
to intervene in the delicate, organic, complex ecosystem known
as the economy will have to prove first that the intervention
will be "environmentally sensitive." Such an approach, Roths-
child said, will "nurture the Information Age economy." It
will do so by undermining antitrust action and government
regulation--which was one of the few concrete goals to emerge from 
all the Third Wave jargon spilled during the conference.
Cilder was more specific, denouncing all controls on telecom-
munications--such as limits on the mergers of cable and phone
companies--as actions that "will stifle the Third Wave."

There was a moment of dissent when Mitchell Kapor, a de-
signer of Lotus 1-2-3 and co-founder of the Electronic Fron-
tier Foundation, asked, "Where are you on the risks to society
that come from highly centralized private power? . . . If you
dismantle the government, how comfortable are you with
AT&T, Microsoft, Bell Atlantic and others deciding what you
watch?" He wondered why no one had raised questions of so-
cial justice: "You're introducing a new rhetoric for social
Darwinism." Heather Higgins, a P.F.F. fellow, replied, "Capi-
talism can never have a human face," and then went on to con-
demn progressive taxation and social program entitlements.

Gingrich closed out the conference rhapsodizing about the
need to wire every child into cyberspace so none of them fail
to catch the Third Wave. It's a noble sentiment, as is his call
for more information for all. But left unstated is how this will
happen, particularly if telegopolies do not permit it. When
Vice President Gore recently suggested firms bid for federal
dollars to hook up schools, libraries and hospitals, the founda-
tion sniffed, "That is not how we approach telecom."

Gingrich has long realized that high-tech devices can bol-
ster conservative political organizing. With the Progress and
Freedom Foundation, he is using pop social anthropology and
cyber-rhetoric to position himself and his rightist comrades
as proglessive, forward-looking--and inevitablc The Speaker
is a master at blending themes and interests. Recently, he had
on his weekly cable TV show--which airs on the conservative
National Empowerment Television network--John Malone,
president of TeleCommunications Inc., the nation's largest
cable company. Both men spoke enthusiastically about de-
legulation. Afterward, a TCI spokesman said that the com-
pany hoped to find room for NET in its programming next
year. Now that's systems expanding synergy. DAVID CORN

NEWTNESS

 The Congress will be open. Folks'll get
It all on-line, Newt says And yet
We didn't know that he and Murdoch met.
It somehow wasn't on the Internet.

Newt dropped the deal, and dropped the wacko he
Made House historian. He's quick to free
Himself from any liability.
One needs but ask the former Mrs G.

Calvin Trillin

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