Blogs may do more to help democracy than US actions 

Blogs may do more to help democracy than US actions

BBC News Article: Protest against Iran blog arrests

This BBC news article describes an Iranian protest movement against the arrest of bloggers and journalist.

Iran, China, and others will learn it's going to be impossible to restrict freedom of speech and still allow access to the internet. They'll try to put in place methods to block it with technology and police actions, but that's just going to infuriate more people who will figure out ways to overcome the restrictions.

If people have access to political dissent, will it result in real changes to their governments? It's one thing to read about problems in your government, it's another to actually change the system. This is especially true when government has programs to squelch opposition groups. But there can't be change until the political discussions occur.

The US may be a good test of this point. There is probably 5x the blogging against the president than for the president. But will this change the election results? Will it get more people to actually vote? We shall see?