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LBJ Envisioned The Internet?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Good Decisions, Smart Things Said By Smart People

No Al Gore jokes. Please.

After LBJ signed the Public Broadcast Act of 1967, he gave an amazing speech that certainly knocked my socks off. Yes, I am now barefoot as a result of reading this speech. It’s that good.

Found via Buzz Machine:

I believe the time has come to stake another claim in the name of all the people, stake a claim based upon the combined resources of communications. I believe the time has come to enlist the computer and the satellite, as well as television and radio, and to enlist them in the cause of education….
So I think we must consider new ways to build a great network for knowledge-not just a broadcast system, but one that employs every means of sending and of storing information that the individual can rise.

Think of the lives that this would change:
–the student in a small college could tap the resources of a great university….
–the country doctor getting help from a distant laboratory or a teaching hospital;
–a scholar in Atlanta might draw instantly on a library in New York;
–a famous teacher could reach with ideas and inspirations into some far-off classroom, so that no child need be neglected. Eventually, I think this electronic knowledge bank could be as valuable as the Federal Reserve Bank.

And such a system could involve other nations, too–it could involve them in a partnership to share knowledge and to thus enrich all mankind.

A wild and visionary idea? Not at all. Yesterday’s strangest dreams are today’s headlines and change is getting swifter every moment.

I have already asked my advisers to begin to explore the possibility of a network for knowledge–and then to draw up a suggested blueprint for it.

Whoa. This sounds like the real deal.

Way to go LBJ!


This entry was posted on Sunday, June 26th, 2005 and is filed under Good Decisions, Smart Things Said By Smart People. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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