Chairman Jared Speaks ...

UPDATE (MAY 8, 2013): See the Crovitz review of the Schmidt/Cohen book, "The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business," Wall Street Journal, which states: "There are limits, however, even to a technology as revolutionary as the Internet: 'The central truth of the technology industry," the book concludes, is "that technology is neutral but people are not.'" It appears that Jared has indeed read/borrowed from Morozov ...


Remember the New York Times article by Jesse Lichtenstein (2010), featuring publicity-seeking not-so-young social media ersatz gurus Jared Cohen and Alec Ross who had a considerable impact on how the USG carries out public/digital diplomacy? I quote from the article:

To hear Ross and Cohen tell it, even last year, in this age of rampant peer-to-peer connectivity, the State Department was [Ross says] ... “white guys with white shirts and red ties talking to other white guys with white shirts and red ties, with flags in the background, determining the relationships.”

Just for fun, take a look at the Sundance Kids' own sartorial get-up in the photo accompanying this article:

Well, maybe there are no flags in the background, but the Lincoln Memorial will do!

I know what you're thinking: Were their ties red?

Well, I guess only their mirror knows for sure (image from).

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But enough about what the aging cyberboys like to wear! To get (I hope not too) serious:

Quite recently Googled-employed Jared (how much is the guy now making?), after his evidently eye-opening trip to North Korea, seems to have discovered  "The Dark Side of the Digital Revolution" (Wall Street Journal, April 20) -- something a really provocative thinker rather than a social-media propagandist, Evgeny Morozov, has been saying for years (below Morozov image from).

But listen to Jared diss Morozov in the above-cited NYT article written only a few years ago:

Evgeny Morozov ... published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal in February, charging that the State Department has been all too willing to sweep the dangers of Twitter diplomacy under the rug. “Facebook and Twitter empower all groups — not just the pro-Western groups that we like,” he wrote, pointing out that the Iranian government was also active online: “Not only did it thwart Internet communications, the government (or its plentiful loyalists) also flooded Iranian Web sites with videos of dubious authenticity . . . that aimed to provoke and splinter the opposition.” (The Iranian government later used Facebook to track Iranian dissidents around the world.)

When I brought up the op-ed, Cohen dismissed Morozov’s complaint. ... “What the Evgeny Morozovs of the world don’t understand is that whether anybody likes it or not, the private sector is pumping out innovation like crazy.”

No wonder the "private sector" hired you, Jared. Big bucks time?

BTW, The Dark Side of the Internet is the title of Morozov's newest book. Jared's "borrowing" of "dark side" term reminds me of the quip regarding Oscar Wilde:

Oscar Wilde was repeatedly accused of plagiarism: hence the celebrated exchange with Whistler: "I wish I'd said that, James."

"Don't worry, Oscar, you will."

Here's another pix from Jared's article (featuring the co-author of his Wall Street Journal piece), Google Chairman Eric Schmidt (image from)

Hey, pensive Eric, what happened to Abe?

P.S. For more on Ross, see Peter Van Buren, "State Department’s Alec Ross Solves MidEast," from which the below image (a example of Ross's 140-character profundity) is taken:

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I should note that my efforts to reach Jared via the internet have repeatedly failed. He, Jared, a putative "communications" guru, has never bothered to answer any of my facebook messages.

Meanwhile, the "Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review," banned in China, is also verboten (under that heading, but strangely not under the "Notes and Essays" rubric) on Google Blog Search.