The Internet as Check on Power

I just got my copy of Mencken's Notes on Democracy in the mail yesterday; I thought it would make for some nice pleasure reading, which is something I'm not able to do much of these days. Anyways, a passage from the introduction struck me. It reads:

At best, Mencken's hope for democracy was dim...[H]e realized that the only way it could survive or be made "bearable" was by "developing and cherishing a class of men sufficiently  honest and disinterested to challenge the prevailing quacks. No such class has ever appeared in strength in the United States." To Mencken, this responsibility lay upon the press. "They constitute the only effective opposition," Mencken argued, "and one of their clearest duties is to keep a wary eye on the gentlemen who operate this great nation, and only too often slip into the assumption that they own it." When newspapers fail in their duty, which Mencken snorted, "is usually, we are at the quack's mercy." (17)

My immediate thought was that he was right. Clearly, our big newspapers and the mainstream media are failing, as they always have, to question and challenge those with political power. But the next thought was the more hopeful "Thank God for the internet!" it is on cyberspace that we find the real watchdogs posing the real questions and challenges. For example, it's not in the papers or on the TV that we're hearing about nullification and it's unknown history, but on sites like LewRockwell.com and Judge Andrew Napolitano's online television show Freedom Watch. 

But it appears that some of those in power aren't really happy about this. Obama is concerned that we are "bombarded" with too much information. 

In short: They're worried. This is a good sign. The internet is working.