End of the Internet

The End of the Internet?
By Jeff Chester The Nation
Wednesday 01 February 2006

“The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.

Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency…”

“…companies, such as Comcast and Bell South, can simply grab greater control over the Internet. For example, in a series of recent white papers, Internet technology giant Cisco urges these companies to "meter individual subscriber usage by application," as individuals' online travels are "tracked" and "integrated with billing systems." Such tracking and billing is made possible because they will know "the identity and profile of the individual subscriber," "what the subscriber is doing" and "where the subscriber resides."..”

“..The future of the online media in the United States will ultimately depend on whether the Bells and cable companies are allowed to determine the country's "digital destiny." So before there are any policy decisions, a national debate should begin about how the Internet should serve the public. We must insure that phone and cable companies operate their Internet services in the public interest - as stewards for a vital medium for free expression.

If Americans are to succeed in designing an equitable digital destiny for themselves, they must mount an intensive opposition similar to the successful challenges to the FCC's media ownership rules in 2003. Without such a public outcry to rein in the GOP's corporate-driven agenda, it is likely that even many of the Democrats who rallied against further consolidation will be "tamed" by the well-funded lobbying campaigns of the powerful phone and cable industry. …”

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In truth, I don’t know if this represents the end of the Internet. This effort to commercialize it, restrict it, and shape it to fit purely profit and propaganda model may succeed. Or it may not.

One thing is absolutely certain though, in order for the Neoconservatives and the Bushites to gain complete and absolute control over this country, they must control the Internet. At present, they control all three branches of government and the majority of news outlets in this country. This gives them a powerful base. Further, they have a mob of the religiously insane to do their filthy rabble rousing in the streets and in their lie spattered churches.

But the Internet, ah this stands proud and free. It is an example of everything freedom and democracy represent. It is bold, profane, joyous, heart breaking, proud, loud, personal, spiritual, lying, filled with truth, shouting with individual perspectives and thoughts, rigid in hierarchy and intolerance, bigoted, blighted, wonderfully rich and refreshing, filled with new ideas and old explanations. It can be nasty and pornographic, or deeply filled with saintly grace and wisdom. It can swirl lies and truth in equal portions. It is all and everything. What ever you can imagine people will be, they can be it here. It is the freest of all media. It has no censors, no rigid lipped, taunt-jawed ministers, their voices dripping with venom and hypocrisy, to stop the joyous expression of personal liberties. By God, it is truly a democratic world out there.

Therefore, it must be stopped.

America is one of the mostly tightly controlled societies on earth. To have this continuation of freedom right under the noses of the ruling elite and hair-shirted religious zealots is unthinkable.

The perfect means of reining in these free horses is to turn it over to the corporations, whose soulless and ever obsessed search for profit will fence off the open meadows and fields, narrow the limits and running room, enclose the free beings with private boards and one way gates. Those who comply and acquiesce get more, the rest get nothing…let em starve.

The great and powerful political movement of MoveOn.org and Center for American Progress who formed in opposition to the evident tyranny of Bush and Cheney would be rendered voiceless. Without the internet, only the filthy lies of George W. Bush would be heard. Only the official propaganda would rule. Whatever nascent movement of free people we have now in this country would shrivel and disappear.

The clawhammer of Bush, the FCC, is in the process of finally beating to death the last vestige of hope and freedom in this country. Fight Them! Write letters, call Congressmen, do what you can to alert others to this catastrophic plan to silence the internet we now know, and replace with the scorched earth of Tyrannical lies and misdirection.