Kiss Your Internet Good-Bye

[indigobusiness]

In a short, but forceful article, Peter Sparacino pointed out that constitutional tools are no longer valid in our losing battle against a government out of control, rapidly becoming a totalitarian dictatorship. According to Sparacino, neither the ballot box, nor the jury box can be used to stop its advances -- not even the cartridge box. The only thing left to fight back, he states, is freedom of the press.
http://www.newswithviews.com/guest_opinion/guest4.htm

But, as media critic A.J. Liebling rightly expressed, freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. Though in theory the opportunity to own his own printing press was open to every American citizen, in practice just a few, and lately only the very rich and powerful, were able to own one.

Granted, the media monopoly was never total, and many small presses proliferated, but the big ones, later joined by the network TV channels, just played the game, giving the false image of independent thinking. But suddenly, less than ten years ago, a technological breakthrough changed the rules of the game in a radical way, bringing about what media guru Marshal McLuhan envisioned more than thirty years ago: the global village. This revolutionary new medium is the Internet.

snip

The unavoidable fact is that the Internet is incompatible with a totalitarian system of government. Therefore, either we are a bunch of delusionary paranoids, and what we see happening in this country is only a figment of our feverished imagination, and, consequently, the Internet will not be banned, or we are right, and it will disappear. Actually, the disappearance of the current free Internet will serve as a litmus test that will accurately mark our final loss of freedom.

http://www.newswithviews.com/public_comm/public_commentary7.htm

[LiberalEsto]

1. The Internet

The Internet is only as strong as our nation's electric power grid. Pull the plug, and bye-bye, Internet.

[smirkymonkey]

2. Was last summer/fall a dress rehearsal?

[dumpster_baby]

3. now that is just paranoia; power will seek to stifle only the most...

The powerful will seek to stifle only the most powerful aspect of the internet, namely video over p2p. In fact, they already are taking steps to do so. Did you watch 60 minutes last night?