A nondiscriminatory, open, equally available internet represents perhaps the greatest advancement in human society since the invention of the printing press. A level playing field for all people, businesses, and ideas has supercharged the possibilities for democracy and real freedom in the world and for vastly improved economies and lifestyles across the globe.
However, the free and equal internet as we have always known it may be nearing extinction.
Telecom conglomerates (ATT, Viacom, Comcast, etc.) are trying to “buy” the internet! Their plan is to create a two-tiered system to maximize their private profits from an internet system originally created by public, government funding: a super fast new fiber optic internet for their best paying customers, and a slow “dirt road” for the rest of us. Only the biggest companies would be able to afford placement on the “super internet,” relegating other medium and small businesses, individuals, and organizations to the uncompetitiveness and obscurity of their internet “slow lane.”
The internet, under this horrible system, would quickly devolve into just another medium of commerce and advertisement for the biggest businesses in America, as happened with television several decades ago. Why would anyone patronize “Mom and Pop" bookstores or get their news at “So and So’s Blog” if using “Borders.com” or “Fox News” was 100 time faster, more convenient, and more reliable?! The critical democratizing aspect – the “level playing field” – of today’s internet, would be dead and gone.
That’s why groups as diverse as the conservative Gun Owners of America and the Christian Coalition on the right, and liberal MoveOn.org and the American Civil Liberties Union on the left, together with companies such as Google and Microsoft that depend on a free, vibrant, healthy internet for their survival, have come out strongly in support of re-enacting legislation to protect internet neutrality (to replace the net neutrality laws that have been in place since the inception of the internet, but which were recently allowed to expire).
Contrary to the deliberately deceitful pronouncements of giant telecoms and their supporters in Congress, the "Net Neutrality" movement does NOT seek to impose new regulations on the internet, but only to
keep in place the legal protections and safeguards that have been in existence since the internet began – the very laws which have enabled the amazing growth and innovation that has always characterized the internet, and for the tremendous social and economic advancement that a free and open internet has brought to our own country and to nations and peoples throughout the world.
But unfortunately, the fantastic, miraculous, nondiscriminatory internet as we know it may soon disappear from our lives ... without your support, and that of your concerned friends and associates.
Visit the following site, to get full information on the subject, and to find out what you can do to protect the internet from yet another attempt by “free market” oligarchs to kill competition and build an undemocratic information monopoly:
http://www.savetheinternet.com/.
Many uninformed U.S. senators are still “on the fence” and wavering with regard to this issue, and your calls, emails, letters, and faxes to your senators are urgently needed!
Here’s the link to the United States Senate, where you can find your senators’ individual Web sites and contact information:
http://www.senate.gov/.
And here's an auto-updating "scorecard" where you can see which senators are for, against, and undecided on net neutrality, with current totals:
http://www.savetheinternet.com/=senatetally.
Make no mistake, and don’t believe the “free market” fear mongering of the monopolist wannabes at ATT, et al. Their response to criticism over this issue is: "Don't worry ... we would never discriminate or limit choices to consumers just to pad our own profits." Should we believe them? Should we trust them? Does anyone really think that giant telecommunication conglomerates have ANY overriding commitment to anything BUT their own profits? Under their plan, competition among internet providers will almost certainly shrink, with prices rising sharply as both quality and access to content drop precipitously.
Here's a wonderful site that does an excellent job of presenting the true motives and intentions of the telecom industry, and how bad things could get if they succeed in turning the now public internet into their own private cash cow:
http://www.weownthenet.org/
Note:
In France, a country with strict internet neutrality laws, DSL connections are many times faster than those in America, but cost consumers only $6 per month! Similarly, broadband speeds in Japan are 20 times faster than those in the U.S. – at half the cost Americans pay! Should the fox be allowed to guard the hen house? Leaving self-serving, monopolistic telcos and cable companies to regulate themselves is certainly NO way to guarantee free and open competition in the internet service and content markets or the kind of superior service and extremely low prices that other countries already enjoy.
Please, call/write/email/fax your senators NOW ... while you’re thinking about it!
In addition, you may want to copy this post and send it to others you know (the more, the better).
Thank you, very much.
Pass it on.
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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.
