The Fix Is In - Part Deux

As in, We The People are so fucked!

"The future Sergey Brins, the future Marc Andreessens, of Netscape and Google...are going to have to pay taxes" to broadband providers, said Rep. Ed Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat behind the Net neutrality amendment. This vote will change "the Internet for the rest of eternity," he warned.

At issue is a lengthy measure called the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement (COPE) Act, which a House committee approved in April. Its Republican backers, along with broadband providers such as Verizon and AT&T...

AT&T and Verizon, of course, are 2 of those 3 Axis of Evil:Corporate cock-suckers (the 3rd being BellSouth; and I'm willing to bet on there being a slew more), who are known to be selling out We The People to the National Security Administration. I can say this now, as you, for the moment, are allowed to read it, precisely because the Republicans and Vichy-Democrats haven't yet cinched the gunny-sack that is this heinous bit of oligarchical business.

I realize I'm setting myself up for wearing the tin-foil beanie -- complete with propeller, thank you -- but wait'l mid-November and we'll find the Republicans in position to control both houses of Congress for another deuce, this despite the myriad exit polls indicating 180 degrees worth of the American people's will, or when one of the Rupert Scaifes or G.E. buys out the NYTimes and turns it into another Washington Times (which, again, wouldn't be a huge makeover), or, less dramatically, when media consolidation continues down its narrower and narrower path, or... or... or...

On the other hand, media speculation as to why there haven't been more frequent populist protests in the cities of America, akin to the 60s in relation to Vietnam, could be directly attributable to our having access to a relatively free Internet: a safety valve, if you will, a place to vent. So when the Corporate Repos impose more and more of their arbitrary restrictions on our access to a dissenting media, the burbling disaffection online may very well spill back into the streets, along with its corresponding, more calamitous manifestations.

Hell! It'd be a sadder state of affairs if it didn't. Thomas Jefferson, call your office.

The American government today is clearly not "of the people, by the people, for the people"; and thus are the consequences of staying this course: it "shall . . . perish from the earth."