the AT and T's will conrol the Internet, and remember, these are the folks who illegally turned over private phone records to the government, ostensibly for reasons of "national security." Big Brother will be watching you! (if he isn't already). And, of course the potential for giving liberal blogs or anti-Bush writers the slow-as-molasses hookup on the Internet or otherwise hampering them will exist. Does anyone really believe the power will not be used?

the big phone companies have done everything they can nationally and now even at the state level to gain control of the newer technologies and the Internet.... as a result the USA is now 24th in the world and dropping in broad-band deployment and we generaly invented it and made it work....  The same companies are now poised to block the deployment of the next generation of wireless broad-band and screw the American public AGAIN !!!! It is so bad even the real Republicans can't deal with the corruption and mis-use of the public trust..... Make the calls PLEASE.... there is NO second chance on this !!!! This is a play by the Cheneys and his henchmen like at Haliburten in conjunction with Soutwest Bell (the new owners of AT&T) and Verizon to again gain control of how we communicate world-wide. They know they have to move NOW or forever lose their advantage because the Dems are winning the hearts and minds of the gerneral electorate.

Teddy your ROCK !!!!  JimS at NoVa.org

after reading your comment. Soread the word, maybe we can get more phone calls. Thanks

even if the FCC holds firm and enacts Open Access, I'll bet that enormous economic pressure (other big corporations will refuse to advertize on the little guy's networks, various strange lawsuits will arise sponsored directly or indirectly by the mega communications corporations, etc) to grind down the small guys on the Internet and then buy them out. I wonder if Open Access will have a protective clause in there somewhere to prevent such spruious "market forces" from getting their way in the long run.

I am gradually coming around to the view that we need to go after the legal definition of corporations as legal persons. That modification occurred relatively recently (19th century, I believe) and has produced all sorts of unintended consequences--- some good, many bad. It's worth investigation and study.

After the Vietnam war the conservatives decided we had to leave Vietnam because they lost control of the media (or never had it) and also because of all those nasty rock groups who put out anti-establishment and anti-war songs. You remember these folks, Country Joe and the Fish, Frank Zappa, the Rolling Stones, the Jefferson Airplane, etc., etc.

These two factors, the media, and those rock groups really messed things up for the imperialists. So what happened to a fair media and small and independent record companies? You guess it. Bye bye.

Am I the only one who has noticed that there is no musical anti-war culture this time around? The music died after the Vietnam war.  Yes, the music has died as a way to express the thoughts of anyone who disagrees with the imperialists, and this is not an accident.

This time around it is the internet which messed them up. Can anybody guess what the next target will be?

or anti-corporate message is simply stifled, i.e., not played on the corporate-dominated media. Too bad. Actually, would not rap make a very good medium for protest if it would ever get off its misogyny? Of course, you are right, the imperialist corporations and their minions have targeted the new communications technologies for more reasons than simply to make money. YouTube has already been gobbled up.

I am convinced the only reason rap is allowed on the air is that the majority of it encourages blacks to turn against their own and to commit illegal acts.

This serves the purpose of the white corporatists. We all know they have been trying to get blacks since the abolition. The reason is simple. Most blacks vote Democratic.

I am convinced the reason we hear the type of rap music which is on the air is to encourage young black men to do things which will land them in jail. Because they can't vote if they are in jail.

I listen to WPFW a lot and I believe most black people are a lot more politically savvy than whites. That's because they have had the game run on them for decades. Its a pity that the smart savvy black person is not the stereotype. You hear black people saying things on this station that wouldn't be allowed on mainstream TV.

Yet most people identify black people with rap music with gangsta subject matter. Its all a negative PR job by the corporate media. Ever since Edward Bernaise invented the PR industry the powers that be have been using Freud's theories  (Bernaise was Freud's nephew) to control the masses. It should be noted that the Nazi regime in Germany used Bernaise's methods as well. They just loved him.

Here is a quote from a Tom Rushing article on thie very subject:

"Before Bernaise worked his magic, the American population only bought goods according to their needs. It was practically unheard of to buy something for any other reason. Bernaise made it acceptable to make a purchase based on desires. Using Hollywood through product placement, and the media, he changed the population into an easily placated self-absorbed group where before they were actively participating. Over the years, this has changed Democracy from a function of the entire society into less than a passing diversion. It is not by accident that here in the United States we have perhaps a lower voter turnout than anywhere else in the world."

Read the entire article here:

http://www.takebackw...

with a modern form of bread and circuses. A few observers have commented on the docility of the American public in the face of the long list of depredations against their civil liberties by this Administration, and the answer has been that The System provides material goods, sports extravaganzas--- and religion to distract. A six-pack, good football or NASCAR races, gambling,and lots of big boy toys (flat screen TV, muscular SUVs, barbecue grills, mindless television shows, knicknacks and electronic fun), an occasional dollop of fright coupled with a soothing "I'm protecting you from terrorists", and no one even notices the erosion of personal liberties.

The materialization of our culture is the ultimate moral decay. The imperialism and the military-industrial complex is just another version of that. Making war a profitable business is the ultimate objectification and materialization of human life. The results is a REAL culture of death.