What do we Net from the Net Neutrality Deal?

By Mitchell Jay Rabin

Host of A Better World 

Mondays and Wednesdays at 6 pm

For those of you who don't know the phrase "net neutrality", it refers to the fact that all websites are accessible at the same rate per the service provider one is using. That is, it's not faster for IBM to come up than it is for A Better World to be accessed. That's fair, equitible and "neutral".

However, this neutrality is now being challenged by a pending deal between Verizon and Google. Google you say? Everybody's friend, Google? Think again. Google, it appears is, cutting a deal with Verizon that will change the entire question of access of internet neutrality. Based on payment, or who knows what other kind of potential favoritism, some sites, let's say that are "Google-Friendly", will come up quickly, and others, lagging behind....? and by how much? What needs to be paid then to be 'on par' with other sites? If there are political, economic or religious views not favored by the "Powers that Be", there could be "quite a lag".

The whole point of course, is that something designed by the government, now in the hands of "The People", that "specious, problemmatic entity" for which the government exists for only one reason--to serve--is being grabbed by large corporate powers, man-handled and given back to us fragmented, fractured and with a new price tag.

In short, what are the criteria by which one site will be considered favored, and another not? Who in the world gave Verizon and Google this kind of massive power? Whoever, whatever it was, must be questioned and rather fiercely challenged, non-stop, without cessation, until the Anti-Trust Monopoly Laws are enforced, and if need be, modified, to address this issue.

Who Controls Our Waves?

The FCC has yet to weigh in on this, and the deal, we're told, hasn't yet been finalized. sIs that so? But how is it that the People, over our internet waves and over our airwaves--radio and TV--seemingly have so little say? Huge media giants seem to play chess with information, and what "news" we hear is virtually always linked to the corporate, vested interests of the media giants themselves. Hence truth is virtually always marginalized. It's sort of "in the way", you know? In other words, why let something as cumbersome as truth obscure, or potentially jeopardize the joy of corporate profiteering? But indeed, this is an old story, one we've been telling for years at A Better World. It's not the story we want to tell--it's just the story that is true.

War, Huh! What is it Good For? Profit Silly!

I mean, Isn't war just a big, fat cash-register? Destruction and re-construction, come on now! Ask Halliburton, this is big business man! Of course I'm saying this all tongue-in-cheek, but this is how pathological our human family has become. It is over the top in its addiction to destruction, to self-aggrandizement, and to acquistion of money and power. The media giants, along with the Fortune 500's are like 'global steamrollers", squashing everything in their paths. Human life? Ha! there are billions of them. Not a problem! All one form or another of dollar bills to us! No wonder the name Bill is so popular! Indeed, we are either ants in their work-force or customers for their Frankenfood, Mcmeals, all the while watching their self-interested, skewed interpretation of reality called "the News" by an "anchor man" whose nose has been well-powdered and whose ears are wired to the Matrix at Power Central.

Our Air Waves Dance with the Stars, at Our Expense--Mind & Money

And then of course, there's the obsession with the love lives of celebs, how could I forget? Why in the world is it important to us whether Brad Pitt is exciting to Angelina Jolie, or not? Or if Paris Hilton is taking drugs in jail or not? Why is this important to anyone but them themselves is a question to me! But all this kind of glittery nonsense aside, the more potent matter here is that the mind of man, at this point across the planet, is being shrunken by keenly designed deception, broadcast on especially TV and radio. The matters that really matter have been obfuscated by the trivial, and at a certain point, some people can no longer discern the difference between news and gossip--they've begun to merge.

Some younger people don't even know there is a difference. They would just have some deep-seated, uneasy sense that "something's not altogether right" because we all have a deep-seated relationship to sensing what's true, like distinguishing a wobbly line from a straight one. And when we're walking a wobbly line, well of course, eventually, we feel wobbly.

Before I used the key word "seemingly", to suggest that we don't seem to have power in the situation of the commercial manipulation of our air waves or internet, which is a neural network that has given people a most powerful engine for driving information into the hands of the many, and information is indeed power when used wisely. But it's not seeming, really. The power we have, if anything, is unseemly! The raw power of the voice of the People is inconquerable really. And in a display of this power, a letter-writing, fax-sending, phone-calling campaign, at the right moment, soon to come up, to the FCC will jam and, God willing, stop any such insane "deal" these corporate giants 'think' they can get away with.

We need this power, we have it and we will exercise it. www.MoveOn.org is a beautiful example of this kind of collective power, and we need more of these. In the meantime, if you didn't know what Net Neutrality was, or why you want to make sure this playing field stays level, now you do. And why programs you'll hear on Progressive Radio Network, Pacifica Radio and alternative media on-line play such an important role in the New Media.

Stay bright and stay tuned in--there's much to be thankful about. Even in a world in collapse, there's another one, right behind and beneath it, that we're building!