You
Want My Internet? Come Take It! A Travesty Of A Mockery Of
A Sham!
13 February 2010By Keith Johnson
What, me worry?
Alfred E. Newman
It’s a travesty of a mockery of a sham!
The careless abuse of talking and writing has forced
our great leaders to step in and stem the rising tide
of political discourse.
All you people who have an opinion should be ashamed
of yourselves. Did you stop to think that maybe your
shared thoughts might be at odds with the agenda our
betters have planned for us? I didn’t think so. Well
they showed you, didn’t they? The hand that feeds has
now decided that you have had too many treats. So now,
if you want more, you’re going to have to beg! Bad
dog!
But did you ever try to take a garden hose to two dogs
mating in the street? Does that stop them? No! They
just move on down the road and look for another spot
to hook up. And that may be precisely what we are
going to have to do.
Forgive me for making light of the serious threat to
our first amendment right of freedom of speech but I
have been preparing myself for this eventuality for
quite some time and, quite frankly, I’m not too
worried about it.
Last week the House overwhelmingly passed the “Cyber
Security Bill”. What that means to the future of the
Internet as we now it has yet to be seen. But surely
we are already starting to see signs that the world,
as a whole, is tightening the screws on websites they
deem as subversive or hateful. Many providers are now
starting to filter content and blocking access to
various political sites like the one this article is
appearing on.
But this should not surprise anyone. Ever since the
15th century, when Guttenberg invented the moveable
type printing press, governments have stepped in to
censor and restrict the spread of information. The
Catholic Church, Europe’s political entity of the day,
realized that the printing press was a major threat to
their power and influence over the people and required
that all published material get their stamp of
approval before being disseminated. But the volume and
speed at which texts were published proved very taxing
and they soon realized that they were fighting a
losing battle. And that’s the fate that has befallen
this latest group of paranoid control freaks. They
have opened “Pandora’s Box”, and once that happens,
it’s hard to get the lid back on.
The Internet was originally intended to be used as a
worldwide wiretap to pry into the lives and thoughts
of the public. But what started out as an
intelligence-gathering tool of the Pentagon soon
evolved into a populist alternative to the mainstream
press. It proved to be a useful and effective
mechanism for countering government propaganda as well
as serving as a valuable resource for spreading truth,
exposing corruption and distributing previously
suppressed knowledge.
I don’t suspect that the Internet will ever be
completely shut down. Too much commerce depends on it.
Businesses rely on the Internet for sales of their
goods and services as well as providing a convenient
way for their customers to pay bills and make
transactions. Certainly the government and the
mainstream media rely on the Internet to spread their
lies and disinformation.
So where does that lead us? Licensing is already being
considered under the guise of national security.
Therefore, I expect to see a creeping incremental
abolishment of dissent and political commentary as
activists and journalists are prohibited from using
government regulated infrastructure to disseminate
their views and opinions.
And what is to become of the current crop of freedom
fighters and truth seekers? Do we disappear quietly
into the night? Do we close up shop and concede to
defeat? No! We do what we always do when oppressive
government intervenes to stifle dissent among its
population: we go underground!
For nearly two decades the government has produced
millions of “information addicts”. Of course this was
their plan all along. As any good drug dealer will
tell you, the best way to develop repeat business is
to get your customer hooked on free product. Then,
once they are hooked, you start charging them. That’s
exactly what they intend to do here. Licensing and
fines will no doubt generate millions, if not
billions, of dollars of revenue. But what I don’t
think they have factored into the equation is that
many of these “information addicts” will reject the
quality of product the government is pushing and will
force them into the streets to find the “good stuff”.
All those avatars and usernames will start growing
legs and sprouting arms and, as a result, will create
a whole new underground culture. Graffiti artists will
cover walls with political messages. Banner hangs will
start appearing everywhere off freeway overpasses.
Coffee houses and bars will take on a whole new life
as meeting places for writers and political pundits.
Private libraries and bookstores will start popping up
everywhere carrying material that cannot be found on
the web. Cadres of students will flood the streets
with pamphlets and flyers, leaflets and independent
newspapers. Activists will start appearing in the
backgrounds of “on the scene” news broadcasts hoisting
signs and shouting over the voices of reporters.
Street pulpits will appear on the corners of major
cities. Small theaters will host viewings of
documentaries and other films carrying a political
statement. Fax machines will start going back into
operation to disseminate information. Mobile pirate
radio stations will roam down city streets trying to
keep one step ahead of the FCC. Short-wave radio will
become a popular medium to collect information on
world affairs from foreign broadcasts. The
possibilities are endless.
We will witness the resurgence of the underground
press that flourished in the 50’s and 60’s when gonzo
journalists like Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe
wrote for underground publications that made the
medium popular. But the new movement will have an
advantage over those pioneers. All of our dormant
computers and printers will come back to life as
miniature printing presses pumping out volumes of
literature and burning thousands upon thousands of
DVD’s and CD’s.
The unintended consequences of restricting access to
the Internet could prove to be very counter-productive
to the government and the mainstream press. Once an
underground movement begins it spreads like wildfire,
especially among the young. The street level actions
will prove to be an ideal recruiting ground for
previously apathetic youths who will be attracted to
the rebellious aspects of an underground movement.
But, once they are educated, they will grow to embrace
the noble ideals that the movement stands for and they
will become a force unto themselves.
The best example of how this kind of movement can
succeed has it’s roots in post-Stalin Russia and
Poland when poets, musicians and writers gathered in
town squares and passed along printed Samizdat:
censored publications that the government considered
subversive and a threat to their national security.
These materials were spread from person to person in a
covert fashion. Many of these documents were hand
written and copied using blotting paper due to the
unavailability of typewriters and printing presses
that were strictly regulated by the state. They
certainly faced greater challenges than we do now.
Yet, despite all the forces working against them, they
managed to lay a foundation for the grassroots
resistance movement of the 80’s when, using FAX
machines, information began to spread prolifically and
contributed immensely to the collapse of the Soviet
Union.
But none of these victories come easy. One notable
Russian activist, Andrei Mironov was imprisoned as a
thought criminal during this time and was considered
“worse than a murderer” by the KGB. His crime?
Listening to short-wave radio, reading foreign
literature and engaging in conversations with people
outside the Soviet Union about life under that
totalitarian regime. Another hero of the time was
Vladamir Bukovsky who was persecuted for organizing
demonstrations to protest the imprisonment of
political dissidents and later exposing the
psychiatric torture of detainees in Soviet gulags.
Bukovsky spent a total of 12 years behind bars for his
political activities but emerged as a major political
force in the post-Soviet years.
Certainly we too should expect to someday fall victim
to this kind of persecution. Our own recent history
should be evidence of that. In the UK of the 60’s,
police constantly harassed the underground press at
every opportunity. But this ended up backfiring on
them and made the movement even more relevant and
popular. Counter-culture journalist Mick Ferren
recalls that the police efforts "focused attention,
stiffened resolve, and tended to confirm that what we
were doing was considered dangerous to the
establishment". And right here in the U.S., during the
70’s, the FBI set up fake newspapers and publications
like The Longhorn Tale at UT Austin to counter and
discredit what they considered to be radical networks
of leftist journalists and activists. They also
conducted surveillance on these groups and sent in
provocateurs to disrupt their activities, discredit
them and portray them as violent subversives. One such
operation occurred in 1970 when the FBI, on orders of
the Nixon Administration, staged a faux-riot at
Disneyland Park in Anaheim to discredit the
anti-Vietnam movement.
The same stuff is going on to this very day; we should
be used to it by now. The government has been reading
our Emails, logged our web traffic and no doubt has an
individual profile of each and every one of us who
have dared speak out against them. Perhaps, in some
ways, we should be grateful that they have created an
environment that forces us to push ourselves away from
the keyboards and their prying eyes.
I’m not suggesting that we hold a wake for the
Internet. It’s not going away any time soon. And even
if it does, there will always be clever “Techies” and
“Hackers” finding ways to keep us online. But while we
still have the Internet in its present form, we should
be downloading and copying as much information as we
can. That information will become a commodity. It
might also be a good idea to start stocking up on
paper and blank discs (while they’re still cheap)…just
in case.
So while we all fear the worst, let us take comfort in
knowing that we always have alternatives to spread the
word and continue our education. We can’t be stopped.
We will be seen and we will be heard. We’ll find a
way.
So this is my message to “Big Brother”: Do you really
want to cut off your nose to spite your face? Are you
prepared for the repercussions? Are you equipped to
police and monitor all those bodies on the street?
Well? Are You? Go ahead…make my day. I dare you! You
want my Internet? Come take it!…I could use the
exercise.
©
EsinIslam.Com
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