From: bureau42 Anonymous Remailer <nobody@bureau42.ml.org>
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 1997 05:32:57 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Victory for Microbroadcasting
Message-ID: <Js7Cx+Ed7LaZDLfit8DnEQ==@bureau42.ml.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



TruthMonger wrote:
> The Intenet Content Coalition (ICC) made a cheap grab at trying to form
> a corporate FCC to put the InterNet media-power brokering in the hands
> of those who already rule the roost overseen by the FCC. 

> The fact of the matter is, the mainstream media is not going to have
> a lot of trouble herding the majority of the sheeple into their feeding
> pens, given the power, money and position that they already have, so
> it is a bit tacky for them to have made an attempt to put themselves
> in a position to 'enforce' standards favorable to themselves.

  Amen! These fools have to start realizing that their best allies in
getting out from under the thumb of big gubmint are the citizens, many
of whom share similar goals in this regard.
  If the corporations try to get too greedy, then they will be no better
option for the citizens than the government currently is, and will have
to fight their war on two fronts, which history has shown to be a very
untenable position.
 
> The difference between MicroBroadcasting and the MicroWeb/WebRings
> that are being independently formed, is that MicroBroadcasting is
> trying to get back what was stolen, and those on the InterNet are
> trying to keep from getting what we already have, stolen in the
> future.

  We should all encourage ourselves and others to develop as many
communities and inter-related/active communities on the Net as
possible in the near future. The more people who have something to
defend, something to lose, by the loss of freedom on the Net, then
the more who will be ready and willing to raise their voice when
the Fascist Censors/Controllers attempt to steal what does not
belong to them--our speech, privacy, and liberty.
 
>     ---------------------------------------------------------------
>         National Lawyers Guild Committee on Democratic Communications
>                     558 Capp Street, San Francisco 94110

>                  COURT REJECTS FCC's CONSTITUTIONAL CATCH 22
 
>      In 1995, Judge Wilken rejected the government's first motion for a
>      preliminary injunction against Dunifer's broadcasts. At that time
>      the Court found merit in Dunifer's argument that the FCC's ban on
>      low power, affordable FM broadcasting was a violation of the First
>      Amendment's guarantee of free speech to all in the United States.
...
>      In response to pressure from the commercial broadcaster's lobby,
>      the National Association of Broadcasters (N.A.B.), the FCC has in
>      recent months been stepping up its campaign of harassment against
>      the thousands of micro radio stations now on the air in this
>      country. 

  They are trying to find a few sympathetic/bought judges to make 
rulings which they can use against those who do not have the funds 
and the political savy that the Berkeley people do, in order to have
a basis for further injunctions while they apply pressure from other
fronts, as well.

>      Hiken commented ...
>      "In trying to do the N.A.B.Õs bidding, the FCC demonstrates
>      that it is nothing but an enforcement arm of the commercial
>      broadcast industry and the multi-national corporations which own
>      it."


>      In its
>      Friend of the Court brief the Lawyers Guild pointed out that FCC
>      regulations make it impossible for all but the very wealthy to
>      even apply for a broadcast license. This, they told the Court, is
>      the equivalent of saying anyone could speak from a soap box in the
>      park, but the box had to be made of gold. 

  Freedom of speech for the rich and powerful...sound familiar?

>      For almost 70 years, the FCC has catered solely to the
>      interests of commercial corporate giants, through their
>      mouthpiece, the National Association of Broadcasters. These are
>      the pirates, who have stolen the airwaves from the American
>      people, and who represent corporate interests valued at more than
>      60 billion dollars.

>      The legal team welcomes the opportunity to have a court identify
>      the real pirates of the airwaves -- not the thousands of
>      microradio broadcasters who seek to communicate with the people of
>      their communities, but rather the billionaire commercial interests
>      that control the airwaves as if they own them.

  We have criminals running the government, and pirates running the
corporations. What should our role, as citizens, be?
  I submit that our role in society is to support the organizations
(government, corporate, secular, religious...ad infinitum) which will
serve our best interests in the process of serving their own.
  I further submit that the Globalization of society and government
brings to life the concept that 'no man is an island,' and that it
is no longer possible for us to support discrimination against, or
oppression of, any individual or group of individuals without it
coming back to haunt us much more quickly than in the past.

  The recent initiative by the US, Candada and Mexico, in conjunction
with one another, to seek out 'bad' information/behavior in the health
area on the Internet, is but one example of those who are thinking
locally and acting globally.
  i.e. - If Canucks support legislation which will 'stick it to the
Spics,' they will find themselves freezing to death because of a ban
on jalopenos because of unsupported health claims by the Mexicans 
that jalapenos are 'good for you.'

  It is imperative that those of us concerned with the development
and regulation of the Internet resist falling into the same sense
of fatalism that has led us to allow the government and corporations
to lead us into narrower and narrower chutes which separate us into
feeding pens designed to turn us into docile consumers of spoon-fed
government and corporate fascism.
  We need to make every attempt to keep the Internet a form of free-
market socialism where 1 Byte == 1 Byte, no matter whether it is a
Swedish byte, a communist byte, an Afro-American byte, a liberal
byte, a gay byte, a Marv Alpert bite, etc.

  The minute that a Holocaust byte becomes of more or less inherent
value or righteousness than an anti-Holocaust byte, then we enter 
the same quagmire which is suffocating and oppressing the established
forms of government and society.
  We have allowed the mediums of politics and social customs to turn
our world into a place where there is a difference of value in a
symbol of currency, such as a dollar, which is dependent upon whether
it is in a rich man's pocket, a poor man's pocket, a government pocket,
a church pocket, etc.
  We have allowed ourselves to be sucked into the belief that we are
separate individuals, separate nations, and that we can gain by taking
from others. This is true, to a certain extent, as long as we remain
prisoners of local geographical borders, but it will be less so in
a global society. 

  Who is the enemy?
  The enemy is whoever takes away your freedom. The enemy is whoever
takes away my freedom. The enemy is whoever takes away our neighbor's
freedom, or the freedom of strangers throughout our global community.
  The same applies to privacy, free speech, money, dignity, and a 
host of other things which are basic to our personal and group liberty.

  Who is our friend and ally?
  It is whoever mirrors the web site which is banned/stolen from us,
whether they agree or disagree with our beliefs and goals. It is the
anonymous remailer operator who replies to the anti-remailer lies
and diatribes I send through their system, rather than blocking them.
It is the person who attacks the organizations that seek to censor
or ban our individual beliefs and opinions, even while attacking
our beliefs and opinions in expressing their own.

  Freedom is our friend. Censorship is our enemy.

George Spelvin 
(Mein Fuhrer--and nobody else's!)