We try not to discuss politics on the PCM Blog, but I think this story rises above it. If you have more than a casual interest in the internet, I hope you are paying attention...
Do you remember, just a few weeks ago what happened in the aftermath of the Iranian election?Hundreds, possibly thousands of protesters died at the hands of their government. Many of us watched a young woman, Neda, die over and over again on
youtube. We couldn't do much, an ocean and a continent away, but we knew what happened. Hopefully we'll never forget.
China has protests like that as well. Being even more totalitarian, and with greater access, they have blocked Google, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and Hotmail to stem the word of the protests, as well as the resulting backlash on the protesters.We couldn't watch what happened over there, although most of us guessed.
Totalitarian states do not tolerate dissent.
Although regimes like that will (and did) stop the outside world from getting much news of the events via the internet, these countries do not have the e-connection that we do in this country. They still read papers 'over there,' although the news is often written by the government.
The majority of Americans now get news online. Whether it's Daily Kos, The Drudge Report, Fox News or the Huffington Post, we have access to information. We may agree with what is presented, and we may not, but we have that freedom.
In the United States, we have THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH - This includes the press, your voice, your letters, snail mail, magazines and books. This freedom includes your blogs, your e-mails and your access to them. Nobody has the right to take that away from you. It was the very first thing clarified when our constitution was written:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
If George Bush, Ronald Reagan or Richard Nixon had taken steps to "turn off" the press - our voices, our opinions, our communications, our outcry, I expect would be heard around the world.
We can argue about abortion. We can argue whether Reagan, Clinton, Bush or Obama are the anti-christ. That's the point, we can argue.
But our government is taking steps to take that right and freedom away from us, specifically, "in an emergency."
I have yet to find anyone who says that any "emergency" would ever be the time to shut off the free press and communication. If we were invaded from above or afar, plagued, or raptured, we would still have the right to know what was going on, and not neccessarily just from government sources.
Not this president, not the last president, not the next president should hold this power over the American people.
We can all argue about anything, but we have to speak together, Liberals and Conservatives, loudly, on this issue, or none of us may be heard from again.
In what should be bigger news, Disney is making a 4 BILLION dollar offer to buy Marvel. Disney calls it "quality branded content". Can we be so sure?
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