Do you regard our current internet as the last bastion of

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

Poll question: Do you regard our current internet as the last bastion of

...free speech and idea exchange that can still gain, if not wide, at least some reasonable level of exposure?

And secondly, do you believe our now well entrenched authoritarian government will permit this freedom to continue much longer?

Here's another great piece from our own Warren Pease:

---snip---

The only serious competition threatening corporate media's monopoly on official "truths" -- those pieties designed to narrow acceptable choices and increase social control -- comes from the Internet.

"The news," as it's laughingly known, can tap into a seemingly endless supply of drunken or felonious fools like Jessica and Paris and OJ and Twitany to sedate its viewers. Then there's the occasional gruesome murder to balance the chirpy happy talk on miraculous medical procedures (which most of us will never live to experience because our for-profit insurers won't cover them), an always erroneous look at local weather, followed by 15 uplifting minutes on sports and a recap of the top celebrity screw-ups. The viewer yawns, feels a bit awed by all this technical wizardry and slick showmanship, and heads for bed thinking he's up to date on the stuff that really matters.

Corporate media has a bottomless pool of "on-air talent" -- perfectly coiffed, well-modulated, tastefully made up, arrayed in $5K worth of suits, ties and little flag lapel pins, strident and irritating as a hundred Ross Perots.

We have broadband, YouTube, blogs, forums, actual reporters, search engines, discussion groups, political organizing, access to newspapers published in actual free countries -- all taking place in plain sight.

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2835.shtml