Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote, “If a problem takes longer than a lifetime to solve then it was never a real problem.”
We have one of those several lifetime problems with the progress of freedom, information and education rolled into one, Net Neutrality.
Slavery officially ended 1865, more than 150 years ago, yet equality in the United States is still vigorously & vehemently fought for day by day. Does that make sense on a purely logical human basis? Of course not, unless you look closely at class and power.
The primary method used by one class in-power to keep another class powerless is to deny freedom, information and education. Freedom in this case, the ability to earn unlimited income from what you know. Information has to do with understanding the power you have as well as access to who and where will trade with you. Education is empowerment or methods in how to trade as well as how to use the resources needed to earn that unlimited money - and what to do with money in order to keep it.
Remember slavery was kept in place for 246 years in part because of information apartheid. That is propaganda and misinformation about the people held as slaves was widely shared across all forms of communications media of the day. Theatre presenting faux blacks as buffoons toured the country. Newspapers, posters and flyers displaying blacks as beasts sowed propaganda and misinformation seeds that grew into thousands of lynching trees; where slaveholders held picnics for families to watch; and many even dismembered bodies and set them afire. Horrible, horrible, horrible.
Bottom line, all money earned via the blood and sweat of slaves was taken. To keep slaves powerless, literacy - information, reading & writing - was forbidden by law as was education. On all fronts we were not allowed to better ourselves with earnings from our own labors nor could we research information or gain education.
Loosing “Net Neutrality” will open the gateway for information apartheid to become “great again.”
Nelson Mandela showed us how important it is to get involved with our country’s politics. This country is ours as every generation of our ancestry has fought in wars to preserve it for us. We have to vote and make our politicians fight for Net Neutrality. We have to build Net Neutrality into the United States Constitution as ACCESS to our Inalienable Rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Nelson Mandela also said “Knowledge is Immediate.”
