Democracy Diffused

The Supreme Court decision of December

12, 2000 marks a triumph of the

privatization of the judicial system and

sounds the death toll for the voice of

the people, silenced by the din of money

and power concentrated in the hands of a

few. The reckless 5 to 4 decision,

split along party lines flys in the face

of any reasonable perception of

constitutionality and makes a mockery of

the notion of "equal protection under

the law", proving that only to mean

"superior just to those who pay"--that

rich, white Republicans in Florida

deserve more protection than a retarded

Black man on the "gurney" in Texas.

The brother of the son of the former

head of Central Intelligence, come

President, and his cohorts sabotaged the

fairness and timeliness of the Florida

election process only to win by

"technicality"--the first time in over

100 years that the loser of the popular

vote presumably won the Presidential

election by a minimal lead in the

"electoral" vote. If GWB prevails and

is inaugurated on January 20, it will

not be by the will of the people but by

the wield of corporate power.

This is a sad day for Democracy. This

does not mean that it's the end or the

time for complacency-- it's a wakeup

call for all of us to engage in the most

constructive, productive, and resistive

means as necessary to highlight the

injustices and focus on course towards

change. Your voice as a voter may have

been disenfranchised but your

opportunity to publish your voice has

not--yet. The mainstream media failed

in its presentation of the election

because it became too centralized,

relying on a single point for

information. When that information is

wrong for whatever reason such a single

point of "information failure" destroys

the integrity of media and the public's

trust. The separation of powers in our

Government is supposed to balance and

diffuse the centralization of power, not

politicize it. The decentralization of

media and the fair access to publication

and distribution of media is essential

to the health of our dying Democracy.

Too much centralization of power,

whether it be power over governance or

over information threatens the fundamental

freedoms and liberties guaranteed to us

under the Constitution.

While the "legalistic" hijacking of the

Presidency has been a high profile

event, the hijacking of our rights to

access, free speech, and privacy

continues hidden in plain sight within

the corporate power grab called ICANN

(Internet Corporation for Assigned Names

and Numbers). ICANN, in its annual

meeting in Marina Del Rey, California in

November, 2000, ignored the pioneers and

free speech advocates of an open domain

name system in favor of corporate

interests with close ties to the defense

and intelligence communities as well as

the Republican Party when they selected

7 "new" Top Level Domains ".info" ".pro"

".museum" ".aero" ".name" "coop" and

".biz" to be entered into the Internet's

Domain Name System (DNS) sometime in

2110. ICANN's board of directors is

composed of upper echelon IT pioneers,

industry insiders, intellectual property

interests, and even of members of the

corporations selected to "run" what

Journalist Brock Meeks has called

"ICANN's Seven Dwarfs".

Many have criticized ICANN's choice of

only 7 new TLDs as "restricting" the

namespace instead of "extending" it;

others have panned the choices as

outright BORING and for entrenching the

dominant corporate players without

creating new opportunities for community

groups, small businesses and

non-profits. It has been said that TLDs

are the "people talking". If new TLDs

are the "people's voice", is ICANN for

SPEAKING FOR YOU or CENSORING YOU?

What's your opinion?

http://reclaimthe.net/cgi-bin/forum/sayit.cgi



--RTN