A thousand posts
Four Septembers ago, I started this blog. It’s mostly been a delight, a homecoming each day, to be here and write a little. Today is my thousandth post. So I’ll keep it short. Enough already!
First, for Kaliya Hamlin, who has to go through life rhyming with an overbearing regulatory cost-shifting scheme, a big congratulations for the upcoming She’sGeeky unconference on Oct. 22-23. I can’t be there, but I’m with you in spirit.
Second, for everyone that’s had anything to do with OneWebDay all around the world, a huge thanks in advance, and for all the years to come.
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We are happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our networks.
Ten years ago, an American .NET dictator, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, disappeared or died. His removal came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Netizen slaves who had been seared in his flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But ten years later, the Netizen still is not .FREE. Ten years later, the life of the Netizen is still sadly crippled by the manacles of media manipulation and the chains of censorship. Ten years later, the Netizen lives on a lonely .SL island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.
Ten years later…
…the Netizen is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own .LAN. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to .CASH a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all Netizens, yes, male Netizens as well as female Netizens, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of .LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her Netizens of .COLOR are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Netizens a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.
So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of .NOW. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate I* Society valley of segregation to the sunlit path of justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of .NET injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the network to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Netizen's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
Two thousand EIGHT is not an end, but a beginning.
Those who hope that the Netizen needed time to blow off steam and will now be content, will have a rude awakening if the network returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Netizen is granted his citizenship rights.
The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our network until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that we must say to our people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for .FREEdom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with .SOUL force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Netizen community must not lead us to a distrust of all I* Society people, for many of our .NET brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our .COM and .com freedom.
We cannot walk alone. As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of free market forces, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Netizen is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of I* Society brutality.
We can never be satisfied,
…as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of .TRAVEL, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the information highways and the hotels of the colos. We can not be satisfied as long as the Netizen's basic mobility is from a smaller .GHETTO to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For I* Society Rights Only”.
We can never be satisfied as long as a Netizen in Cyberspace cannot vote and a Netizen in New .NET believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
We are not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of I* Society police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to AW, go back to AOL, go back to SBC, go back to SL, go back to LA, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern colos, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the I* Society valley of despair.
We say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow,
…we still have a dream.
It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
We have had a dream…
that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all Netizens are created equal.”
We have had a dream…that one day on the red hills of .MARS the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
We have had a dream…
…that one day even the states of .US and .USA, states sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into a unified oasis of freedom and justice.
We have had a dream…that our two little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the speed of their DSL but by the content of their servers.
We have a dream today.
We have a dream that one day, down in .LA, with its vicious I* Society regulators, with its NON-American .CEO having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in .LA, little .com boys and .com girls will be able to join hands with big .COM boys and big .COM girls as sisters and brothers.
We have a dream today.
We have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that we go back to the ether with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our network into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of the New .NET. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York (.NY).
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! (.PA) Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! (.CO) Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California! (.CA)
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! (.GA) Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! (.TN)
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi (.MS). From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every .VILLAGE and every .HAMLET, from every .STATE and every .CITY, we will be able to speed up that day when all of .God's children, black men and white men, .Jews and .Gentiles, .Protestants and .Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Netizen spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! Thank .God .Almighty, we are .FREE at last!”
Previously my friends in the Europe, Austrailia and New Zealand had informed me that they did not know what network neutrality was. I thought it somewhat odd, but did not think about it much. So why is it that network neutrality is more prevelant in the minds of the US?
On a secondary note, wouldn't prioritization of network data violate several international treaties, as well as several U.N. declerations and conventions? Specifically violating the free or unrestricted flow of information and thereby also violating U.N. Human Rights Declerations?