Big biz wants to own the information superhighway while We the People bump
along the backroads

BY JIM HIGHTOWER

In the 1970s, Lily Tomlin developed an iconic comic character she named Ernestine—a telephone clerk who got perverse pleasure from hectoring customers. Her character was a perfect portrayal of the arrogance of AT&T, the monopolistic telephone giant of that day. In one skit on the TV show “Laugh-In,” Tomlin had Ernestine delivering a TV pitch for the corporation: "A gracious hello," she cheerfully began, speaking directly into the camera.

"Here at the Phone Company, we handle 84 billion calls a year. So, we realize that every so often, you can't get an operator, or for no apparent reason your phone goes out of order, or perhaps you get charged for a call you didn't make. We don't care!"
Gesturing at the whirring equipment around her, Ernestine continued: "You see, this phone system consists of a multi-billion-dollar matrix of space-age technology that is so sophisticated even we can't handle it. But that's your problem, isn't it? So, the next time you complain about your phone service, why don't you try using two Dixie cups with a string? We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company."
Three decades later, the spirit of 'Ernestine' still lives, this time not merely as a symbol of the phone company, but for a much larger, bullying, arrogant cabal of telecom conglomerates. Unfortunately, their self-serving, we don't care" attitude is not just directed at consumers, but more broadly at America's democratic values.
These telecom outfits are the ones that connect our homes, businesses, schools, (etc...) to what is fast becoming our country's most vital source of communication and information: the internet. Unbeknownst to most people, the conglomerates are making an outrageous power play in Washington to make themselves the arbiters of internet content. Using their role as "service" connectors, they are effectively trying to squeeze non-corporate, non-wealthy voices off of the worldwide web.

The whole idea of the internet is that it's a wide-open, wildly-democratic place where anyone and everyone can "meet" to exchange viewpoints, ideas, facts, ideologies, theories, videos, opinions, stories, visions—and, yes, propaganda, nonsense, ugliness and outright lies. The internet's beauty is in its free-flowing, uncensored, uncontrolled nature. No one should be allowed to control the flow of legal content that makes up this rich public discourse—not governments, not media barons, not special interests, nor any other intermediary. Instead, ordinary people get a full range of information from the internet and decide for themselves what is "true" and valuable. That's democracy in action.

However, to participate, you must first plug into this worldwide digital network. Hooking us up is a rather mundane mechanical task—but it has become the point at which the spark of internet democracy is confronting the stifling power of corporate autocracy. In the U.S., the plugging-in process has been entrusted to private, for-profit "internet service providers" (ISPs), an industry now in the firm grasp of just four telephone and cable giants: AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon. This cabal of special interests controls 94 percent of the national ISP market, and the monopolistic group is now asserting its market dominance and political muscle in an autocratic effort to impose corporate censorship over what information the public will be allowed to get via the internet.