[Prev| Next| Index] 2/13/96, chard@sonic.net,Santa Rosa,Ca.USA

                           24 HOURS OF DEMOCRACY
                                  [Image]
                              Let Freedom Ring
                              By Chard Lowden

  I happened to walk past the family television this evening and caught a
  brief glimpse of an advertisement for a program on a major network that
 urged me not to miss the latest installment. At the bottom of the ad was a
  caution to viewers that the content included "Adult Language and Partial
 Nudity" and that "Parental Discresion is Advised". This gave me a nervous
feeling that perhaps the message behind the "Decency" bill is that anything
  is permitted if the Mega Corporations are behind it but if it is a small
        guy who is not paying them, it becomes Immoral or Indecent.

 I recall the reason that a small band of frustrated colonists dumped a tea
cargo into Boston Harbor at the birth of this Great and Free country. Those
were people who decided that they did not OWE another person just to exist.
  They dug in their heels and said NO! They said you may NOT Dominate our
existance and TAKE a piece of everything that we do and produce. Those were
  the people that founded this country and built the freedoms that we are
                              watching erode.

  When I see these Politicans wave an issue and say that we must stop this
   horror while they secretly add clauses that enrich their own personal
  agendas, I wonder what George Washington would think of them? I imagine
   that he is turning in his grave as we give power to those who think in
 terms of how much money they can earn and how to shift the burden from the
                        rich to the middle incomes.

 Let it be completely clear that I do not promote nor support the free and
 open distribution of pornography on the internet. However this law is not
  about pornography. It is about a communication medium that until now has
                                   been
            By the People , Of the People , And For the People.
What this is about is control of a MEDIA and since the online companies and
the established "Media" were unsucessful in their attempts to take over the
  internet by sending out thousands of copies of "FREE" software the next
  step is to take over by Legislation. I fear that the small business that
 many of us are trying to start here on the internet will be swept away by
  this and that we will be put under the control of those that we seek to
                               compete with.

    It is up to us to send a message to Congress, the President, and Big
 Business. That message must be NO! YOU may NOT dominate our existance and
 TAKE a piece of everything that we produce! You may not have our Freedom.
We owe it to the man whom we celebrate as the Father of our country. We owe
 it to ourselves, and we owe it to our children. Surely we must defend the
      morals of those children, but not at the cost of their FREEDOM.

Keywords: Santa Rosa, California, http://www.sonic.net/~chard