I may only be a simple "country lawyer" but the way I see it is the great robber barons of today are the TV, radio, internet and publishing monopolies... and of course petroleum Inc.

It used to be the rail roads that called the shots but now it's those who own the "pipe lines" of information and energy.

The recent Republican steered FCC has gone along with new rules that allow a single monopoly to OWN as many as 7 radio stations, 3 TV stations and all the newspapers in your average town.

Most pointedly the internet is poised to be gobbled up by GIANTS.

We are all going to face the controversy of network neutrality.

I only know of one small Louisiana town that stood up against the communication monopolies and won by building their own fiber optic internet cable system. Hoo Boy were the calbe companies mad! They spent millions on TV ads to talk people into feeding only from their kind and benevolent hand. The people didn;t buy it in Louisiana.



Listen folks, this is what was done to us. The cable companies like Verizon and Cmmcast were given vast tax breaks so they could take those tax free profits and build the national fiber optic system.

They took those tax free profits. But didn't build the national fiber optic system, except in certain limited metropolitan areas.

Even in our Metropolitan areas with fiber optics we have CRAP.
What we have now is a broad band system that is 100 times slower than the broad band internet service in Japan. In Japan you can download a full length Hollywood movie in as little as a minute.

The robber barons are betting the ranch they will be able to bamboozle you into paying twice for what we have already paid for by paying taxes to cover the cable crook's tax free con. They even want you to pay extra if you want to STAY in the fast lane (remember our fast lane is 100 times slower than other countries).

For example, if Mudcat won't fork over huge fees, it will be put on a lower tier system that will only allow connectivity when all other "premium website customers" are properly served.

Yep, I may only be a country hick, but even a dog knows when its being kicked on purpose.