glampersand:

we need universal internet access because universal access to a global public forum of discourse is a prerequisite condition for the existence of just and equitable government

western capitalists have globalized their industries, yes. but haitian factory workers don’t get to tweet about their slave-labor-wages. chinese miners don’t get to blog about the deaths they face almost daily. impoverished cash crop farmers in india and africa don’t get to write facebook statuses about the purchasing cartels that keep the prices in europe low and the wages for labor miniscule.

because they don’t have the means to do it. they lack a platform from which to protest.

governments and industries and vulture capitalists get away with these things because the people bearing the social, economic, and physical costs – the people they’re fucking over – have no way to organize effectively to stop them, and no way to appeal to the global public.

so i consider setting up the infrastructure to spread internet access & defending net neutrality to be issues of enormous, enormous importance