axiom|echo

Hello, Internet weirdos.

Net neutrality’s all the rage at the moment, and for good reason. It means that ISP’s like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T can’t give preferential treatment to people and companies that pay them more and throttle everyone else.

The Federal Communications Commission wants to do away with it, so what does it mean? Well, it means that one day, you might not be able to get to Tumblr or your other favourite websites very quickly unless you (or the website) pays the ISP some more money. That Bill Telephone ad might be a parody (of this 1949 Bell ad, if you’re curious), but soon it could be a reality.

Don’t let Bill Telephone and its allies own the Internet.

We got:

A literal fucking empire, let’s elaborate

25% of the world’s prisoners, but only 5% of the world’s population, many of whom are in for nonviolent offenses and paid cents on the hour for their labor

Some prisoners getting paid nothing at all for their labor, in instances of literal slavery

Drones bombing people halfway around the world on a routine basis

An occupation in Afghanistan that’s been going on since fucking 2001

An airport security routine that routinely violates privacy rights and is basically authoritarian theatre

Poor people paying about 20% in taxes, with real wages unchanged since the 19 fucking 70s, while most of the real income gains have gone to the 1% richest people in our society

Income inequality the worst it’s been since the Great Depression

Minorities, mentally ill, and/or homeless people getting brutalized and shot routinely by the police

No left-wing party worth speaking of, just diet right, classic right, and zero-calorie right (now with 3.27% of the popular vote)

About half our food being wasted while people starve

The NRA advertising authoritarian, us vs. them rhetoric straight out of old-timey propaganda films

A president who is on the record as having endorsed and committed sexual assault, has committed fraud, and isn’t even good at the thing he was supposed to be good at

His opponent during the election, who used literal slave labor and has endorsed bombing people halfway around the world on a routine basis, as detailed above

Gerrymandering so thick that we’ve got states that aren’t even classified as democracies anymore

A mainstream media that acts, unconditionally, as a willing accomplice to the state

Our politicians trying to slash programs and agencies whose aims a majority of our population like and want

People having to call and beg our politicians to not cut the things that we like and want

Our politicians doing fuck nothing that’s any good for anyone, even though a single party controls the whole government right now