I began online communications using the old Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and later went to the private Compuserve network, the first online service of it’s kind. So I’ve been around online communications before the days of the internet. In the old days of online communication and in the beginning of the Internet, communications had a personal feel. It was not unusual to have conversations with those who were shaping the future of what it meant to be online. These conversations made you feel as if you were part of a community and it would not occur to you that someone may have nefarious motives. However, once the medium began to grow greed entered the picture and the idea of a friendly community became a relic of the past. Certainly recent actions by the Republican party have continued this downward spiral and contributed to decline of the Internet.
We hear a lot lately about net neutrality. It is the principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication (Source: Wikipedia, Net neutrality). The worry of many Internet users is that providers will begin charging higher rates for more bandwidth or the type of content a user views. The major opponents of net neutrality are hardware companies, members of the cable and telecommunications industries, and several conservative and libertarian think tanks. This of course meshes nicely with the goals of the GOP.
So how did the GOP attempt to attack Democrats by helping to destroy the Internet? By taking their opposition to net neutrality in a direction that will help destroy the backbone of the Internet, the inherent belief that others on the Internet will act in a manner benefiting society.
Here is an example that proves my point. The Republicans are trying to get out their message by creating pseudo Democratic websites. The National Republican National Committee (NRCC) bought up hundreds of URLs on potential weak Democratic candidates and created sites that mimic the real ones (Source: CNN). Daniel Scarpinato, the NRCC’s press secretary said, “It may sound deceiving, but Scarpinato insists the well-thought out, well-planned program is pure genius.” If it sounds deceiving, it’s because it is.
John Lewis is a Democrat who has been targeted by the Republicans with a website at http://johnlewis4congress.com/. Here’s what it says about Lewis.
John Lewis is bad for Montana:
After more than a decade working under Baucus, John Lewis has pocketed over $568,000 of taxpayers’ money
Lewis has been laying the groundwork for his campaign by visiting every county in Montana on the taxpayers’ dime
Lewis has spent nearly 12 years working under Baucus and was a top aide to the “chief architect” of Obamcare
It doesn’t take a genius to deceive the public in this manner, it takes a con-man.
So what is the GOP’s endgame? I believe destroying the Internet as we know it will help the contributors to the Republican party who show little benevolence and only answer to greed. By destroying the basic trust of Internet users, the GOP can create a lawless enclave with which to practice their ongoing efforts to ignore the truth. The simple fact is they have to operate this way. When the truth is known, people will vote for Democrats. So the little community that started a revolution continues to fight against the beast that lives among us. Keep working for Democratic causes including saving the Internet for all to use.