What the Net Means to Me:

The Net means personal power in a world of little or no personal
power. (of those other than on the top - who are called powerful
because of money, but not because of thoughts or ideas.)
The essence of the Net is Communication, of personal
communication between individual people, and between individuals
and those who in society who care (and do not care) to listen. The
closest parallel I can think of are several fold:

  - Samizdat Literature in Eastern Europe.
  - People's Presses - The Searchlight, Appeal to Reason, Penny Press, etc.
  - Citizen's Band Radio
  - Amateur or Ham radio.

Howver the Net seems to have grown farther and be more
accessible than the above. The audience is larger, and continues
to grow. Plus communication via the Net allows easier control
over the information - as it is digitized and can be stored,
replied to, and easily adapted to another format.

The Net is the vehicle for distribution of people's ideas,
thoughts and yearnings. What commercial service deals with the
presentation of ideas? I do not need a computer to order flowers
from FDT or clothes from the Gap. I need the Net to be able
to voice my thoughts, artistic impressions, and opinions to the
rest of the world. The world will then be a judge as to if they
are worthy by either responding or ignoring my contribution.

Throughtout history (at least in the USA), there has been a
phenonomoa of the streetCorner Soapbox. People would "stand up"
and make a presentation of some beliefs or thoughts they have.
There are very few soapboxes in our society today. The 70s and
80s wiped out public expression to the public via the financial
crisis and growing sentiment of put your money where your mouth is.
In the late 80's and early 90's, the Net has emerged as a forum for
public expression and discussion. The Net is partially a
development from those who were involved with the Civil Rights,
Anti-war struggles and free speech movements in the 60s. The
personal computer in also a development by some of these same
people.

	Somehow the social advances rise from the fact that
people are communicating with other people to help them undermine
the upper hand other institutions have. An example is people in
California keeping tabs on gas station prices around the state
using Netnews. More examples of people reviewing musics - rather
than telling others, you should really go buy the latest issue of
magazine X (rolling stones, etc) as it has a great review. This
is what I mean by people power - people individually
communicating to present their take on something rather than
saying go get commercial entities' X view from place Y. This is
people contributing to other people to make a difference in
people's lives. In addition, people have debated commercial
companies opposition to the selling of used CDs. This
conversation is done in a grassroots way - people are questioning
the music industry's profit making grasp on the music out there.
The industry definitly puts profit ahead of artistic merit, and
people are not interested in the industry's profit making motive,
but rather great music.

Representation of two things:
	- Way of expressing one's voice - when that voice
generally does not have a place in the normal political order.
	- Way of Organizing and questioning other peoples
experiences so as to have a better grip on a question of problem.
Someone regaining control of one's life from society.


These are all reasons why I feel so passionatly about 1) keeping
the Net open to everyone, and having such connections being
available publically, and 2) Keeping the Net uncommercialized and
unprivatized. Commercialism will lead to growing emphasis on
serving oriented rather than sharing oriented uses of the Net.
Like I said before, it is NOT important for me to be able to
custom order my next outfit from the Gap or anyother clothing
store. Companies should develop their own networks if they wish
to provide another aveune to sell their products. In addition,
commercial companies will not have it in their interest to allow
people to use the Net to realize their political self. Again let
me reemphasize, when I say politics, I mean power over one's
lives, and surroundings. And this type of politics I would call
democracy.