The Nation + William Buckley?: This must be serious

It also sounds suspiciously similar to the whole "Net Neutrality" issue.

are you kidding me? how can you be mad at the post office!

Between the postal increase, the attempts to sink net neutrality, and the internet radio royalty struggle, it's dark days for independent voices.

by the way, I bumped this to the front page of the site. thanks for writing it.

Dark Days?

Dan, you have been in this long enough to remember when the internet had not empowered all the world into shouting their obsessions out into telecommunication lines, thus rendering late night AM Radio almost obsolete.

So we just need to reeducate the kids on how to recycle stamps, trade is good for business, and that the graveyard shift at kinkos can be bribed with chocolate and drugs to run of zines for free. We will all just have to start listening to local college radio, like we did in the waaaay back days of the early 90s. And maybe fight the corporate take over of what never really was anything other than a shitty social experiment in capitalism.

the internet is dead?
Never. But just as we watched cable access dry up to crack pots and retard astral christian puppet shows, so we abandoned the medium. So too, we will have to carve out the small pockets of free and subversive spaces in cyberworld, under the flashing neon popups of multinational corporatism. And some of us might give up.

Still. The fight needs to be re-engaged. The complacency and coasting we have all done the last 5 to 10 years, needs to stop. Lets fuck shit up again!

Even if we have to go fucking broke trying.

It does sound suspiciously like the Net Neutrality issue. It just goes to show you that when the big corporations think they have a hit, they can't try to replicate it fast enough. The difference is, and someone correct me if I'm wrong please, that the decision affecting Net Neutrality was never formally passed.

I agree that the fight needs to be re-enaged and that there's too much complacency. But I also wouldn't characterize The Nation as kids that need to be reeducated or who need to learn to fight back; the point of Rothberg's letter was to show how very far-reaching this is.

I already recycle stamps, have bribed Kinkos employees with no more than complimenting them on their self-styled wizard hats, and, as most of us do, I think, live in Chicago, which has recently been declared the worst postal center in the US. I do admit it's discouraging when they can't even deliver the library's mail to the library's PO Box because it's four feet away from them and they have snacks to eat. I miss quality (yes, when I say quality, I often mean terrible) cable access and independent radio. But I don't think this will be the nail in the coffin that finally pushes everyone online (and under that blinky corporate banner.)

A lot of people have abandoned these mediums. A lot of people have abandoned mimeographs, farming, CB radio, cassette tapes, 16mm film and 8mm film, hell, film period, view cameras, DIY telescope kits, home car repair-- all kinds of stuff. Even things not typically associated with punk or media at all. And people still find magnificently creative ways to use these mediums. None of it has to die, and none of it needs to push the big evil capitalist giant under its own banner ads either. Remember how even knitting got trendy a couple years ago? The people who devote themselves to the print media will keep it going; those who find it too daunting can move on. It just has to exist, and individuals, as they always have, will make sure that happens.

More than the individuals and their zines however, who will always find a way through sheer will, I worry about publications like The Nation and other ones that actually depend on the involvement and organization of many many people. It's easy to tell yourself that you can throw money down the drain mailing out your zine, but try telling that to an editorial board or collective on whose mutual support a publication is dependent. I bet, even at The Nation there were a few votes to throw in the towel looking at that $500,000 figure.

John, I remember those days, yes. But don't overly romanticize them--they were almost two decades ago. And back then I remember glazed-eyed guys reminiscing about back when they REALLY fought the man in the 70s. Don't become today's equivalent of that guy.

The fight needs to be re-engaged, absolutely. But don't re-engage it by discounting the boundaries of the battle today. Because those boundaries go far beyond sticking it to the kinkos night manager or deciding to retreat from cable access, whether you want to accept it or not.

that this is the fight that will make me go broke. 'cause guess what? i'm broke from just surviving to get to this fight. so who's gonna fund me to fight this one? i'll consider any decent offer.

I just know he is going to suggest a 'Fetus Pie Bake Sale' to raise funds.

Seriously, this is a serious issue. One which I suggest is more important (and different) from the Net Neutrality campaign. The USPS has a virtual monopoly on snail mail delivery. Originally conceived as serving a public good, the USPS has increasingly been brought into the larger corporate-led neo-liberalization project. This will be a major victory for corporate interests and a stunning defeat for independent presses and their consumers. The 'good news' is that this is not a partisan issue, given that usually engaged folks across the political spectrum will be equally affected by this. The daunting task before us (as usual) is to create coordinated and sustained single-issue activism. Beyond THE NATION, who else is leading the charge?

MetaFiltered: Clicky.

#2 today, according to Popurls.com.

is that, of course, the post office is essentially bowing to corporate pressure here right as they're doing the big co-branding initiative of the USMail's new Jedi-awesome mail service:

http://www.uspsjedimaster.com/main/splash.html
http://www.starwars.com/collecting/news/misc/news20070315.html

Who else is leading the charge is William Buckley and the National Review, showing that it truly is a non-partisan issue.

I say FUCK THE GOVERNMENT.

The Revolution will not be POSTMARKED.