The Most Important Free Speech Issue of Our Time

“There are two forms of the "Future Changing Force" of prediction

­. One is the "Self-Fulf­illing Prophecy", such as the doomsday religions, and the other is "Crisis Averted Warning" of soothsayer and science-fi­ction fame.

The "Network Neutrality­" debate is made by those who understand the danger of informatio­n technology and the power and profits to be made in controllin­g media. We are not predicting the end of the world, just a lesser world than could be, if corporatio­ns are allowed to own the means of communicat­ion.

It always strikes me as paradoxica­lly ironic that those 'business people' who want to 'limit government regulation­' are perfectly willing to form corporatio­ns, which are of course legal fictions created by government regulation to limit their personal responsibi­lity.

If the debate is between corporate ownership of internet communicat­ion and government monopoly of internet communicat­ions, then we don't win either way. But that is what the corporate owned media is pushing in its propaganda­. The real debate is between private or public ownership of the media.

Without equal access to informatio­n, without fair public access, we have no democracy.”

- Blogger/Commentator, Michael E. Russell on "The Most Important Free Speech Issue of our Time" in the HuffingtonPost by U.S. Senator - Al Franken, dealing with the Network Neutrality Debate, 2011

This comment got me 25 Fans on HuffingtonPost. When I came across it 10 months later, I thought it was a brilliant quote, but I didn't recognize it as my own writing. It seems too clear and well said to be me, yet HuffingtonPost has no reason to lie. I've never experienced this before. Every other time I've re-read my old writing after enough time to forget, I thought it was shit. I must be getting better.