The FCC recently launched an official inquiry into Net Neutrality. They're already hearing plenty from AT&T, Verizon and Comcast - who want to be the gatekeepers deciding what you can do online. Now they need to hear from you.

This may be the best chance we have this year to demonstrate to Washington that protecting Internet freedom is an issue that matters millions of Americans. Please Tell your story to the FCC: Save the Internet

I remember when Memorial Day meant that we had learned that war was not the solution to any conflict, and vowed never again.

I remember when mothers who held their children close to their breast were not the same mothers who supported the killing of other people’s children.

I remember when ‘Support the Troops’ meant giving them adequate protection in combat, and bringing them home alive, but did not mean supporting their mission of the murder of other human beings.

I remember when sons taught their fathers about peace by being conscientious objectors to another war that was supposed to be ‘the war to end all wars.’

I remember when fathers learned from their sons.

I remember when supporting our veterans meant that though we may not have agreed with the reasons they went to war or the irreparable violence and destruction they inflicted upon others, we had the decency and respect for the time and lives they gave to their country, (time forever gone,) to not cut their health benefits, and steal their personal information.

The cave-in on Capitol Hill -- supplying a huge new jolt of funds for the horrific war effort in Iraq -- is surprising only to those who haven’t grasped our current circumstances.

Public opinion polls aren’t the same as political leverage. The Vietnam War went on for years after polling showed that most Americans opposed the war and even saw it as immoral.

Slick phrases about the need to bring our troops home can easily become little more than platitudes on wallpaper in media echo chambers.

No matter how many Democrats are in Congress, they won’t end this war unless an antiwar movement develops enough grassroots strength to compel them to do so.

Unfortunately -- and unnecessarily -- for years now the Internet powerhouse MoveOn.org has often functioned as a virtual appendage of the national Democratic Party. That close relationship has largely squandered MoveOn’s opportunities to help build strong deep independent activism for the long haul. And, on crucial issues of the Iraq war, MoveOn has failed to back the positions of such gutsy progressive visionaries as Reps. Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey and Maxine Waters.

I knew there was a war on against cancer and, oh yeah, drugs, illiteracy, poverty, crime and, of course, terror, and that many arenas — sports, religion, business and politics, to name a few — are often portrayed as war without the body bags. But I was still surprised to read recently in the New York Times that we’ve opened up a fat front:

“It is a scene being repeated across the country as schools deploy the blood-pumping video game Dance Dance Revolution as the latest weapon,” the Gray Lady informed us, “in the nation’s battle against the epidemic of childhood obesity.”

Enough already! If I were an overweight kid, would I want Braveheart in my face? My impatience here reaches into the language center of the American brain, or at least the media brain. When chubby 9-year-olds are inspiring the language of Guadalcanal and 9/11, maybe as a nation it’s time to rethink our rhetorical default settings. Maybe it’s time to stop regarding every challenge, danger, obstacle, mystery and fear we encounter as a military operation, to be won or lost. We should at least be aware we have a choice in the matter.

Public, Educational and Government Access channels are under imminent threat by AT&T sponsored legislation. The Ohio House of Representatives' public utilities committee will be holding their hearing on Senate Bill SB 117 on Wednesday, May 30th at 11 a.m. We need people to attend. We will be holding a short rally at the capital at 10:40 A.M.

Ohio Senate Bill SB 117 threatens to undermine public, educational and government access television (PEG) throughout the state of Ohio. Established in the early years of cable television, public access provides the opportunity for average citizens to produce and broadcast their own TV shows, an extension of First Amendment free-speech rights. Cable access channels are a vital part of our democracy, allowing citizens to communicate directly with one another without mediation by the dominant corporate media. AT&T's bill is threatening this essential part of our democracy.