Sender: John Whiting <•••@••.•••> Pardners-- As we try to sort out the demands of public interest and private profit, we should remember Ezra Pound's words of 45 years ago on the subject of economics: "Set up a perfect and just...system and in three days rascals, the bastards with mercantilist and monopolist mentality, will start thinking up some wheeze to cheat the people." In the case of the Internet, we have seen a system set up to operate anarchically and without "toll gates", with free use to the public a by-product of military-industrial-academic communication, gradually lose its original raison d'etre as the cold war thawed and trickled away. What remained were the wide open cyber-spaces, just waiting to be staked out by the small farmers and then fenced off by the cattle barons. Alas, most of the claimants of all sizes were motivated by greed. At the same time that the media giants were gathering their forces for Armageddon, the snipers were signing up as many desirable addresses as they could think of in order to sell them later to the highest bidder. The Internet is turning into post-Soviet Russia minus (so far) the bloodshed. Perhaps those of us who loved the old cyber-west had best be moseying along. Lonely are the brave. John Whiting Diatribal Press London ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Andrew Oram - •••@••.••• - Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS (CPSR) Cyber-Rights: http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/ ftp://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/Library/ CyberJournal: (WWW or FTP) --> ftp://ftp.iol.ie/users/rkmoore Materials may be reposted in their _entirety_ for non-commercial use. ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
