Shutting up dissent.

"Consumer advocates said the deal should heighten worries about the increasing control that a few large telephone and cable television companies exert over Internet access. That concern has been stoked by recent suggestions by phone and cable executives that they would like to charge the providers of Internet content, and possibly also consumers, for the network capacity they use in addition to the subscription charges paid by individuals for unlimited access to the Internet."
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Editor,

This worries me, because after years during which grass roots opponents of Reganism/neoliberalism/neoconservativism were atomized and isolated, the Internet has provided the capability to organize for mass action -- not to mention countering fascist lies with accurate information. But the big boys own the money, and their opponents are typically strapped for cash, so if the telecoms erect financial barriers that are high enough, then people using the net to subvert the system will be priced off-line, the net will be transformed entirely into an instrument for mind-destroying marketing and disseminating government lies, and dissenters will be isolated from each other again. This is yet another threat to our democracy, because a community of people in touch with one another have more potential to act politically than isolated individuals do.