Postal Rate Increase

From my own post:

I suspect there is something more duplicitous going on here. I think that "the powers that be" want to end all uncontrolled means of communication in the US.

The postal rates for small publications do to go up will virtually put many small publications out of business. This, like the copyright rate increase for music, seems to have come out of the blue.

From freepress.net:

Postal regulators have accepted a proposal from media giant Time Warner that would stifle small and independent publishers in America. The plan unfairly burdens smaller publishers with higher postage rates while locking in special privileges for bigger media companies.

In establishing the U.S. postal system, the nation's founders wanted to ensure that a diversity of viewpoints were available to "the whole mass of the people." Time Warner's rate increase reverses this egalitarian ideal and threatens the marketplace of ideas on which our democracy depends.

It seems that there has been an attack on every avenue of free speech. There has even been an attempt to shut down the whole Internet.

I think that it might be time to sit back and look at the big picture. Being an independent bookseller makes me especially sensitive to issues like these. I believe in free speech -- even ugly speech from bigots who don't like me. Independent bookstores are closing every day, not just because of market rates on rents but because of an industry choice of the larger chains over the small bookstores, media collusion, and the consolidation of the publishers. This also shut down an avenue for free speech. Are you really going to hear from that radical new author at B&N or Borders?

Is all of this just one big coincidence, or is something very sinister going on here? If you had asked me even three years ago that I would be suggesting such a thing as a cooperative effort to shut down all means of free speech IN AMERICA, I would have said you are crazy. But too much has happened. All of these unsolicited changes to the way we have developed independent communication is too much for me to say that something bigger isn't going on.

Please write to your congressman to prevent this postal rate hike.