Then, if you’re like most people, you said “what the hell is Net Neutrality?”

“Net Neutrality” is a extremely boring name for a very important concept. It’s like the First Amendment of the internet. It means that no matter what internet provider gets you online, the only one who controls where you go and what you see is you. You can create your own website, you can check your email, read the news, or buy items online, and the company you pay for internet access can’t do a damn thing about it.

Imagine some of the alternatives: you try to visit your favorite website, but the site takes forever to load because they didn’t pay off your internet provider. A website criticizing some corporation is suddenly “not found”. Your online business starts losing sales because an internet company would rather use their bandwidth for wealthy corporations instead of your small enterprise. Or most likely, we could get two internets, separate and unequal: a high-speed, corporate-dominated internet, and a “public” internet, with independent sites that are hard, or impossible to view. It would be like a phone system, where you could barely hear your family or friends when you called, but got a crystal clear connection when you were calling to pay your cable bill. Or a road system where the only paved roads went to big chain stores, and you had to take dirt roads to get anywhere else.

Since the government has been avoiding actually doing anything about net neutrality, internet giants Google and Verizon cut a deal outlining what they plan to do regarding free and open access to the internet. First, they are totally dumping net neutrality for wireless internet. If you’re using Verizon for wireless internet, you can see what they let you see, and that’s it. They say that (for now) they will keep net neutrality for wired internet connections, but with loopholes that could make for the “separate but unequal” internet we mentioned above.

This guy sums it up pretty well:

We really can’t rely on corporations to be good citizens when they make profits by screwing us over. And we can’t rely on the government either, because they seem to want to bury their heads in the sand. So we’ll have to make the government do the right thing.

What can you do?

The Save the Internet Coalition has a quick and easy list of things you can do, and an easy form to contact your Congresspeople to tell them how you feel.

If you live in Minneapolis, the Federal Communications Commission (the government agency that is SUPPOSED to be regulating on this issue) will be holding a public meeting Thursday, August 19 where you can make your voice heard. Or you can contact the FCC directly by email or phone numbers (remember, be polite, they’re less likely to listen to you if you’re, y’know, calling them names).

Unless we step up, we may lose the freest, most democratic form of media the world has ever known.

“Axis of Justice began our summer service volunteer program with an outing to PATH (People Assisting The Homeless).  Here are some videos. If you want to join us in combating homelessness and hunger in southern California contact Allie.”

- Tom Morello

Video: Tour of PATH

Video: Volunteering at PATH

Please note: there’s a typo in the video, the correct URL for PATH is http://www.epath.org. Sorry!

Also, check out this link below to help fellow workers of the Hyatt Regency’s around the country in the struggle to secure new contracts for 9,000 hotel workers and their families!

Help: Unite Here

Yes, the law will be appealed, and who knows what will happen at that point.  And it is uncertain if the judge’s decision will allow gay people to marry while the law is being appealed.  But for now, we’ll celebrate a victory.

I hope everyone has been having a wonderful summer so far! We here at Axis of Justice have some exciting new summer service plans and we need your help! We are counting on our loyal fans, as well as some much needed new friends in the Los Angeles area, to help better our community. Here is what we are doing:

Volunteering and fund-raising for a wonderful organization called PATH: People Assisting The Homeless. What is PATH you ask? The PATH mission is to “break the cycle of homelessness by empowering people with the tools for self-sufficiency.” Their approach is to “help homeless individuals and families find work, save money, secure housing and empower their lives.”

Starting this Thursday we are volunteering at the PATH Regional Homeless Center. We will be preparing and serving dinner to the homeless starting at 4pm.

Where?

PATH Regional Homeless Center
340 North Madison Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90004
Tel: (323) 644-2200

Contact me (Allie O’Brien) at: Obrieac1@gmail.com

Website: www.epath.org

On top of that, the Obama Justice Department is challenging the Arizona law’s constitutionality. The above court decision makes it look as though this law will be defeated.

As we have been saying for weeks, this law seems to be a political ploy to win support from people afraid for their jobs, and people who want to scapegoat others. Immigration is a very complicated issue, and this law did not even pretend to deal with any of the problems or benefits that come from immigrants, multiculturalism, trade, jobs, racism, economics, or, well, anything. Anyone who wants to talk seriously about new immigration laws, perspectives, or policy is welcome. This law does not do that.

Protesters are planning to make their voices heard in Arizona when the law goes into effect, and resistance will continue.

Photo: AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin

Many motorists honked in support of immigration rights activists perched high above the 101 Freeway Monday morning.

The Grand Avenue overpass in downtown Los Angeles is one of three spots where protesters gathered to hold up banners against the Arizona immigration law.

Protesters sought to grab the attention of commuters in rush hour traffic. They began their demonstration at 7 a.m. and ended the protest at around 9 a.m. Protesters also demonstrated again at 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

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Let’s start with the bad decisions: most of the leaders at the conference decided that they needed to cut back on government spending, to trim their budget deficits. To an individual person who’s broke, cutting back on spending makes sense. When a broke nation does it, it means less investment, fewer jobs, a deeper recession and longer suffering for millions. Noted economist Paul Krugman is warning that this G20 decision could lead to a worldwide economic depression. And just as bad, much of these budget cuts are likely to be social welfare programs that are keeping the poorest citizens afloat. These cuts will hurt them severely.

Next, we had thousands of activists who protested the event, on issues directly related, and not related at all. A gathering of world leaders often seems like the perfect time to speak your mind and organize with others.

Then, we had the police that used the so-called “Miami Model” of dealing with protests. In other words, the local police spend weeks and months telling scary stories to the media about protesters and anarchists and terrorists, so that the public is actually scared of them. Then the police set up their own version of “free speech zones”, where protesters are told they must go if they want to use their, y’know, freedom of speech. Then, there’s usually a mass arrest of innocent activists on one of the first days of the protest, to try to justify their scary stories and to intimidate the rest of the protesters. Then, when the protest is over, it is revealed that the hundreds of arrestees are innocent of all charges, that the police abused their authority, and sadly, only the activists themselves seem to know the real story. This gets used at mass protests time and time again.

The Toronto police even went one step further this year, claiming that they were arresting people on a just-recently-passed law prohibiting people from getting near the official security fence. People were outraged that this new secret law was passed and not publicized. Until it turned out there was no such law. Yes, police made up their own law, arrested people for breaking it, and then admitted that they’d lied about the whole law thing anyway.

In one silver lining to this story of lies, abuse, and economic catastrophe, is that the activists of Toronto showed up in the streets again, after the G20. This time, it was to show support for the masses of innocent arrestees, and to speak out against the police’s violations of law and civil rights. A little solidarity can be a good thing.

Photos by Andrew Louis/Torontoist.

But we have to remember to highlight the good news too. So we wanted to make sure that this story didn’t fall through the cracks.

Miners in the desert town of Boron, CA were facing tough labor negotiations with their employer, Rio Tinto, when the company decided to lockout the employees and bring in replacements.

For 107 days, the workers picketed, protested and fought, lining up support from many other unions, and their neighborhood businesses.

In mid-May, the workers finally won a satisfactory agreement, and were able to get back to their lives.

We’ve got to keep our eyes on the world’s problems, but we have to take time to celebrate our victories too.

Congratulations to the Boron miners on their determination and success!

“If you haven’t heard, the Arizona state legislature passed a bill (SB 1070) that was signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer that legalizes and sanctions racial profiling. Straight up…

Fans of our music, our stories, our films and our words can be pulled over and harassed every day because they are brown or black, or for the way they speak, or for the music they listen to. People who are poor like some of us used to be could be forced to live in a constant state of fear while just doing what they can to find work and survive. This law opens the door for them to be shaked down, or even worse, detained and deported while just trying to travel home from school, from home to work, or when they just roll out with their friends…

When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, they arrested her. As a result, people got together and said we are not going to ride the bus until they change the law. It was this courageous action that sparked the Montgomery bus boycott. What if we got together, signed a collective letter saying, “we’re not going to ride the bus”, saying we are not going to comply. We are not going to play in Arizona. We are going to boycott Arizona!”

The website urges other like-minded bands to join the boycott and for everyone to sign a petition opposing SB 1070.