WHAT DO NORTH KOREA, CUBA, CHINA, IRAN, AND SOON THE UNITED STATES HAVE IN COMMON?

They don’t allow their citizens free access to the internet.

Simple as that, there is no mincing of words on this issue. Totalitarian regimes have found out that the worst opposition they could possibly have is a well informed, well educated population. It functions much in the same way religions work…keeping their adherents immersed so deeply in their religion that they can’t access any other idea or information outside of their hermetically sealed environment. It works.

It is no secret that both government tyrannies and religious absolutists will repress with cruel brutality any kind of dissent…that is what makes these tyrannies so ruthless. They know that the only way they can survive is by keeping the public ignorant and disengaged.

We see how the Republicans embrace both the concept of religiosity as a virtue because the more extreme brand of religious fanaticism keeps women ignorant, barefoot and pregnant and the men unable to think for themselves. The Republicans are more than elated to have America watching “Dancing With the Stars” or “American Idol” or even entertaining them with a circus like atmosphere as the Republican Presidential primaries have been.

You see, while people are watching these shows their attention is not on how voters are being disenfranchised, how the horrible inequality in the distribution of wealth and power, how corporations can dictate who gets elected and are elevated to the status of personhood.

We are not just endangering the democratic process by this Citizen’s United Supreme Court abominable decision but now we are being threatened with the possibility of internet censorship. That is what it comes down to and it is not going to work because most Americans are too aware of the Republican tactics and how they resemble those of countries like North Korea, Cuba and Iran.