Something interesting from Warren Bluhm's column in the Green Bay News Chronicle today:

The Green Bay News-Chronicle Online - local news

Did you know two presidential candidates were arrested Friday night protesting their exclusion from the debate?

Yep, Green Party candidate David Cobb and Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik were arrested after crossing a police line in St. Louis, arguing that their status as the recognized choices of legitimate political parties should give them a space at the podium for an allegedly “nonpartisan” event.

He also mentioned this:

Did you know the FBI shut down 20 independent media centers by seizing their British-based Web servers last week?

According to the Guardian of London:

“On Thursday a court order was issued to Rackspace, an American-owned Web-hosting company in Uxbridge, Middlesex, forcing it to hand over two servers used by Indymedia, an international media network which covers social justice issues and provides a ‘news-wire’ to which its users contribute.

“The Web sites affected by the seizure span 17 countries.

Why they did so isn't explained, except to say it was at the behest of two other governments.

I'm also curious about the FBI's role: the Web-hosting company is American-owned, but located in England. The FBI can't just go raiding places in England.

Bluhm comments:

The silence of the mainstream media regarding this action is amazing. If the FBI had closed down CBS in London “at the request of Italian and Swiss authorities,” the howling would be deafening.

This is the electronic equivalent of raiding a newspaper and seizing its presses, a violation of press freedom so basic that even a child could understand – assuming they’re still teaching the First Amendment at his or her school.

The story does say that the company moved to another server, so most of the sites (but not all) were back up as of this morning.

The moral of these stories seems to be that if you’re the little guy, you don’t matter.

You can raise a ruckus – you can even commit civil disobedience and be arrested – to assert your right to speak at a “nonpartisan” debate, but not only will the Big Government parties ignore you, so will the Big Corporate media outlets.

You can try to operate an independent media outlet, but if Big Government shuts you down, you’ll not only get no sympathy from your Big Corporate brethren; you will get no news coverage.

I'm not sure I'd go quite as far as Bluhm does, but I think his point is well taken.