Who will set forth a compelling alternative to centralized media and build it?

[Commentary] Language creates our knowledge framework. How we describe our experiences within the world affects our epistemology and warps, for both better and for worse, our understanding and comprehension of our communities and of one another. Indy Media and media activists everywhere, from the commie-pinko left, all the way to the completely reactionary wacko right, have been waging a war to establish platforms for telling their stories and narratives, for years now, in the United States. The goal of all of this work has been to impact mainstream culture and to shift the very foundations of civil discourse. Unfortunately, media creation and the documentation and telling of our stories without the information dissemination component are entirely impotent. When Malcolm Matson asked the question, "Who will control local connectivity," he exposed the fundamental question facing civil society at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Even when we create media, and document local injustices, we must have means in our local community to disseminate this vital information to the rest of our local community. If not, we were locked out of a public discourse -- systematically disenfranchised from the media. The solution: create alternative media dissemination systems, but also implement fundamental changes to civil society, before it collapsed under the weight of its own ignorance and inequity. I believe we are headed into an age of the intranet, an epoch characterized by local connectivity, applications, and services. The Internet is a broadband connectivity generally, instead of being the end-all and be-all of telecommunications, is rapidly becoming just one, albeit I will readily agree a very important service on intranet infrastructures. In fact, we are lucky enough to be living through a critical juncture in telecommunications history, a critical juncture characterized by this trifecta of circumstances that have combined to create a perfect storm of disruptive potential. First, digital technologies and their attendant innovations have transformed media production and information dissemination. They have done so at a far greater pace than our society is capable of assimilating into its regulations, its legislation, and in fact, into our everyday lives. Second, these new technologies have driven and are being driven by an enormous demand from constituencies throughout our society. This aggregation of demand for more [libertoric], participatory media has created untold pressure for telecommunications reform, has strained our existing media structures, and has baffled our policy leadership. Third, we have this new administration, with an unprecedented opportunity; I hope not an unprecedented opportunity for problematic decision making, but an unprecedented opportunity to institute regulation, legislation, and policy reform. In fact, this administration has already hinted that seismic shifts are imminent.