Remember how you felt 30 or so years ago when you could finally afford cable TV and you felt like you were getting out from under the grip of corporate media? Now you could see news without the corporate filter! Now you could get entertainment with little censorship!

Remember how you felt 15 or so years ago when you got that internet connection and you felt like this time you could get news and entertainment not filtered by corporations. Giant media had long since taken over most of the cable outlets and once more controlled the news and entertainment. This time you felt like there was no way corporations could choke the internet. There was a concept called net neutrality that gave equal access to all providers. No one would screw that up.

Sadly the forces of money and control have their sights set on net neutrality. They want to do for the internet what they have done for cable television – make it a place safe for corporate policies.

While those favoring net neutrality won a battle in the war to end net neutrality last winter, this was only a battle. The ruling issued by the FCC was surprising to many and a victory. However, for those who want to control the internet just as they control newspapers, radio, TV and magazines in this country, this merely signaled a time to change strategies.

One strategy includes buying politicians who will introduce laws to stop the FCC. Another strategy is using the court system. Yet another little talked about strategy is to buy up the opposition.

Last week anti-net neutrality leader Verizon bought out AOL. In the mix, Verizon gets to take control of net neutrality crusader Huffington Post which is owned by AOL. Neat huh?

Over at the Nation magazine, Leslie Savan gives us a heads up on what such a takeover may mean for the future of news on the internet and net neutrality:

But there hasn’t been nearly as much talk about what this means for the content—you know, the journalism. When a telecom giant at the center of every poli-techno controversy, from net neutrality to NSA spying, owns and is expected to invest millions in one of the world’s most-read news sites, what happens to editorial independence?

Verizon, after all, has its own dedicated page at HuffPost, much of which covers the telecom’s ongoing effort to strangle net neutrality. (Both HuffPost and AOL have been outspoken champions for keeping the web’s playing field level.) And even though the FCC has ruled in favor of the regulations for now, corporate lobbying continues. “Verizon and other major telecom companies have plans to challenge the regs,” Clark Mindock writes at Open Secrets, “But whether or not AOL changes its stance on net neutrality, the fact is that the biggest opponent of net neutrality rules is about to acquire one of the biggest proponents.… And AOL’s D.C. money presence is a drop in the bucket compared to Verizon’s.”

And how free would HuffPost be in the future to report on Verizon’s and other telecom’s involvement in government surveillance of Americans’ phone records? Or on Verizon’s support of the rightwing, Koch-backed policy-maker, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)? Just days before the Verizon/AOL deal was announced, HuffPost ran a post headlined: “Telecom Sleaze: ALEC and Its Communication’s Funders—AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, Comcast and Time Warner Cable.” I’m just guessing, but that could be the last time we see HuffPost casually refer to Verizon as “sleaze.”

Since the days of Reagan we have seen media consolidated to the point where it is nearly useless for getting information. While something like 7 or 8 giant media corporations have taken control of what Americans get for information, the internet has been the one voice that stands alone as a place to seek alternative voices. Taking over the internet is huge for corporations, both in terms of money and control of information. So while we celebrated a victory, corporations just hunkered down for the long haul of the war.