NOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Huh? What...? Oh, thank goodness! It was only a dream, and what a horrible dream. I dreamt that the Freedom Fighters had come to say farewell. I dreamt that they had failed. I dreamt that Big Brother had taken over the world. I dreamt that my child and I were about to be executed by the Net Cops.

But it was a dream, wasn't it? My head must still be foggy. Of course it was a dream. And yet I find myself needing reassurance. I call out, "Good morning, Computer." I never got around to naming my computer like so many people in the 21st century do. Sure, my computer has a personality, uses the latest in voice and holographic technology but still, a computer is just a machine. Isn't it? The computer answers me back with a, "Good morning, Human." It's our private little joke. And I say, "Computer, I had a dream, a nightmare really. Can you please tell me the status of Big Brother?" The computer laughs merrily and says, "Big Brother was defeated in 2004. You are safe, Princess." As the last of the dream fades away, I call out one last time, "And what of the Freedom Fighters?" Computer decides to mock me and says, "Who are the Freedom Fighters?" as though it had forgotten or been reprogrammed. Finally I was fully awake, secure in the knowledge that the world was still safe. I acknowledged Computer's little joke and knew that there was still hope for the future.

"Hey, Computer. Tell me where my son Teddy is, before I have you reprogrammed with that new Brown Noisier Programs. I'll have you saying 'Yes, Master' and 'No, Master', and telling me how nice I look if you don't get with the program there, buddy."

"Nag, nag, nag. That's all you humans ever do. You sit around all day while I do all the work." And I swear that its sarcastic sigh sounded more human that I ever could.

Finally, an image of my son Teddy appeared on the wall in front of me. I must have really overslept. Computer had gotten him dressed and off to school, and now he was sitting in class making faces at the substitute teacher. I called his new Video Watch, and his little face lit up when he saw me on the screen.

"Mama! I love you, Mama." This got a chuckle from the class. All the other kindergartners laughed hysterically because Teddy had forgotten he was in school and had spoken so loudly that the teacher had actually stopped snoring at his desk. I told Teddy I loved him too and signed off. Computer sarcastically commented, "What a touching display of love and emotion. I think I'm gonna barf." I nearly fell out of bed laughing. Computer cracks me up like that.

I had Computer run me up some coffee while we started on today's e-mail. Wow, my box was full. Don't people have lives? Don't they ever go outside and leave their computer at home? No, of course not. Now they have portable video links built into their cars, wrist watches, in restaurants, just about anywhere you care to think of. I wish I could go to the beach. So far, no one has devised a way to do e-mail while swimming. As for Voice Com, it sounds kind of garbled, and people tend to get a mouthful of water when they use their Video Watches to talk while swimming in the surf. Yeah, I wish I could go to the beach instead of reading all this e-mail.

Hey, what is this? Yes, we found another missing child. I am so happy I could scream. I guess my happiness must be contagious because the hologram changed to a Computer with a smiley face drawn on it. Geez, this guy (did I say guy?) should be a comedian. He just cracks me up. I call the mother to give her the good news. More tears of happiness. Then I call the entire network. Wow, we have brought home over a dozen missing children in less than a month. I think that's a new record. The new Missing Children's Net is probably the most effective tool for finding children in the whole world. But what has really made a difference for the children is the fact that anyone thinking of kidnapping a child realizes that there is nowhere left on earth that they can hide. No matter where in the world they go, our computers can beam the child's picture to an entire network of volunteers in that country within hours. It used to be there was no safe place for children. Now, thanks to the Internet, there is no safe place left for kidnappers.

All of this got me thinking about my dream again. What if the people hadn't stood up? What if there had been no Freedom Fighters? What if they hadn't stopped Big Brother from taking over the World? I honestly believe that it would have been the end of the world as we know it. I hate to think of what would have happened to Teddy and me had it not been for people like my parents, making a stand for Freedom.

"Computer. show me the latest on the "Feed the Children Program." The hologram changes to all kinds of numbers, statistics, and gibberish that the world's greatest mathematician could not have understood. Computer is really on a roll today. "Um...Computer, can you show this to me graphically? Oops. NO. Make that, show me images that compare the number of children going to bed hungry around the world in 1999 with the number of hungry children now." An image of children crawls onto the screen. In the first image, nearly half the children appear hungry while the others are eating. This breaks my heart. Then another image appears. This one shows the same children, and nine of them are eating. I nearly fall out of my chair, because the last one is staring at a plate of green stuff, and computer has put a caption under it saying, "I hate spinach."

Computer is telling me that our efforts have exceeded expectations and we are now feeding almost all of the world's children. Wow! What a miracle. Back in the twentieth century, who would have believed that the key to helping to feed starving children was going to be the Internet. That instead of sending food, volunteers around the world working with colleges and universities began creating training manuals for farmers in the poor countries. These manuals, written in that country's language, gave advice based on the weather and soil conditions of the region in question, and were delivered to volunteers acting as teachers in the poor countries. The teachers in turn taught the farmers ways to increase food production based on the training manuals. Soon, the best farming knowledge in the world was available to the poorest farmers on earth, and in a short time, they were able to help feed the hungry. I wonder why it took the human race thousands of years to learn that you can help your neighbors more by educating them and providing them with tools than by trying to do it for them.

It makes me so angry to think that Big Brother and human ignorance nearly ended what we are trying to do here, and even angrier that millions of children around the world would have starved had it not been for the Freedom Fighters.

I was too young to understand what was going on at the time. I knew people were scared, angry, and confused, but I didn't understand why. As I grew older, my parents told me what had happened on December 31, 1999 and January 1, 2000, and how some people were elated, others lived in fear, while still others began planning.

It seems that there was a huge fear around the world that on January 1, 2000 millions of computers around the world were going to crash. These computers were supposedly not equipped to handle the changeover from the year 1999 to the year 2000. Today, we know that it was primarily an emotion based on fear of the unknown and was being preyed on by unscrupulous profiteers selling information on "How to Survive Y2K". Today we know the fear was unjustified, but back then the uninformed listened to the scaremongers. They planned for the end of the world. It began in January 2000 with a few people purchasing survival gear and extra food. By mid-summer, stocks of tents and survival gear were almost gone. In November, those who did not understand that this was simply scare tactics began to move some of their money from the stock market. The trend started slowly, but it continued into December. The last week of December saw the stock market falling faster and faster. On December 31, 1999 stock markets around the world crashed.

Was this horrible news? Not really, because on January 1, 2000 everyone realized that there was no world-ending catastrophe. They realized that the world's computers had not failed, that the banks were safe, and that there was going to be no shortage of food. So, consequently, as fear disappeared, optimism took over. A form of exuberance took over as the stock market raced towards new highs. In less than 48 hours the stock market had gone from a major crash to the highest level in history and it was continuing to go up. The whole world cheered. Well, the whole world cheered, except for the board of directors of the world's three largest Internet Service Providers. On December 21, 1999, Internet stocks took the brunt of the fall. This fall should have been expected by everyone. People should have realized that if the stock market crashed because of a fear that computers would crash, the stocks that would get hurt the worst would be stocks based on a company's ability to use computers. What business in the world uses computers more than Internet Service Providers? That made their stock price dive to record lows. All these businesses had to do was to survive one day, just one day of low stock prices, and they would have skyrocketed back to the top of every investor's wish list. But three of them didn't make it.

On December 31, 1999, when their stock was selling for nearly pennies on the dollar, a new company came in and bought up the controlling shares of the three largest Internet Service Providers in the world. On January 1, 2000 the stock prices of these stocks jumped to record highs. In one day, this new company had become the biggest and most powerful company in the world! On January 1, 2000 Big Brother was born.

Oh no! Computer just reminded me that I have only three minutes to vote in the presidential, national, state and local elections. Three minutes to make a decision that would have taken people a long time to make years ago. It's hard to imagine that people used to vote along party lines. It's even harder to believe that people voted people into office without knowing what the politicians really stood for. Imagine listening to the speeches without checking the candidate's voting record!

"Computer, show me a list of all the candidates in all the elections that I can legally vote in." Wow, so many choices. I've got to narrow this down some. "Computer, delete all the candidates who voted against the "Feed the Children Act of 2004". That's better. "Computer, delete all candidates who voted against any of our efforts to help missing children." The list is really shrinking. "Computer, delete anyone who voted against the Disabilities Act of 2006, and stop whining that you are a machine! This is your job."

"OK, now weed out anyone who voted against the Government pay cut of 2007." Wow, hardly anyone left. "Of those remaining, please score them by who sponsored the most bills to help the children and delete all but the candidate with the highest scores. Oh, and delete Billy Hague. I just don't want to spend the next four years looking at a guy who wears more makeup than I do."

"Also delete anyone who has been found guilty of being involved in any type of scandal. OK, just the big scandals then. I got to have someone left to vote for! Great. We have a whole minute left! Pull the lever." Wow, voting is so easy now. You can skip those long self-serving speeches. Make-up and spin barely affect an election these days. Instead, you just tell the computer what your priorities are in life, and it tells you which of the candidates vote most consistently with what you would have chosen in their place. Voting at home using your computer is so easy. It's so hard to believe that people actually used to have to drive someplace, stand in line, show an ID, and then go in a little booth.

Yes! I can't believe it. Nine of the ten candidates I voted for were just voted into office. It looks like most of the people around the world are now voting for candidates based on job performance and morals. What a change from the old method of voting based on speeches, false promises, and lies (OK. A few of them meant well, but how could you tell them from the rest without examining their voting record?). This is a major victory for the human race. Imagine a government that, if it wants to stay in office, actually has to help the people to create a better world. Awesome! I love these new candidate selection programs. I guess if it weren't for the Freedom Fighters, the election would have gone the other way. Somehow I don't think Big Brother would have provided software like this free of charge to people around the world. I think that these programs would have been contrary to Big Brother's goals. Let's face it, if there was one thing Big Brother was good at, it was spin!

Slipping back into what my parents told me, I remember that on January 1, 2000 there were mixed emotions about Big Brother. Those who had sold their stock cried when they saw that same stock triple in price in less than 24 hours. Those who had kept their stock were jumping for joy. On the other hand, the members of the former Board of Directors of the companies were not real happy when they found out their services were no longer needed. Big Brother said it wanted to start fresh. But the real concerns were from the users of the three companies that had just been bought out. First, there was concern that they would get worse service. Instead, Big Brother offered better service at lower prices. They were concerned about a lot of things, but Big Brother made lots of promises. Big Brother pulled off the single greatest corporate buyout in the world's history and paired it with the greatest public relations campaign. They sold the world on their company and they only made one mistake. If not for this one mistake, Big Brother would now be in control of the world and my dream of the Net Cops beating on my door with a battering ram might have come true. Big Brother's mistake was that it tried to take away people's freedom of speech. Big Brother wanted complete and total control of the Internet. In order to do this, they tried to shut down any voices that might oppose them. Instead of working with the users of their new Internet service to create something even greater, based on both company and consumer goals, Big Brother decided to close the doors on freedom of speech on the Internet. And so, on January 2, 2000, Big Brother quietly deleted thousands of customers from its service. Big Brother had checked the records and found those who had the largest mailing lists. Big Brother felt that it was best not to take a chance that these lists might oppose some of the changes that were about to take place. So Big Brother, instead of trying to make friends, instantly created an opposition. Instead of working with the people, Big Brother had now pitted itself against them. On January 3, 2000 Big Brother launched its own newsletters, so full of Big Brother propaganda and advertisements that it sickened people. To the people of the Internet, it was like Hitler had taken over the Internet, and very few people felt like holding their arm up in the air and yelling "Heil!".

Big Brother felt they were invincible. They felt clever at the way they had taken over these companies. They felt their marketing plan was pure genius. They felt that becoming the biggest advertisers on all the news programs would give them control of the media. They believed that soon they would have politicians around the world on their payroll. They thought that soon they would have the whole world in their grasp. But they made that one mistake. They forgot that the thousands of people they had thrown out had millions of friends! Big Brother had expected the people they had thrown off to go quietly. They figured that by banning them from their service, they would be limited in how many people they could reach. Actually, what Big Brother had done was to solidify a bond between all of the people on the Net. They turned those they had thrown out into martyrs and heroes. The various organizations that had been created online banded together into one new group. A family of organizations working together to protect the innocent was formed. People around the world organizing to safeguard the future of the world. Thus, the Freedom Fighters were born.

Big Brother now realized their mistake, but then they made a second one. They assumed that this new opposition group, calling itself the Freedom Fighters, would give up easily. Big Brother figured they could simply outlast them. After all, Big Brother was the largest company in the world. Even if there was a revolt and a million or so of its customers left, it would be no big deal. Big Brother now had over two hundred million customers. What effect could this small group of Freedom Fighters have on the world's largest company?

As the years went by, Big Brother heard rumors that the Freedom Fighters might file a class-action lawsuit. Big Brother was not worried. Even if Big Brother lost, it had enough money to pay the damages, and still survive. Big Brother heard that the Freedom Fighters might file an antitrust lawsuit. But Big Brother was not worried because these lawsuits only applied in certain countries and Big Brother could simply move its business to other countries. Big Brother heard the Freedom Fighters might try to attend stockholder's meetings, bash Big Brother in the media, or even drive down the stock prices of Big Brother. Big Brother just laughed. What's a few hundred million dollars to a company that is worth billions? And so, Big Brother grew more confident and stopped listening to the rumors. And that is where they made their final mistake. While Big Brother was busy trying to find ways to get control of the world, the other side was working on a plan that was so outrageous that even the few rumors that reached Big Brother landed on deaf ears. This plan would have been impossible - except for Big Brother's lack of concern for its customers and their assumption that customers were merely numbers on a spreadsheet. What Big Brother did not understand was that they had finally managed to raise the ire of the majority of their customers. While a walk-out might fail, while a lawsuit was laughable, there was one thing that could be done that Big Brother had never dreamed of.

On January 1, 2004 Big Brother met reality. It seems the Freedom Fighters had been talking to Big Brother's competition - all the small Internet Service Providers. The Freedom Fighters had been talking to Big Brother's advertisers, to lawyers, to major investors, and to the customers of Big Brother. Big Brother had refused to believe the rumors until it was too late. On January 1, millions of Big Brother's customers suddenly bought shares of Big Brother's stock. Major investors stepped in and bought more stock. The competing ISP's bought stock and so did the advertisers. A leveraged stock buyout took place, using Big Brother's own assets as collateral, and suddenly Big Brother was owned by it's own customers! A new corporation was formed and called "Hope for the Future". This new company restored freedom to its customers, implemented classes to teach people how to get involved in helping people in need around the world. In less than a month, much to everyone's delight, they eradicated "spam" by installing personalized anti-spam tools, which had been suggested by members for years. Newsletters from organizations working for the betterment of mankind flourished. Newsletters, message boards, and new organizations were created so that every person in the world had a chance to publish their ideas on "How to Change the World". These events, on such a global scale, led to renewed hope for the human race. The company gained such a reputation for its good deeds that people actually began to believe that this one new company, owned by the people, might be the best hope for the future.

Last night I dreamt that the Net Police were beating on the door. Today I lay here talking to my computer, laughing at his silly witticisms and crass sarcasm, while together we workwith people around the world to bring home missing children. Together we help feed the hungry, vote the issues instead of the propaganda, and help the disabled. Today, Computer and I and all our friends are working to change the world, and my heart is filled with gratitude for those who fought for our freedom. I would hate to think what the world would have been like for Teddy, growing up with a mother who is a quadriplegic, in a world where there was no freedom on the Internet, and where you have to worry about when Big Brother might come knocking on your door.

"What's that, Computer?" Knock, knock? Oh, I get it! Very funny, but please, no more Knock, knock jokes about Big Brother or I'll have you reprogrammed to sound like Kenny from South Park. Yes, I know Kenny is dead, and you will be too, if you tell any more of those dumb jokes!"

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