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Is Cheap Broadband UnAmerican?
Reader Ant wrote to mention the article entitled Is Cheap Broadband UnAmerican? The author argues that media companies are systematically ruining the MuniWiFi efforts across the country, likening the community initiatives to a form of communism. From the article: "Telecommunications giants have mobilized a well-funded army of coin-operated think tanks, pliant legislators and lazy journalists to protect their Internet fiefdoms from these municipal internet initiatives, painting them as an affront to American innovation and free enterprise"
Their weapon of choice is industry-crafted legislation that restricts local governments from offering public service Internet access at reasonable rates. Laws are already on the books in a dozen states. This year alone, 10 states are considering similar bills to block public broadband or to strengthen existing restrictions. Spinning broadband as theirs alone to provide, ISPs have chalked up some early victories--including a draconian law now on the books in Pennsylvania, which strips local governments of the right to choose their own homegrown broadband solutions without the prior approval of a monopoly phone company. In late 2004, Verizon dictated the law word-for-word to local legislators, who then quietly slipped it into the middle of a 72-page bill that appeared to call for improved communications infrastructure for all Pennsylvanians.
It will have the opposite effect.
No way! You mean that our elected officials are being paid off by corporations so that state citizens get the shaft? Who would have thought?! Personally, anyone responsible for cheating and lying to the citizens of the states involved in this should be ousted. Why aren't we revolting against this crap now? Oh yeah, we're lazy, sorry; I forgot.
A nation that once prided itself as the global pacesetter in technological innovation and affordable communications is now held in the thrall of corporations eager to keep a basic 21st Century right--the right to connectivity--from citizens who can't afford their exorbitant access fees.
How has America fallen so far back?
Because we take the word of the conglomerates as the word of God, that's why. People see a price tag and they just accept it as reality. Most people are uninterested in shopping around for better service, better prices, etc. It's just easier to plop the good old CC down and have it paid automatically every month.
People don't realize that 1500/256 is crappy service for DSL and that 5000/384 is just as bad. People say, ooooh, Cable is faster than DSL and less money! They don't bother looking into the hidden restrictions and commonplace bullshit that the ISPs pull (such as UNLIMITED SERVICE - as long as you don't pass over our unknown bandwith usage threshold).
Some people say, "but there is no alternative." Sure there is... Become active and do something about it. Oooh, but that would take away from your time watching Survivor and The Apprentice. Perhaps the Cable company would even come and shut off your precious mind-numbing TV delivered drugs. Wah.
Americans are lazy, undereducated about technology, and just don't give a shit about making their own lives better. As long as it is easy and they are told it's acceptable they are good to go.
To this mix of industry sock puppets add a gullible media. In a finely targeted media campaign, the "evils" of municipal broadband were pressed upon local journalists who were willing to echo corporate concerns without digging for an opposing view. Too often, local papers failed to follow the money that linked their sources at the Cato Institute and NMRC to the industry--taking at face value comments and data from these think tanks without revealing the conflicts of interest that would impugn their research.
Welcome to the Georgenium! The one where people believe everything they see on TV and do no self-research into finding out what might be true and what might not be. Why should they form their own opinions? There are two sides to every story but the news media is fair and balanced right?
Realize that we have not only corporations funding false research and presenting it as true we have our own government doing the same thing. Sadly people fall for it and even want more of it!
The corporations are going to quickly realize that what they are doing is going to cause even more problems for them. Yeah, you are going to shut out competition from the municipalities... Just wait until the residents of that municipality cre
Today, monthly broadband packages offered by the national carriers hover above $50, barring access to millions of Americans who can't afford the sticker price. Cities and towns across the country have taken up the task of building a cheaper alternative -- often choosing easy-to-build wireless mesh networks -- to bridge the gap that has kept many on the darker side of the digital divide.
Telecommunications giants have mobilized a well-funded army of coin-operated think tanks, pliant legislators and lazy journalists to protect their Internet fiefdoms from these municipal internet initiatives, painting them as an affront to American innovation and free enterprise.
While I don't agree with the laws that are being passed against broadband, I would like to point out that most states have a type of business specifically designed for the common good while simultaneously keeping the government (and stupid laws) out of it: Cooperatives.
CO-OPs are designed to be businesses by the people, for the people, without engaging in the communist-like practice of merging everything under the government's umbrella. A lot of towns in my home state (Wisconsin) have banded together into CO-OPs to provide local utility services. Thanks to their efforts, I had DSL access long before Comcast stopped breaking their promises, and long before many city dwealers had the same services. So if your state passes an idiot law, see if you and your neighbors can do something about it on a local level. It might piss off Verizon and SBC, but that's just too bad, isn't it?
Meanwhile, the United States has slid from first to thirteenth place in national broadband penetration, falling behind South Korea, Japan and Canada, where effective private-public sector initiatives have paved over the digital divide, allowing more citizens to reap the economic benefits of the open information era at a fraction of the costs we take for granted.
This isn't really surprising. The tech started here in the US, so that made us #1. But the rural spread of our population makes market penetration quite difficult, thus resulting in countries with higher population densities pulling ahead. As Mark Twain once said, "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics."
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I thought telephone company monopolies were unamerican?
Welcome to the new America.
When corporations see things happening that they don't like, they call the congressmen that they've bought and paid for and tell them to fix it.
Look at the bankruptcy bill. Nothing could more blatantly tell the American public that our lawmakers are only concerned with the interests of large corporations and the ultra-wealthy.
Just as the article points out, this is like a public library having to ask permission from Borders before checking out books.
It's sad that it's come to this, but there just isn't much that can be done.
DeviantArt Page
NSFWWell, its better then socialist wifi.. at least the 'people' ( local ) are in control, not the government ( federal ).
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Telcos really fear the competition. They really want to keep their current architectures intact so they can gracefully and marginally make changes in service.
Thalasar
Maybe they are against having public libraries, also? And streetlights? What about public roads, are those manifestations of communism too?
Cheap, municipal wifi isn't "UnAmerican" or "communist." Requiring it to be the only game in town for wifi IS. I don't think ANY municipality would be that stupid as to require it's broadband to be the only broadband service around. I don't see why the local government can't compete against DSL and Cable providers.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
What's the problem here? All those poor out of work people with wireless enabled laptops have the right to state provided cheap wireless!
People have the freedom to buy decent wireless service if they wish.
How is it different from providing a free health service whilst allowing private healthcare?
(tongue in cheek, health care is essential, cheap wireless internet isn't)
I feel the government should encourage broadband as much as possible, but I wouldn't want to invest in providing a commercial service for customers and have the government come in and with MY TAX MONEY compete with me.
It's just not right.
That said, municipal WIFI districts are not too bad an idea IMHO.
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Each community should have the right to choose for itself.
I really don't see municipal wireless broadband efforts as any different.
It's really similar to how some communities offer garbage service, whereas others do not. If the community's taxpayers are willing to pay for the service, then the local government should be willing to provide it (within the standard Constitutional limits).
Additionally, if a local government provides a broadband service, it should be like the public streets--open to all. I'm not comfortable with the economic exclusion of parts of the taxpaying public through the charging of a separate fee (no matter how small this fee is). Furthermore, I don't have a problem with the implementation of a "Fair Access Policy", which tacks on a surcharge for those users who utilize the network the most, so as not to penalize the light users of the network.
However, what concerns me the most, however, is the community policing of these broadband networks, including government intrusion on people's privacy and censorship of content deemed inappropriate for the community.
One more thing, by all means, the opening of community broadband should not be a dedicated monopoly on broadband service. Thus, communities should NOT be allowed to block other broadband services from coming in to service their residents. This should force the alternate broadband service providers to provide better services and specialized content to get people to want their services.
Why the hell not, everything else I like seems to be.
which is what 90% of telecom companies are, resellers of someone elses infrastructure
its just now that public have had enough of getting ripped off by all these sharks and are taking the matter into their own hands
GREED is whats unamerican, it will be the death of USA if things are not kept in check
"Have you no sense of TCP/IP, Sir?
At long last, have you left no sense of TCP/IP"
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I do not want the goverment in controll of my access to the internet. If the govenment gives away free internet access, the "for pay" services will not be able to compete and will go under. That will leave the government in full control of my access to information.
I have no problem with government agencies providing free access in libraries, parks, airports, schools, and government buildings. I consider this to be approprtiate and even usefull. I do not, however, want the government providing free wifi in my home.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
"coin-operated think tanks"
My gawd, that has to the the most brilliant, funny, and succinct turn-of-phrase I've read in a long time...
I'm sick of stupid 'un-american' arguments. As a Brit I don't have some scroll to dictate how I'm supposed to think, and how far I have to bend over when the politicians and big corporates tell me to.
Mod me as flamebait, I have Karma to spare...
Yeap - it's un-american commie wifi alright.
Big food companies are systematically ruining the Apple Pie baking efforts in kitchens across the country, likening these home baking initiatives to a form of communism.
"Pie manufacturing giants have mobilized a well-funded army of TV commercials, huge supermarkets and lazy mothers to protect their Apple Pie fiefdoms from these home kitchen initiatives, painting them as an affront to American innovation and free enterprise"
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
The problem is that municipally run Broadband efforts have an unfair advantage. If they are funded from the tax base then every tax-payer is a subscriber whether they wish to be or not. Assuming there is a willingness of a commercial entity to provide the service, this isn't fair! This is not what municipal government should be doing.
I guess an argument could be made that for some municipalities where no commercial service is willing to provide broadband service, the government should step in and provide the service. That the value to most people outweighs the extra applied tax. I think this doesn't apply to most cases where the big service providers are lobbying these laws, since they're in larger Metro areas, as far as I know. I don't see anyway passing these laws in rural Kansas...
Cheap broadband is as unamerican as freedom.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
HOW dare any of you try and keep a corperation from making maximum profits by forcing people to use their service....
damn community WiFi people are TERRORISTS!
including a draconian law now on the books in Pennsylvania, which strips local governments of the right to choose their own homegrown broadband solutions without the prior approval
Perhaps Altoona PA's success at destroying the little independent ISPs with mediocre city-subsidized dialup played some small role in this decision.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
People working together to benfit the communitity as opposed to working for capital. Communism does not have to imply a totalitarian government.
Now that that's established, can we stop using "communist" as an insult, and focus on the actual issues?
I'm sure this will be an unpopular statement for some, but I don't LIKE the idea of state and city run internet. Frankly, I'd rather pay a private company that I know is not going to limit my access to the internet, and is not going reveal my activity to other companies without my consent.
Thats something I will pay dearly for.
repeat after me: "communism is good."
Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: that you are dreadfully like other people. - James Russell Lowell
Let the wireless companies compete. And not just on WiFi. Verizon has EVDO, and Sprint is starting up their EVDO. Don't take tax money and give it to an inefficient -- and potentially tyrannical (in terms of ready cooperation with snooping federal agencies) -- government-run communications operation.
Any goal of bridging the "digital divide" for the economically disadvantaged should be handled by private charities. The last thing we need is for that segment of the population to have a government-run ISP censor blogs like whatreallyhappened.com (which was classified at one point by a censorware company as being "anti-Semitic", and thus presumably unavailable at some public schools and libraries).
In a word, YES.
I am disgusted the way our great country is turning to communism ideals.. open source, and now this to name just a few.
We didn't fight the cold war for nothing!!!
"People have the freedom to buy decent wireless service if they wish"
No I don't.
I'm sitting here in the middle of Washington DC exactly 1 block from FCC headquarters, and I can't buy WiFi connectivity at any price.
What are my options in your world? And what is wrong with the local government providing service either for free or for a cost?
Duh, everyone knows only those socialist over in Europe actually do things like this.
It really is disheartening when I run into to people who don't understand the inherent value of cooperation, especially as it applies to legimate government interests. It's american in so far as it expresses the will of the population. So people unfortunately have been convinced that the people don't have the same rights/privledges as the "professions" do. Society has been sectioned off, we consume, they make and how dare we cross that line.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Obviously municipal wi-fi isn't as "free" as it seems to be, it requires tax money to build and maintain it. However, unlike the federal government, a lot of states and local municipalities have a "flat tax" meaning everyone pays the same percentage of their income to the local municipality. So what? It means that people who cannot afford to buy laptops with wireless internet access still have to pay for it. Maybe if we could close the so called "digital divide" it would be a good idea, but until then, provided a private company is willing to sell large scale wireless access, I think that the company is the better choice.
Monstar L
on the market right now, I bet someday the people are going to set-up a really big LAN in parallel to the corporate internet.
Hell, my uncle did it with his neighbours... ok, it's only a 10 house network, but I thought it was a pretty good setup.
Co-Operated Community Systems are a Good Idea - if Good Ideas are un-American, well then what have we?
I find it very strange that community based projects are types as communism. Even if the underlying principles are similar, i.e., people doing something to help themselves, what is so bad about that?
Just because some communist societies have not been able to perform well, does not mean that the idea of communities bettering themselves is bad.
I find it very distasteful that unless a corporation decides to do something it should not happen.
Its people that make up a community and the activities of that community should not have to be defined or determined by a corporation
It is un-american. The new america is government by the lobby group for the lobby group. If you don't like it, move to Cuba or Canada you dinosaur. Next you'll be wanting affordable drugs and health care until ultimately, anyone can get into a hospital just because they're sick!
The problem with this discussion of "free" WiFi is that it's not really free. At some point, the municipalities will notice that "free" WiFi is actually consuming a lot of budget: equipment, network access, administrative personnel, "policing" personnel (watching out for abuse, etc.). Then something will have to pay for it: taxes, use fees, you name it. Probably people that don't use it all will have to pay for it. Not to mention you'll have some bureaucrat telling you you're using it "too much" or for the wrong thing.
Of course these companies are now upset that they are having to compete with the state, who, unlike the companies, can "charge" whatever they want (and whomever they want) without dealing with market realities (at least not for a while). This IS bad for business. I don't know about the most of you, but I suspect that having a lot of telecom companies losing money on network infrastructure will probably do great harm to our ability to do Wifi (or any other kind of networking).
Please stop using this meaningless term. It was coined by an adman paid by a corporation to discredit organized labor. What you mean to say is antiestablishment, an entirely different term.
Take a look at the NYT opinion columnist Friedman. He's a moderate and he points out that we are the only industrialized nation without a national broadband policy. He also says Japan, behind us in broadband penetration in 2001, is now ahead of us as a direct result of the governemnt intervention.
e dm an.html?hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/15/opinion/15fri
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Can't buy an congressman that isn't elected. Guess who can vote? Guess who can't?
Look at the bankruptcy bill. Nothing could more blatantly tell the American public that our lawmakers are only concerned with the interests of large corporations and the ultra-wealthy.
Well, that's what happens when the south and midwest allow themselves to get scared into polarizing the electon on god, gay marriage, and other shit that really don't matter one bit when it comes to putting bread on the table at the end of the day.
Then again, I guess expecting intelligence at the voting booth from people who are more than happy to throw the Constitution and Bill of Rights out the door whenever it suits them...is expecting too much.
Please help metamoderate.
And hey, if someone doesn't like Sushi and doesn't want to pay for other people's Sushi, screw 'em. And who cares about the Sushi businesses that go bankrupt -- they're just greedy corporate types that don't want to suppress the PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO FREE SUSHI! Damn corporations.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Where I come from being amerikan is considered an insult; It means all you see is profit, while stepping over dead bodies, profit profit profit
Welcome to the New Amerikan Century my fellow (amerikan) earth-dwellers.
May Your "Civilisation" Crumble into the next millenium
Ya know who else wanted cheap broadband - Hitler!
These corporations say that they're shutting down homegrown broadband efforts to safeguard the best interests of American free enterprise
Since when does the law have to bend over backwards to ensure that companies can continue to make a profit?
With a co-op, you can actually do something. You can elect new board members that will better represent your interests. Heck, you could even start a campaign to recall the SOBs. With a private utility company, you have absolutely no power and no choice in how the place gets run. With a co-op, at least you can make the bastards sweat a little even if you can't get the membership mobilized to throw the bums out.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Cato Institute is funded by Verizon, SBC Communications, Time Warner, Comcast and Freedom Communications.
From the Cato website:
How Cato Is Funded
In order to maintain an independent posture, the Cato Institute accepts no government funding or endowments. Contributions are received from foundations, corporations, and individuals. Other revenue is generated from the sale of publications. The Cato Institute is a nonprofit, tax-exempt educational foundation under Section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code. Cato's 2000 revenues were just under $13 million, and it has approximately 90 full-time employees, 60 adjunct scholars, and 16 fellows, plus interns.
Who do the progressives blame for funding Cato when they stand against the drug war, ridiculous federal sentencing guidelines, asset forfeiture, imment domain, and for civil liberties for individuals? Do you realize Cato takes stands that are often in full agreement with progressives? Who do you blame then?
I don't see why Internet access couldn't be provided by a local government as part of what taxes pay for as much different than paying for schools, keeping up roads, snow removal, etc. etc. It should be up to local governments to decide what benefits citizens derive from their tax payments.
http://www.busyweather.com/
Funding FUD is an (lazy/desperate [ U choose ] ) alternative to competition
The public shouldn't be forced to pay for a service that will compete against private sector alternatives. Socialized internet services will only lower the quality of the service in general where they are implemented because people will go to them for the price: free or near free. It's one thing to provide broadband for free in public libraries or to subsidize a charity's computer lab for those without the money to own their own computer and broadband service. It's quite another to provide an entire service that competes against real providers.
I already pay $45 a month for Adelphia's cable service and it would make me quite mad to have to pay more taxes to subsidize someone else's connection to their home. I would mind a buck or two going to buy cable access for the local library since that is totally open to the public. Free wireless though, is something that people can use in their own homes and thus I oppose it. If they are going to get free access then it should be only in a public place where the government can scrutinize their use. The last thing I want to pay taxes for is a connection that lets some mooch run file sharing software off the public dime all day.
Oh and if the government is running the wireless service you can pretty much bet safely that the government will let the police play around with the ISP. They'll be free to log everything and scrutinize everything you do on it because it's a government resource owned and operated by a local government, not a private corporation. That means that if they want to log everything and periodically check to see who is doing what, well that's their prerogative. Your expectation of 4th amendment protection online will all but go out the window if you use the gubermint's service.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
So, it's a truly Patriotic American Thing for the masses to fund an army that goes to other countries and kills and destroys, that's all very innovative and supports free enterprise. But if the masses try to fund something that may lead to more communication, education, and ultimately new inventions by cash-strapped individuals and entrepeneurs, it's an evil Communist thing??
This may sound like a troll, but geez, as a nation you folks are getting more psychotic by the minute!
Even more shocking.. the words communications and communism share the same linguistic root!
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I guess not, because then you would have known that it origins from the linked article.
Most of the city-supported internet projects that I know of in Texas are public-private partnerships, where a private ISP provides the service. So your concern doesn't apply.
The bills prevent the government from any role whatsoever -- even to let a private ISP resell excess capacity on the city network, or to use a water tower in a rural area.
Many of the projects are in small rural towns that have no broadband at all. The incumbent phone companies are holding the local economy hostage. They're saying "if we don't want to supply broadband to the town, nobody should."
I'm involved with the fight against this legislation in Texas, at SaveMuniWireless.org
maybe what we need is a checklist on our tax forms for what we want our taxes to go to. general categories / percentage based. eh, just a thought.
always mosh clockwise
'Communist' connections are obviously a response to people being unhappy with the price of broadband. At the moment the industry is in limbo - should connections be almost free, and profit made from selling content, or should connections cost allot but essentially become a tax that pays for content (like taxing blank cd's)? the ISPs want one, the entertainment industry wants another, and really they both want both! Then there's wireless net connections which will eventually become as ubiquitous as home connections - you'll wonder how you ever lived a day without having a flat-rate net connection on your phone or laptop, just like now you wonder how anyone can live a day without a mobile phone.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
area who would like to join me in being ultra unamerican, and you happen to be in the market for a home, how about buying in my neighborhood? Sure it's practically a ghetto with it's little cheap crackerbox houses, but this summer we can use our spare time digging trenches and laying conduit with fiber. Fiber gigabit to the demarc, haha!
Seriously if there were a dozen of us or more, why not do it, and hook up all our homes together, at that point we could see what kind of backbone pipe could be brought in.
(Note: quick look on ebay says the fiber is cheap enough, but it might have to be a 100mbit switch with gigabit uplink at first).
Only a freakin' idiot would make the leap to equating this with Soviet State Communism, Stalinism, the murder of millions of people, and hence, evil. Communism isn't inherently evil, any more than most philosophies.
The fact that oppressive dictatorships arose in the last century that called themselves Communist (while doing a lot of unCommunist things, like, I don't know, oppressing the workers a lot worse than the capitalists were doing before them) doesn't make any vaguely socialist proposal the edge of a slippery slope to totalitarianism, and more than the Crusades prove that all Christians love killing Muslims.
Anyone who tries to advance their political ends through misleading labeling should be tarred and feathered.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Nothing is FREE how would a municipality fund free broadband. Paying as little for as much as possible is the way of the ALL AMERICAN CONSUMER. Weeding out Competition is the way of the ALL AMERICAN CORPORATION. So everyone pays for BroadBand that only some use (the Commie Way) Or pay for your own damn broad band. (the AMERICAN WAY) In the end vote with your pocket book.
IANAL, and I guess I really don't understand the law. I understand that new laws are required sometimes, especially when something in society/technology changes. However, why is a new law (such as preventing communities from funding local internet iniatives) required in this case? Are there not already laws on the books that describe exactly what a local government can spend money on? Are there not already laws that indicate proper procedure (like, if X% of the population is in favor of funding a community project, like garbage collection or power company, then it can be allowed)...
Why can't conventional laws simply be applied in this case? Some communities have decided to fund their infrastructure, others don't. This has been going on for a long time and I don't see the need to re-open the debate. Simply let the current laws do their job.
Or is there something about the current laws that I just don't get? (bear in mind that I'm not an American...)
Well for those that haven't read a good book on the fundamentals of ecomonics and government, wander on over to http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html
And read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.
Freely available WiFi is a good example of the government investing public funds in infrastructure that should be to the benefit of no one person or party.
And the Corporations have good reason to fear the government getting into their racket: control of publicly available information.
Corporations are paranoid about what information people have about them and about the way they conduct themselves. Un-filtered/restricted/censored/un-spin doctored information is bad for their imaginary "good corporate reputation". Everyone might find out just how bad a corporate citizen they really are.
I wish you all the best of luck getting some grass roots services started and running. You are in a fight for your freedom no less daunting that the Revolution of 1776.
I don't really give a damn.
I laugh at "patriotic Americans" pay $25 a month for dial up though.
The people cooperating to make their own broadband should form an official company or partnership. Therefore they will no longer be individuals helping each other out (i.e. Communists like the frontiersmen and women who founded expansion of the West - you milk my cow and I'll sow your turnip seed) but a proper "all-american" company. All they need is a red, white and blue logo incorporating a stars and stripes motif and they should be good to go.
Stick Men
They are, but so are the media companies.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I absolutely, positively, and totally detest the notion of everything and everything being a "right." Connectivity isn't a right because it's not something innate to you. We're not born with the ability to access the Internet. Someone has to build the backbone, the infrastructure, and the hardware to enable Internet access. It's not like freedom of speech, in which case we're all born with the ability to speak.
Defining something as a "right" which requires one to use the labor of others isn't a right -- it's saying that you should have control over someone else's property or work. It's like someone saying that they have the "right" to take GPL software and use it commercially without adhering to the GPL -- they're taking someone else's work and using as it they wish without consideration of the author's wishes.
If a community wants to implement a "free" wireless network, fine. Let the electorate of that community make the decision. However, don't try to sell the line that one has a "right" to something that they didn't produce. That is Communism, and not only does it not work practically, it's ethically and morally unjustifiable as well.
One of the missions of our local public library is to provide "free" (tax-subsidized) broadband access to the public. However, space and funding limitations only allow the county library system to provide 50 or 60 terminals, split between two libraries. The state and county also provide Internet access to public school students through computers set up in each classroom as well as the school libraries.
If the county decided to extend this service, allowing people cheap or "free" (again, actually tax-subsidized) Intenet access through the citizens' own WiFi-enabled computers, I don't see it as too much of a stretch. For many people in the county, the libraries and schools provide their only Internet access. Many of these people already have cheap second-hand computers in their home, but are unable to afford monthly broadband, or even dialup access - so the commercial ISPs would lose nothing from these individuals.
TFA even touches on this...
Forcing public broadband networks to ask permission from Verizon before offering service is akin to forcing public libraries to ask permission from Borders before checking out books.
If the commercial ISPs provided premium service, above and beyond the plain vanilla service that a community might provide to its citizens, then they would still be able to attract customers and earn a fair profit.
That's my take on it anyway...
Got to keep the loonies on the path
Bingo!
You said it yourself. Americans are lazy because that is what the WANT! After pulling more then 60 hours a work week, maybe being lazy when you get home is what they/we want at the end of the day.
As soon as joe sixpack wakes up from this lucid dream, the sooner he will see just how long he has been chasing his own tail.
Life is not for the lazy.
Because we take the word of the conglomerates as the word of God, that's why. People see a price tag and they just accept it as reality. Most people are uninterested in shopping around for better service, better prices, etc. It's just easier to plop the good old CC down and have it paid automatically every month.
When one is presented with a single high-speed internet access option (as happened to me in BOTH of the previous places I used to live), all one can do is choose the existing option or stick with dial-up.
Eight years ago, when I first signed up for it, USWests's 640k RADSL was the only option, and it was a HUGE jump forward from a V.90 modem connection (and the static IP was also a nice touch).
When I subsequently moved four years ago from one Minneapolis suburb to another to a townhouse which had TimeWarner RoadRunner available but which had no COs within range for DSL, the cablemodem option was a much better deal for me than dropping back to a modem connection.
People don't realize that 1500/256 is crappy service for DSL and that 5000/384 is just as bad.
When compared to what could bemade available in a perfect world, you're right. But those are very good compared to what we had previously).
People say, ooooh, Cable is faster than DSL and less money! They don't bother looking into the hidden restrictions and commonplace bullshit that the ISPs pull (such as UNLIMITED SERVICE - as long as you don't pass over our unknown bandwith usage threshold).
There was no such threshold when I was a customer with TimeWarner, and I have no such limit with my current Charter account. Don't map your negative experiences to the entire universe...
Some people say, "but there is no alternative." Sure there is... Become active and do something about it. Oooh, but that would take away from your time watching Survivor and The Apprentice. Perhaps the Cable company would even come and shut off your precious mind-numbing TV delivered drugs. Wah.
I DID do something about it -- that's one reason why Qwest finally corrected the DSL situation at my second residence. However, all things considered, I found my cable connection to be a better deal overall than the DSL connection, so I stayed with cable.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
There are 6 billion plus people on this planet, and the United States has only 250 million of them. As much as some people would like to believe it, you're country is not the center of the universe. A lot of us are UnAmerican, so your little jabs are irrelevant.
That's what communism means.
What happens to wiretap laws when the gubmint is your ISP?
If I have a contract with, say, my excellent local service providers North Valley.net or the venerable Sunset.net , I do so with the understanding that
A) I'm contracting with a private entity, whose existence is perpetuated by the charges I pay, and
B) that the company has every legal right to examine my traffic for any purpose whatsoever, though generally it's going to be only to diagnose performance problems.
Because of "A", I know that they don't have any particular interest in examining my traffic and/or violating my trust and privacy beyond "keeping me happy". If word gets out that the admin at either of these companies is reading customer email, and maybe even silently forwarding private messages to other staff, there'd be hell to pay in the court of public opinion, and in the company's bottom line.
But, if the "gubmint" does it, why, it's simply called a "security matter". Rattle off a few department names (FBI, CIA, City Police, State Troopers, whatever) and everybody turns their head silently.
In this case, I think I'm on the side of the companies, even though I dislike their reasons for doing so.
I do not want my Internet service provided by an entity with a vested interest in violating my privacy, whether that interest is in the name of law enforcement, anti-terrorism, or just shits and giggles.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Oh god, shut the fuck up. Seriously, cork it.
The entire country is run by a handful of firms that control most of the copper and fiber backbone. That's hundreds of thousands of miles of transmission lines in the hands of a tiny group of firms, so you wanna tell me again that the government is over-regulating things?
Don't use the fear of bible America to push erroneous free market drivel. It's unbecoming. If the local municipality gets demands from it's constituents to provide a low cost alternative and it decides to provide it, don't go demonizing the government..point at the private entities and ask them to get on the ball and bring prices down.
I would put that right up there with "activist judges." Whether you agree with the thinking of said "think tank" is directly proportional with whether you think the funding is legitimate. There are plenty of coins funding progressive thinking.
It's pretty widely accepted that the government has a role to play in providing roads and bridges. This is basic infrastructure that enables the rest of the free market economy.
Do the people making this argument also think that the government should get out of the "road" business, and that all roads should be privately run toll roads?
Broadband is the 21st century equivalent of a road. If a region doesn't have broadband, it becomes the economic equivalent of a third world country with dirt roads.
Adina Levin
SaveMuniWireless.org
As Mark Twain once said, "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics."
This quote actually belongs to Benjamin Disraeli
How is towns offering WiFi different from towns offering garbage pickup, or electricity, or water, or cable? In each case, the town decides to go with one company or another, but it could choose to provide the serivce by itself.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
As good as "free" sounds it's a very short sighed objective. Why would you hamper your Wifi network in the bureaucracy and complete idiocracy that plagues most city governments?
The reality of our governments, local, state, and federal, is that the people that participate in them aren't our nations best and brightest, they're running Fortune 500 companies not running for city council.
My two year old really likes "free" things too. But successful, educated, adults understand that only through free markets and sound business plans can you support the enormous technology rollout that would be required to get Wifi to the masses.
So, instead of trying to find ways to get our governments to do if for us, we should be brainstorming ways to start our own WiFi companies and start getting it out there.
Of course, we don't want the city governemts to roll in and take away our customer base. Vote down any attempt to establish a municipal wifi. Let them go back to making paper clip scrulptures or whatever it is they do all day.
Hi all. I actually wrote that article for my blog MediaCitizen. How it ended up on Progressive Trail is beyond me. I submitted it to SlashDot but, as with everything else I have written it too was rejected. hmmmmmm . . . . I'm pleased your reading it now and providing intelligent repartee. You might be interested in my sock puppet report there as well. We have just published a separate report debunking the lies of these coin-operated think tanks at Free Press. Check it out.
I am SO tired of seeing that term. The Right-Wing started it since 9/11. Now, EVERYONE uses it.
:) )
The only thing that IS "un-American" is NOT talking/communicating about things (issues, debates, ideas, etc.).
We have dealt with "corporate America" in the past and we will continue to do so.
The only thing, in MY opinion, is that the vast majority of people in government (not talking about workers, interns, secretaries, etc.) are rich... I am referring to the legislatures, congress people, the house, executive, and judicial branches. The vast majority of them are rich, again MY opinion... (don't like it, I don't care J )
THIS is a problem. It is a problem because those in power (most, not all) are only interested in keeping their power and money and therefore are not interested in the common man, woman, or child. Just look at the incredible level of poverty around the nation. MOST them are focused on gaining money from a variety of sources (corporate America, "Religious" groups, and Iraq) keeping the people of this country focused on "other things" while they do it. Again, MY opinion...
The Right-Wing used (and continues to use) the term "un-American", among others, to divert (and scare) the mass majority of sheep in our country away from the REAL issues facing our country. This is done to pass legislation that would NORMALLY not make it and to continue their greedy ends...
BUT using FEAR and BRANDING as tactics seems to be working. I am just SICK, and tired, of this CRAP!
THAT is all it is... Feces! (guano, excrement, whatever... You get the point, it's all POO!
However, don't try to sell the line that one has a "right" to something that they didn't produce. That is Communism, and not only does it not work practically, it's ethically and morally unjustifiable as well.
Ethics? Morality? PShaw - get with times, man.
If you see something you want, then seize it for yourself while the seizing's good.
Free WiFi community mesh networks are the future of the internet and make vulnerable and congested backbone connections absolete by providing a distributed and redundant infrastructure that is safe against partial damage or outages. In fact, it should be in the highest interest to national security to promote this technology.
o custworld.com
All it takes is everyone running a WiFi router that bridges between its neighbors. This is a one time investment rather than a paying monthly subscriber fee to a greedy and monopolistic ISP and it saves you alot of money!
Free WiFi community mesh networks are definitely the future of the internet.
http://www.firstmilesolutions.com
http://www.l
Most of Canada's population is centered in one of the following:
Vancouver
Calgary
Toronto
Montreal
With perhaps, maybe, a dozen or two dozen other semi-major centers. This gets a very large portion of the populace online without much expense from the telco.
I live in a rural area and have gotten the shaft WRT broadband access, so I am working with my municipality to make a wifi gateway available to get a broadband link to an area where I can link into a commercial DSL line.
Much of the lip service to "private / public" initiatives is politico code for dumping money into the telephone companies with little or NO accountability. If it did not make a business case to install broadband, it didn't get installed. Period, end of discussion.
Spite, however, is a powerful motivator.
..don't panic
Is cheap gasoline unamerican? We do, after all, have extremely low gas prices when compared to most any other nation in the world.
Is cheap telephone service unamerican? Psha. It's essential to operate in this society, so no -- it's not. And broadband is fast becoming the next major transmission media (even though much of it is based on the PSTN). The fact that I even have to bring this up on a site like this makes me sick.
Are cheap cars unamerican? Yes. They're called Hyundai's and KIA's and, as such, are made in Korea. Of course, if we are talking strictly about cheap quality, rather than cheap financials, then cheap cars are certainly not unamerican. My old chevy cavalier was the cheapest piece of crap I've ever owned. So no, cheap cars are not entirely unamerican.
Is free (i.e. cheap) open-source software unamerican? Psha. F you too, arse-monkey!
Is cheap broadband unamerican? Oh wait, you already got that one. Sorry about that.
I can go on...
01100111 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110010 01100101 00101110
There is nothing that "is good" all the time. Competition can be utterly destructive and completely out of place. Competition can also be good in a specific context. It's not a universal formula.
As a rule, when distributing scarce resources, compeition can be quite effective at lowering the cost of those resources. The problem with applying this model to bandwidth is that bandwidth does not grow scarcer over time. Quite to the contrary, bandwidth tends to expand exponentially. In this situation it's difficult to jsutify competition for a non-scarce resource. What happens is what we have today in American, an articifical scarcity is created in the name of the market. This is precisely the problem with a slogan like "Competition is Good."
They can come up with another way to make money. The market conditions have obviously changed for broadband. Sounds more like they just want big government to get in the way and protect the monopoly they think they're entitled to.
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to Happy Fun America.
Caution: Happy Fun America may suddenly turn into dangerous enemy.
Happy Fun America contains many weaknesses in its value system, which, if exposed due to their own radical, close-minded outlook, should not be mocked or ridiculed.
Discontinue visits to Happy Fun America if any of the following occurs:
*One terrorist attack
*Election of a Bush
*Threat of WMD by some foreign king who has the same color skin as you
*Innovation by yourself that may cut into an American corporation's profits in some way
*Usage of an American-made performance in any fair manner
If Happy Fun America begins to talk about WMD, forget it. It wants your oil and no amount of reasonable arguments by you or anyone else will stop it from taking over your country.
Ingredients of Happy Fun America include blind Patriotism, complete slavery to Big Innovative Corporations, hatred of communism, the French, the Arabs, and just about anybody who's not American, and utter fear of a woman's nipples.
Happy Fun America has shipped troops to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and most other nations in the world.
Do not taunt Happy Fun America.
Happy Fun America comes with a lifetime guarantee of Arrogance.
They have the least ammount of vacation days here and don't even try and have gaps in your resume when you didn't work in your life, or you will be "required" to explain and will be labeled as lazy. Whether that's right or wrong, you decide.
Poeple here are also obsessed with making money and acquiring goods. I know you'll say, well who isn't? I would answer that I have lived in other countries and it is definetly an order of magnitude higher here. People don't like to talk about money, just like they don't like to talk about sex but they obsess about it. This is the only place I have been where it is extremely not appropriate to ask someone how much money they make, it goes beyond the "I don't know you that well, why should I tell you" it is more of a "why, are you going to come and murder me, my family and my dog and steal it?" type reaction. It just shows even where people's hearts are - with their money. I would expect that in a poor country where money is to used mostly to buy food to survive, but not here, where money is to exercise the "right to be happy" and the right to "instant gratificiation" People need to buy, see and eat more and more things regardless of how much they already bought, seen and eaten.
I am always amazed at how even the poorest people still get double digit ammounts of credit cards so they can buy luxury cars, shop at GAP and get $200 shoes. I am also amazed at the rent places that tell people that cannot afford a plasma TV to just rent one and pay a monthly fee. The credit card companies want people to dig themselves into debt and end up slaving day and night to keep up with the fees.
I know that this is offtopic and that many of you will say, well then if America is so bad, "why dontcha get the fuck out and move to Canada or France.". I don't think this country is a bad country overall, in fact it is still the best one in the world and I love living here, it just that it has some bad "habbits" and stereotypes attached to it that I wish, through better education, those would go away too. That's it. Again, sorry for an offtopic, just struck a cord...
You know, I'm fine with my municipality not providing a service that competes with the local phone and cable (and therefore broadband) monopolies.
What I'm not fine with is that the government is opposed to any measure that will introduce competition into this marketplace.
To me, the thing that makes communism such a bad idea in a business sense is that it takes away competition, innovation, and any drive on the part of the service providers to provide a better service. (Unless, of course, they can find a way to use it as an excuse to make their prices even more exhorbitant.) So from my perspective, Charter, SBC, etc. look just as communist as government-provided utilities.
Un-American :D
:P
We were all just Stupid monkeys in trees flinging our excrement at each other. Then the chimps and other primates got pissed at us for flinging it at them and kicked us out of the tree's Now look were we are.
Stupid humans sitting around in public Flinging our excrement at each other and sitting on our PC'c conntected to this interweb thing flinging Virtual excrement at each other.
The more things change the more we fling our crap around
Coward? Coward! Thems fighten words!!
Yeah, but wait, I had a cable modem in the Northwest Territories back in 2000.
Odd, it's pretty damn good.
What does UnAmerican mean?
In a nutshell, we have Friedman essentially saying that among other things, having inexpensive and widespread broadband is essential to remain competitive. Countries like Japan and South Korea have encouraged this, since it is in the best interest of their economies. Us? We encourage the profits of the entrenched monopolistic telecoms.
Krugman talks about our health system, and has one astonishing statistic - that we not only pay twice what other countries with "socialized" medicine pay out per capita, with worse results, but almost half of our per capita is Medicare expenditures by the government. In other words, the US government already pays pretty same the much amount per citizen of what the French, Canadian or UK governments do - but we still have 40 million uninsured, and private insurance doubles our per capita. With worse results. This defies any kind of logic.
Why would a government promote policies that give worse results, while enriching private companies and special interests? Simple: our government serves those entities, but not the citizenry. I don't care about your party affiliation or ideology; spending more money with poorer results to benefit the few at the cost of the many is NOT something that represents American ideals. Anyone that says otherwise is simply ignorant or likewise beholden to special interests.
I'd blame the government, but the citizenry is who elected them. We get the government that we deserve.
jh
This is the same reason why Americans have crappy public transportation. Now I can watch as in 10 years our consumer internet infrastructure becomes a third rate shit hole.
---k--
</stupid>
Well that's what communism is. A community working together for the greater good of the whole.
In principle, it's a good idea, and it seems to work on a small scale. Example: You have what you need, your neighbor does not. So, out of kindness, you help him out. Be it a ride to the store or a free meal at your backyard barbecue. Your neighbor comes out a bit ahead, and you feel good because you could help him. Communism works here.
Expand it to a neighborhood level, perhaps through locally-funded private trash collection. Most can afford it without difficulty, but the old couple on the corner, living on fixed income, cannot. Nobody really minds that they're not paying their share, because the old couple regularly expresses their gratitude. Communism works here.
Now expand it to a government level. You have a great job, but you don't have any kids. The government decides you really don't need $200K per year, so they tax you $170K. The government decides that the unemployed single mother of six does need support, so they get what would otherwise be yours. You don't know this family, and they don't know you. No gratitude can be shown. The harder you work, the more the government takes to help the more needy. There's no reward for working harder, except for personal pride, but pride doesn't buy you a meal. Communism fails here, because no single piece of the community can see his effect on the whole.
Yes, but where in the NWT? I doubt that you live in an area where your nearest neighbour is 2 miles away (as it is in most of rural Canada.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Corporations are at least as arrogant now as GM was back then; and the Politicians are still ignoring what's in the best interest of the people.
The site which published the original topic's article also has some history on the GM quote, and the results from this arrogance. The article is here
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
Can't wait to hear that recorded telephone call.. seriously who is going to provide service when folks get hacked, accounts are abused, and bandwidth is torched in neighborhoods?
Got tech support questions? we'll dispatch a truck right away. It takes days to get cable fixed up. Have you ever tried to get a (cell provider) to fix a dead spot or poor reception area where you live? Now think bout a city sponsored low cost initiative.. You probably can get potholes in the road fixed faster than you'll be back online.
Just out of curiosity. Could you provide a link to a documented quote by a right-wing leader using that word first? I don't remember anyone using that term before Michael Moore and the far left wing.
Speaking as a freelance firefighter, I have to say that this competition-suppressing government interference has got to stop! Down with communism!
Oakland county, Michigan, the veritable center of the Detroit metropolitan area, recently started a project to blanket the whole county with free wireless Internet access.
http://www.co.oakland.mi.us/wireless/
L. Brooks Patterson, the Oakland county executive, is a very powerful man. Any media companies that try to block this project with anti-consumer laws will have to get by him first. The advantages of public internet access are so obvious. The more I hear about NMRC, the more they seem to be the devil incarnate.
This isn't new, it is normal. Every time a new technology that shifts the economic landscape comes onto the scene in the US this same thing happens. Broadband is nothing compared to what was happening with the railroad robber barrons or with GM managing to trash otherwise perfectly good public transit systems in cities with their PR and campaigning.
The most instructive example for those of us involved with the nets is the early days of radio and how our public bandwidth became anything but. Early radio looked a lot like the internet. And under the guise of fixing a couple of real problems with the system, became a corporate-only playground regulated to specifically prevent low-barrier public entry in an astoundingly short period of time.
7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
The poster should be a little more careful. This fight isn't about "cheap broadband". That's already available in some forms in some locations. This fight is about taxpayer-supported, free-to-the-public broadband, a different issue entirely. This pits the corporations against local goverment as a service provider. Historically, in the US, that is atypical.
Having said that, there is precident. It used to be common that the best roads were turnpikes with tolls collected. While that is still the case in some locations (primarily in the Northeastern US), most highways are now taxpayer-supported, free-to-the-public utilities. I'm sure there is a boardroom somewhere that would love to collect a tariff for vehicles on Interstate 10, but it hasn't happened yet. Publicly funded libraries are another example. The real issue is whether or not this service, broadband connectivity, is best provided publicly or privately.
I don't have an opinion yet. This is asking "Which is likely to be the least responsive, most pigheaded organization: a municiple government or a public utility?"
Yeah, and who is responsible for the powerlines and telephone line going to your house (assumption, maybe you are off the grid). In my part of the country (southeast,in case you're wondering) we wouldn't have phone lines or powerlines had FDR not initiated the REA and the Feds mandating that the phone companies provide rural access (thanks to Fed. subsidies). These things provided for the common good, so now big industrial giants can come down here and employ redne^H^H^H^H hard working southerners in their factories. I'm finally shaking the BellSouth monopoly thanks to VoIP and my cable internet. The phone companies got their monopoly status because the Feds subsidized them. Same with the railroads. No it isn't a right, but don't you think that electrical service is a necessity these days? Sure, you could live without it, but who would want to? I just don't want conglomerates coming in and proventing non-profit broadband. Or reasonably priced broadband.
In Finland, for example... you want to buy a digital camera. So you head to the price watch in MBNet, for example.
You can choose to pick the cheapest one (you see the list), or the nearest one (depending on where you live), or cheapest-nearest or the one you think is good based your perception of the shop.
Takes approximately ~ 10 minutes from start to finish of order, if you're in a hurry.
You can save anything from tens of euros to hundreds of euros (10 to 100s of dollars).
Why on earth don't you try to get some technocrats into your government. I thought that Gore made a good choice
That's not communist or communist-like. Education, health care, and pensions aren't property (strictly speaking). Restrictions on the trade of physical property would be communist. But these are social concepts and considered necessities in some societies, hence it's socialism to have the government control them (as in who gets what).
For things which are necessities or become ubiquitous the government regulates or takes control of them as public utilities. The internet is certainly at the level where some states might consider them utilities. Therefore at some point they should be allowed to offer them as such. Right now we're in that in-between stage; it's not as common as the telephone but it's getting there.
Developers: We can use your help.
The only solution is to take guns, and drive bullets through the heads of anyone associated with those "coin-operated" think-tanks. Eventually, they will run out of brainwhores for hire and will wither away. If those people have the sole function to subvert the Republic, they do not have the right to live.
Cheap is not un-American. Look at the products sold at Wal-Mart, in both price and quality they are cheap. What IS American is profit to corporate-america at any cost.
When corporate-america learns how to profit from municipal WiFi, then we'll have it. But of course, once corporate-america does that, most geeks won't want it.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
When providing broadband to a large area becomes little more expensive than throwing up a cell tower, we will probably see the cellular providers add broadband to their services and maybe even get honest-to-goodness price competition going. In any event, it will get us away from the wired monopolies.
First, you're an idiot. The sentence "That is Communism, and not only does it not work practically, it's ethically and morally unjustifiable as well." tailing your comment as if anything you saud before it justified such conclusion must be one of the most pathetic idioticies i've read this week in Slashdot.
Now, before I am modded down to hell as Flamebait, let us get to business: NOBODY is saying anyone has the divine right to broadband. On the contrary, legislation is being passed to FORBID communities to install their own infra-structure. Legislators bought and paid by interested corporations are legislating against the will of their own voters. The "right" involved is right for communities to decide their own fate, to decide what they think is a public service and how it should be implemented. Broadband is incidental, corporate greed and malice is not.
The jury is still out for whether 802.16 can be used for mobile phones, but it is exactly designed for wireless MANs.. Metropolitan Area Networks.
When 802.16 comes down in price substantially, and Intel and the other WiMax folks are working hard on it, 802.16 will (in my opinion) go from a useless buzzword to something that companies can actually use for network distribution.
When that happens, I have faith in the US Entrepreneurial Spirit, and I think new service providers will spring up, offering wireless internet access at lower costs than Cable or DSL. And the Cable and DSL operators will either drop their prices to compete, or will lose customers.
There's a lot of infrastructure with cable and phone lines... lots of physical wires to maintain, route, replace equipment on... and it costs money. Wireless distribution can be much cheaper. I predict 802.16 antennas will start to pop up on houses over the next 10 years, just like the DirecTV dishes over the past 10.
Take, for instance, MindSpring. A local ISP, that grew to become a major, nation-wide ISP, which is now struggling to become a player in the broadband market. I think we'll see similar life cycle with the wired broadband, and then with 802.16.
Or maybe a wireless provider will provide cheap 1xEV-DO or HSDPA. We can only hope.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
I've never heard so much crying and whining! You would think the government was enslaving people or using the guillutine on communists.
I want the government to wipe my ass for me, because it wouldn't cost very much. Mommy!!
Sheesh.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Maybe that's because they're not able to hide behind "state" or "national" security like government agencies can. I'd rather have a private business provide internet service to me because at least I know for a fact that they won't let the police hop on their network anytime without a warrant. How do you know that the government's ISP is providing you that security?
The government would probably treat your internet usage with the same level of scrutiny you have going into an important government building. I don't know about your state, but in VA there are a number of restrictions on basic rights when you go into public buildings.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
The first decade of 3rd millienum is staring to shape up economically like the 1920s. Take a look at the Red Scare, the maldistribution of wealth, ect. Then compare those tactics to the shit politicans businessmen are using now.
Another thing to point out is that the Great Depression didn't start in 1929, it was already there. The average American was making 1/2 of what he was in 1928 compared to 1919 and 1/4 in 1933. On the surface the 20s looked like an economic boom, but all the money remained in the hands of the corporations.
The fact that corporations are calling municapal services "communist" is no surprise, it's the same old tactic used that been used throught modern american economics.
Also to note, the administration during the 1920s was also extremely Republican... can we see a similarity.
who pays more in taxes, the rich or the poor?
perhaps we should stop taxing all rich people as much. after all, the poor use school systems, welfare, libraries, and other valuable resources paid for by rich people!
I know it would be prohibitively expensive, but you can live off the grid. Go solar, or wind maybe (or maybe you live in an apt. complex, in which case you can move). Sure you might have to give up A/C and some other things, but you do have a choice these days. The co-op can price itself out of the market. Check out http://www.homepower.com/ I believe that the gist of your statement is correct, but you do have alternitives, i.e. the government isn't preventing you from not using the Co-op.
What's un-American is to suppose that the citizenry has a right to these services.
It's not un-American to have the right to acquire or provide these services privately... but when you call the service itself a right, that's what's un-American.
They have a point. Now if only the Slashdot article heading were accurate....
...but is it art?
Uh oh, you just brought them up. I guess this discussion is over
Klein bottle for rent - inquire within.
Oh, I *love* that phrase. That's so cute, and so justly descriptive. Hello, Gartner? You just got a new nickname.
It's rummie's catch phrase, it's probably embroidered on his underwear. Are you kidding with this question or what?
When did the IDEA of communism become evil? Everyone working together for the greater good, no more classes, wow that sounds horrible. Just because it has never been executed in anywhere near acceptable fashion doesn't mean the concept is evil.
You can get DSL even in a place like Moosonee, in northern Ontario. This is a small town of 2500 souls near James Bay, surrounded by thousands of km of forest and shrubs and not much else.
You can also get DSL in places like Magnetawan (population 1300). Grab an atlas, look up a few tiny places in rural Ontario, and look them up yourself at http://canadianisp.com/ for yourself.
If you want broadband, pay for it. Why should your neighbor have to pay for your broadband if he/she doesn't want it? And it is really disengenuous to whine about corporations blocking muni broadband when you think about what municipal broadband represents: Someone else paying for your IP service. Why in God's name should a municipality be in the business of delivering IP service to you? It's tax day and I got hit hard. To hell with those of you who want me to pay _more_ because you can't or won't get broadband yourself.
Oh, and my guess is, after you get your taxpayor funded, government-sponsored broadband, you will whine when they censor you. You will have no other place to turn because after a government passes a law to put it into a business, it's next law eliminates all competition. Idiots.
It's our divine right to be stupid, fat, lazy, uneducated and to take my orders from corporations. The tree gubbermin sez so. We obey their orders in the name of freedumb and we will always cower in fear in some darkened coner every time the gubbermin sez 'boo'. So back off right quick, Mr. unpatriotic.
It sounds like a legitimate question. The first time I can remember it being used post 9/11 was by me, to describe the Patriot Act. Maybe I'm just good at avoiding the popular media, but I hadn't heard that Rumsfeld uses the term a lot.
History is unamerican!!!
:D
It's caused us nothing but trouble!
Down with history! No past is good past!
Advertisement "Eat at Joe's"
Coward? Coward! Thems fighten words!!
Isn't everything in NWT propped up by your federal government?
Are you crazy? Have you never head of McCarthy and The House Committee on Un-American Activities?
Go forth. Google.
"I am SO tired of seeing that term. The Right-Wing started it since 9/11. Now, EVERYONE uses it."
Good GRIEF people! I really do hope that this is a very good troll...
Have you *really* never heard of McCarthy and The House Committee on Unamerican Activities?
Go forth and Google, for all our sakes.
Well the original statement is actually false because the term has been used since before I was born and I wouldn't venture to guess who was first. It is one of Rumsfeld's favorite things to say however, if he got it from MM, well that would make it all the more ironic.
I've been to Hotels/Motels that offer FREE Wifi Internet access to customers .. I wonder what the big telcos and ISPs are doing to stop this rampant communism!
I wonder in Mesh networks could potentially eliminate all broad band providers?
For example, from Wikipedia "The House Committee on Un-American Activities grew from a special investigating committee established in 1938 and chaired by Martin Dies."
Good grief. We pay 5 times as much for 1/10th the speed as other countries like Japan.
Do they know what they're asking for? Censorship. Stretch your imagination a little: Farmerville, Iowa offers municipal broadband for $10 a month. Most of its people use the Farmerville ISP, and finally the [shudder] for-profit ISPs just give up and move on.
But gradually it comes to light that people aren't just using the Internet to Build Community. It's ruining the morals of the kids. The mayor's son was caught reading Richard Dawkins's homepage. The police chief's daughter was reading atheist propoganda over at the Ayn Rand Institute website. And Jerry--nice, quiet, little Jerry, who had always spent his hours haunting the library--was looking at pictures of NAKED WOMEN! He said that they were Renaissance paintings, but nevertheless, they were naked.
So, we've gotta crack down and do something about that. After all, any responsible ISP has an Acceptable Use policy...
I believe in an economic system where government sets the rules and enforces a level playing field. Not one where the government gets involved in providing services to its citizens that could be just as ably provided by the private market. It is not the place of government to use its coercive power, *forcing* us to pay taxes with the threat of imprisonment, to provide such services. Our state and federal governments already do this too much.
Far better for them to regulate industry such that competition is fair and level. That is the true problem. The RBOCs (baby Bells, legacy telcos) inherited a fixed asset infrastructure which was the fruit and legacy of a government mandated and supported monopoly, and now claim that that infrastructure is theirs and theirs alone. If our legislators had balls, they would have forced the Bells to split into two companies: infrastructure, and services. The physical network should be shared among many service providers, and the cost of maintenance/upgrades/improvements shared. Cable and Bells both had government secured monopolies to guarantee a return on the capital expenditures of building their networks, and it is incredibly hypocritical to now tell potential competitors "sorry, you have to build out your own infrastructure on your own dime and at your own risk; the cable/telco networks, built with the protection of government coercion, are theirs alone."
In a just world, the former government-mandated monopoly telcos and cable companies would be banned from any lobbying whatsoever, as their entire goal is to hold back progress and protect their existing infrastructure from becoming obsolete. Wireless poses a great threat to those with expensive physical plants, and they will assuredly continue to fight anything that permits competition.
What municipalities should do is mitigate the advantage of incumbant physical plants by selling, at minimal and fair prices, rights to install wireless nodes on public land/property. Municipalities should not operate those networks nor use citizen's taxes to pay someone else to do so. Provide a fair playing field, and let the market operate.
Larry
This reminds me of Timothy Eaton, famous Canadian capitalist. I'm sure his 19th century world-view would be right in line with the corporations on this one.
According to legend he drank buttermilk instead of water, because he would not partake in anything that was free. (not sure who he paid for the air he breathed, but I think it's a neat story...)
http://request-header.info
And as soon as little billy bob hooks up his *insert catch phrase gaming box here* he will be screaming up and down to get off the piece of S mesh network.
While I do disagree with some of the tactics used by companies to stop municipal wifi access (I happen to work for a large, unnamed corporation who just got a law like this passed in PA), I think people have to understand that this will hurt, not help competition. What incentive does a large company like Comcast or Verizon have to spend billions of dollars to roll out a high speed internet connection infrastructure when the city is giving it away at cost? They'll just lose money, and rightfully so refuse to enter the market. Instead of two powerful companies (the number gets higher when you include wireless access and power line internet, hopefully soon to come) and a few smaller ones, you'll all be stuck with 1 municipal provider. Don't come crying to me when your inefficient government refuses to keep the network updated with current technology, as they won't have much incentive either.
What we need is laws that encourage private investment in high speed internet access, not laws restricting municipalities, nor municipalites themselves taking action. That will make us a leader once again.
I think the article's author means a right as in right for education or right for health, not as in free speech. He has a point because at a certain moment in the near future, if you lack the necessary connectivity it will mean you/you son/you city will be unable to compete in equal terms with those who have.
You are still showing your ignorance: "A doctrine which establishes that someone has a right to the property or work of another is unworkable and immoral". Ok, except this is not Communism and never was. Not even in Stalinist Soviet Union this was spelled or worked out this way. It is hopeless to discuss what Communism was or should be with you Americans after you spent almost a century being brain-washed about its real and specially its fabricated evils. Maybe in a hundred years, after your teocracy comes and goes you will be able to look back in History and at least try to understand this issues without ignorant pre-conceptions that were never real. Don't get me wrong, I don't like Communism and would not like to live in a Communist country. But you just don't know what it is...
"Yeah, but wait, I had a cable modem in the Northwest Territories back in 2000."
1 wire 100 km long is cheaper to run than 10 wires 10 km long. It's easy to reach a rural minority when they're very firmly in the minority.
I ain't seeing it. No telco, cable or woreless guy has a broadband offering to millions of US residents yet. I can't speak for heavily urban, but in rural areas it's as close to SOL as it can get. You have your choice of crappy, restricted and very expensive satellite service or nothing.
If local areas want to put up wireless, I say let them, that's what local government is all about, to help the local people. If that means co-op electric power, county water and sewer, county trash hauling, etc, so what, at least it gets there. Same with internet connections, they are just another utility now, so either the private sector does it,and if they don't, local government can do it if they people want it and fund it.
I don't want private toll roads either, another potential major rip off.
Some things are just better when it's a muni doing it, some aren't, utilities are one place where it needs to be done, and coordinated and run at cost, not for profit. Utilities are necessities, not luxuries, and in modern USA things like roads, power, etc are necessities. I say we are at the point now that a decent net connection qualifies as a utility service. 10 years ago, no, now, yes, the future, yes. This is called the information age for a *reason*.
Can you even begin to fathom the kinds of monopolies and cartels that would form if our streets, highways, and expressways were privately owned (as some extremist libertarians advocate)? If you think the Microsoft monopoly is bad, imagine a Shell, Exxon, or Ford monopoly on the street to your driveway. Want to go to the store? Better make sure it's an Exxon affiliate. Want to go to work. Better hope to God you work for on Exxon affiliate (or pay treble). Want to compete with Exxon. God (or other mythological Dieity) help you.
That is exactly the current situation with telecommunications in the United States, and the FCC's efforts to mititage these monopolies through regulation will always be inadequate as long as the underlying infrastructure, which lends itself to natural monopolies in much the same way roads do (how many wires can you physically have running up to your doorstep, and how cost effective is it to have more than one?), remains privately owned.
Network infrastructure is for digital communicatons as basic as roads and highways are to transportation. It not only makes sense to have them administered as public works projects in the same way highways are, it is imperitive if you want to have any kind of effective competition with respect to the thousands of services that use that infrastructure. Otherwise, so hello to your local telco. They own access to your communications and, by implication, you, and you don't even have the power to elect someone new when (not if) they abuse their position.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
They are squealing like little piglets by this devastatingly truthful article.
These so-called "libertarians" are nothing more than sheeple in love with social hierarchies. Most of them are no doubt obsessed with their own IQ scores and masturbate to a photo of Ayn Rand on an hourly basis.
Oh, fear not, little hierarchy-lovers, you will be rich someday. Someday soon, we will all fall at your feet to grovel thereupon. Someday, someday, someday....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
People do not want to take the time to do the work required.
It's all about how you want to spend your time. Whether watching TV or doing research into the issues.
They are both valid choices, but they are not equal in any other respect.
The government should provide a service only if
(1) the private sector cannot do it
(2) the service is essential
Broadband internet access fits neither criterion.
WiFi SUCKS!!!!!! If cities put wifi, and people drop their DSL/cable thinking they will get a good service, they are sadly mistaken, AND will ruin the efforts of the companies to actually provide decent bandwidth. I have wifi in my apartment, and sometimes, the disruption is so bad, I can touch the wifi adapter to the AP, and STILL not get a good signal. The bands used for services like this need to be well regulated, and as of now they are not, leading to portable phones effectively blocking wifi receiption while they are in use. I've also used several different wifi adapter modes, and several AP models, they all have similar problems in any sort of congested area. So, which would you rather have, poor city provided wireless service, or decent (but for fee) DSL and cable service?
Rather than everyone focusing on "what they want", what we should be focusing on is property rights and monopoly in the classical sense.
As classically (correctly) conceived, monopoly means that competition is prohibited via coercive force. The state, for example, is a monopoly: it is prohibited, by coercive force, to compete with the state in the production of law, justice, protection, etc.
So, regarding these companies, the question is, are they monopolies? Well, if competition is coercively prevented then yes they are. However, this should not mean that we should regulate the market, but rather that we shouldn't interfere with it (e.g., prevent competition). Of course, the existence of a State creates an incentive force corporations to lobby for anti-competitive measures. Fixed costs, such as licensing and inspection, benefit large companies by making it more difficult for small companies to stay in business.
If you want better broadband service, you should work to provide it, not try to force companies to do anything, or complain. However, this shouldn't be provided by the State; if anything, the State's only role should be in maintaining law (I'd argue even that isn't necessary, and that the state is a criminal organization which should be abolished).
What you're really saying when you say that the State -- either the local, state, or federal govenrment -- should do something is "I want this, but I don't want to pay for it, and want to externalize the costs of producing it onto everything else."
Thus, I come back to the issue of property right. No-one has the right to use someone else' property without their consent; to say that they do is to argue for socialism, which (even in its "anarchist" form) is immoral and impractical.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
corporate campaign contributions. Corporations do not get to vote for a reason! So why do we allow them to donate the largest amounts of money to political campaigns?
Politicans care about one thing: staying in power. Why should they bother worrying about what is best for the people when its the corporations which give them the money it requires to win? Statistically the candidate with the most money wins.
What we need is to ban corporate campaign contributions altogether. If this was the case, politicans have no loyalty to corporations. (unless there is some shady dealings under the table which there no doubt would be, but at least it would be illegal and they could be held accountable for it!) With no bought loyalty to corporations you better believe candidates would give a shit about what joe public thinks.
After all, once somebody declares bankruptcy (at least chapter 13), aren't they broke?
The only way somebody should be able to be 'wealthy' after this would be if they have some hugely marketable skill, and if they do, what the heck is judge thinking by letting them write off the debt?
I don't read AC A human right
Isn't that what democracy is?
:D
The side with the most votes gets to decide what to do with everybodies money. You see this happen almost everyday our senaters and congressmen meet in the house and senate and vote to decide what to do with taxpayers money. Do we put in muni sewers or have it be privately owned/maintained? Do we have public funded roads or privately funded and maintained roads? etc...
People argue that what should be state or government services are things that are intrinsic rights or rights your born with but last time i checked the right to a sewer to drain away your waste wasn't a right your born with. It's a service that you can live with or live without people have done so ganted not to healthely in the past but have lived without none the less. Also right to health isn't a right your born with just as right to free speach isn't something your born with. It's either a right given by a Group in the nation you live in or not depending on the group or leadership, Dictatorship, Monarchy or whatever but it's not something that you automaticly have it's either given or taken by you or others.
Americans didn't have the right to free speech it wasn't given to us we took it when we took the collonies from the british and gave it to ourselves and called it a right. Freedom isn't free either it's bought and paid for by vigilance. It's not something your automaticly born with it's something given or taken depending on were you just happen to be born. IE in Korea the people are not free they don't have fre speach nor are they in china. It's not a right the leaders of china and korea allowed or gave to their people and they haven't taken it nor given it to themselves. The same goes for free speach they don't have it it was neither taken nor given and until they do decide to take it and give it to themselves they aren't free they don't have fre speach they don't have it to give to themselves or their children.
So the majority rules in this land and thats whats american and to say well im not going to fork over my money just because you all want me to. I think thats what un-american not people wanting cheap or muni wifi. Don't like it fine take the next flight out of the nation and don't let lady liberty kick you on the way out.
The city, State, Nation should do what the majority of the people want them to do not what some companies who aren't even given a vote in politics to begin with want them to do.
Majority rules love it or Suck it up.
Coward? Coward! Thems fighten words!!
I see where you are going.
You're saying since they didn't use the exact words, that they didn't use the concept.
I don't personally think that's a valid excuse, but whatever.
I think that having clearly spelled out contractual terms is worthwhile.
Yes, I agree completely.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
We're talking about Government putting together a wireless infrastructure because private industry can't do it or at least can't do it cheaper.
But there's no *Right* involved here... These cities are charging $20 or so a month to recoup their costs.
I don't see where you can justify the argument you are making.
Whether I pay taxes to fund internet service or a monthly bill, I am still paying cash. How much cash depends on how efficient the service provider is. You can babble about the efficiency of the private sector, but the last time I checked the various telcos are pulling in billions of dollars in profit every year. That profit is money that we paid for service, and that the telcos did not spend on said service. Besides, if you don't like the public service I'm sure the telcos will be more than happy to take your money. If all these laws against public service stand we won't even have a choice.
Generally they are talking about the freedom to do what every you want. The fine print is that they mean the right to make and sell you what every they want.
The best way to win converts is by being happy.
I too left coorporate america (for a lower paying job in academia) a little over a year ago. I mave never been happier. I lost twenty pounds (without trying), I am going to be able to retire sooner, I knocked almost an hour off my marathon time. Life is good.
I am convinced that preaching is not the way to convince people that their lifestyle sucks. The way to do it is to go about your life, and enjoy it. Every once in a while people will ask you why you are always smiling, let them know why...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
You are using the internet thanks to hippy government. The government started the internet since no company would take the risk to see if it would be succesful. X.25, a non-commie commercial network, lost.
You use free hippy roads, you leave your house and drive on toll-free hippy roads and buy things from businesses, increasing trade.
Let the govt provide ISP service, private corporations who will do things like screw with third party VOIP have necessitated this.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
How about this:
- Nearest city pop > 1,000,000: ~ 1,900 kms
- Nearest city pop > 500,000: ~ 800 kms
- Nearest city pop > 250,000: ~300 kms
- Nearest city pop > 25,000: ~200 kms
- Nearest city pop > 5,000: ~120 kms
- Your population: ~900 people
Is that rural enough? It's the town I grew up in. It's in Saskatchewan.Yup, broadband available.
Compare that with places in the US that are complaining they can't get broadband because they only have a few hundred thousand people. C'mon. Really.
Now, I'll admit that my parents who live on a farm several miles from town (and a half mile from a forest that you could walk through and get to the freakin' north pole only crossing a couple roads) can't get broadband. Yet. But they could if they were a half mile closer to town.
Yes, Canada is highly concentrated along the US border. But broadband is still available.
Perhaps you live in Alberta. It's more like the US. That might explain your lack of service availability.
I've commented before I find it amusing that many self-styled Libertarians who use the "S" word as an insult are high up in movements like the Open Source movement.
I've always found that weird myself. But I think it's largely because many self-styled Libertarians are not really ideological so much as they just want cheap shit.
This isn't neccessarily a bad thing. Gov't has long been in the business of providing infrastructure. Gov't builds roads and highways, water and sewer systems, police and fire protection, eduational systems. Part of the reason for building these things is that, even if an individual resident doesn't use that particular resource they still benefit from its effect on the community.
For instance, NYC is currently involved in an effort to build a new football stadium for the NY Jets. I'm not going to argue the financials of this particular effort, but in general these kinds of projects will have benefits for the wider community. For instance, the new stadium will also provide a much larger convention space. This means more visitors to NYC, more hotel rooms booked, more restaraunt meals, more taxi trips. That all adds up to two things: more jobs and more tax revenue. How many Gov'ts build a road so that a factory will locate there and employ their citizens? How many Gov'ts improve their school district so as to improve the property values in their community?
The question is not whether to do these things, the question is whether the benefit is worth the expense. If the Jets stadium costs tax payers $500 million and results in $1 billion in additional revenue and benefits it is a great deal. If it costs tax payers $500 million and only results in $250 million in taxes and benefits then it is a boondoggle.
By the same token, will the municipality building a broadband system recoup the benefits? Some people will use inexpensive broadband as a reason to locate their home there. More small businesses will locate there. Etc.
Heh, well thanks for pointing out that the Bullshit of the 50's is making a comeback with the 'pubes of the new millenium!
Results 1 - 10 of about 656,000,000 for american
Results 1 - 10 of about 123,000,000 for canadian
Results 1 - 10 of about 567,000 for un-american
Results 1 - 10 of about 12,700 for un-canadian
tells you a little something, i think
The fight over cheap broadband access has striking parallels with the fight for cheap access to electricity that took place between the Government controlled public works projects, such as the Bonneville Power Administration, and the private power produced by the monopolistic corporations during the early 1930s. The private power corporations used many of the same arguments that we are hearing againg today from the telcos including, "public access is un-American" and "the people that supprot this are communists", etc...
public vs private power
Yes, they are. And the only surprising discovery is that they're cheap whores. Legislators will vote against the best interests of their constituents NOT for a bribe large enough to tempt any of us, but for a measly $500 contribution to a re-election fund. They'll pass a law worth many millions of dollars to a special interest and receive only a few hundred dollars for doing so. And the laws they pass may even end up costing them, personally, or their immediate family, more than they received. They're not only cheap whores, they're stupid whores.
Call everything communism. This is their 'fire and brimstone' argument for everything. It's an attempt to win over weak minded
Gov. electric utilities= communism.
Gov. roads = communism.
Gov. gaslines = communism.
Gov. water utility= communism.
Gov. public works projects(damns,parks,etc)= communism.
Military ????Ahhhhhh , here you will hear the hipocracy by the groveling sycophants proclaiming how great they love the Communist Military ?
If you want to see where this leads, take a look at the lack of choices for telephone and television in Europe, as well as the heavy government controls they're able to impose on both.
To be american youve got to pay for everything, and not do anything for yourself, strange I though it was more about Life, Liberty and the Persuit of Happyness, not making coperate fat cats paychecks bigger.
Food for thought...
The US publishing lobbyists would say YES absolutely. In fact, they've been actively fighting against libraries (not to mention used book sellers) for several years. To them, the library system is just as "evil" as Kazaa.
I'm sure this paper took a page from Bully Billy's beat-up-liberal [minded] people and companies for trying to start grass roots [communist] socially conscious [bleeding heart] beneficial [socialism] work. The facts are irrelevant.
http://www.sweetjesusihatebilloreilly.com/
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Yeah,
I agree with many of the above posts in the simple notion that if people can save money doing it, they'll do it.
Now the issue of government involvement is a "whole nother" discussion unto itself, which issue many have herein tried to tackle.
But, crap man, when free email services started to offer more and more free memory, the "biggies" like Hotmail had to step up to the plate and offer more free memory for the standard user. When NetFlix started doing it's gig, Blockbuster had to follow suit, or go under. It's really as simple as that.
So I think that as the technological capabilities are developed and disseminated to the masses, Internet browsing costs SHOULD go down.
Isn't that what a market's all about anyway?
http://augustwestproducts.i8.com
Thank you. :)
;)
I haven't laughed like that in a while.
excellent reference source cited
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Please, you guys arguing without facts have to drop the notion that this is anything to do with urbanization levels.
s us/cps2k.htm )
2 -221-XIE/ 2004002/tables/pdf/44_01.pdf)
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_ 2_ sense_of_broadband.pdf
Canada, the US, and Korea are all about equally urbanized.
US, 2000 census: 79.2% urban population
(http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/cen
Canada 2001: 79.6% urban (statistics canada)
(http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/8
Korea, 2000: 77% urban
(www.paulnoll.com/Korea/History/South-Kore
Or you can simply go to this document in the McKinsey quarterly:
http://www.dalfarra.ch/nds/zusatzdokumente/2003
They use telco stats to compute the "reach" of broadband, that is to say, the percentage of total households that can be equipped with broadband if they choose to pay for it:
Korea: 95%
US: 89%
Canada: 87%
Ok, Korea has an edge there with over 19 households able to get broadband for every 18 in the US. That doesn't explain the difference in pentration rates, though, the houses that actually purchase broadband:
Korea: 54%
US: 13%
Canada: 25%
Maybe Canadians and Koreans can afford it more easily? Not likely:
Korea $17,800 - 2.9 - 22.5
US $37,800 - 1.8 - 30.5
Canada $29,800 - 2.8 - 23.8
The dollar figures are all $US equiv for "GDP per capita" the individual "purchasing power". The other two figures give you an idea how evenly total wealth is distributed. It's the percentage of all GDP in the "per capitas" of the lowest-income 10% and highest-income 10% of the country. All are from the CIA world factbook
Clearly the US poor (and probably middle-class) have a smaller share of their large GDP than in Canada and Korea, but it hardly outweighs having a 25% more purchasing power per cap than Canada and more than DOUBLE that of Korea.
I'll spare you the graphs and regressions: lower broadband in the US is absolutely not due to lower population density and certainly not due to lack of educated populace or money available in their hands. It's all about the COST of the product.
Broadband cost in Calgary is about $30 US per month. ($35 Cdn/mo DSL, $40 cable) If it is $50 US per month in the States, then clearly it's too high to really catch on.
Building a network, any network, be it roads, sewer pipes or broadband, requires a large upfront costs, long-term payback, acceptance of some risk, and very long-term vision; plus perhaps a sense that some of the payback may come to society as a whole, not the network provider, and won't be measured in dollars anyway.
Here in Alberta, both the electrical and phone networks started off as government projects, then were privatized AFTER they were mature and no "vision thing" was needed any more. But when the Internet came along we promptly invested $100 million (from 3 million people) in the "Alberta Supernet" and various other stimulating projects. They got results. Calgary probably has the highest broadband penetration in North America, over 70%; the only US communities in our league are around MIT and Silicon Valley.
The available evidence from many nations, not just these three, indicates that the level of public participation in the process corresponds closely to broadband pentration...and not many other factors do. Certainly not the excuses being bandied about on slashdot today.
Most Americans who have not travelled think the U.S. is the best country to be in. I used to think that way. I'm American.
But, after travelling to Asia for a trip, I've found that the American way often isn't the best way.
Here in Taiwan, I can get free wifi in most coffee/tea shops. In the states Starbucks charges an arm and a leg for it. Every hotel I've been into gives me free internet. In the States? Good luck. You'll get nickled and dimed to death first.
Heck they dont' even tip here. I love it. I used to think tipping results in better service. Not true at all. The service here has been excellent.
Then there's the American way of $9.99 + tax + fees + rebates + whatever they hide in small print. Here, the price you see is the price you pay. There's very little of that deceiving marketing nonsense you see in the States.
I know... this is something many of my fellow Americans won't like to hear. All I can suggest to you is, do some travelling, and then you will see...
eTrade SUCKS
Jesus H. Christ on a motorised bicycle.
Since when was a free-at-the-point-of-use open-to-all state-run and regulated education system or health service a free ride?
Why do you think that we europeans are communist-like or spongers?
I am proud that in this country (the UK) we see further that provate financial gain, we value each other as people, we value good qulaity education and good quality public health.
I pay through my taxes and National Insurance for my health care and those who earn less or nothing at all, and also for the education of children to the high standards that a civillised technological nation requires, not like the Pepsi/Coke-sponsored brainwashing that you Americans subject your less well-off children to.
That's not Communist or Communist-like. It's Socialist. I'm not afraid to say that, or to say that I support it.
It's not rocket science, it's really very simple: Communism refers to a centrally-planned economy.
China used to be Communist. It is now Capitalist. The American company I used to work for is now expanding into China.
China is not a democracy, it is a Totalitarian regieme, but it isn't Communist any more.
Luckily, now that am unemployed, I can still go to see my doctor, for free, go to hospital for free, if I need to. I don't begrudge this to anyone else. I don't begrudge this to any of the little children born to poor parents who would otherwise suffer in pain if this system was not in place, or the old people who have worked hard all their lives.
Anyway, this is becoming an idealist rant.
Stick Men
Oooh, but that would take away from your time watching Survivor and The Apprentice. Perhaps the Cable company would even come and shut off your precious mind-numbing TV delivered drugs.
I have not had cable TV since 2002. My wife and I decided that as we watched all of about 5 shows regularly* that this didn't justify the massive amount of money it cost us to get it. Neither one of us could stand "network" television. So we canceled the cable TV. Our cable company immediately retaliated by raising our cable internet rates by $20, but what the hell, there's no other broadband available where I live and it's still cheaper than paying for the internet connection and the TV. The Gamecube, the DVD player, etc all provide plenty of work for the old idiot box.
Whenever either of us happens to mention that we don't watch TV, people generally react with complete disbelief. Some of the people I work with have entire conversations with each other that revolve around last night's episode of "Survivor" or "Who wants to marry an Asshole" and have nothing else to talk about.
--
Them: "Hey, did you see last night?"
Me: "Nope. Don't have cable."
Them: "... Oh. Uh. OH! You've got one of those dishes? They can't get the local channels right?"
Me: "Nope. I don't watch TV."
Them: "Well the dishes are actually really cheap, they've got a good deal going on-"
Me: "No, I mean I don't watch TV at home, by choice."
Them: "... Oh. Uh..." (the next question I always half-expect is "What DO you watch then?"
Me: "Did you see the new pictures from the Huygens probe? The one that landed on Titan?"
Them: "What show was that?"
--
Much as I'd like to say I made that conversation up, it actually happened a couple of months ago and it's certainly not the first time I've had one like that.
What the hell is it about TV that makes it so difficult for people to just STOP watching it? I know there are a few great shows and yes, I miss watching them sometimes. But I see people watch the ads with the same fascination as the actual shows and I can't even imagine why. I guess you get used to being bombarded by repetitive adverstising in your own home. But why bother?
*For those curious, those were: Iron Chef, Robot Wars, Samurai Jack, Star Trek TNG and.. well, I can't remember the fifth. Might've been Steve Irwin.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
I don't see why its "American" for the government to provide sanitation services, libraries, roads, massively subsidise other industries, and provide free schooling, all of these things listed very much Socialist, yet it "unAmerican" for the government to ensure everyone has access to the internet, what is undeniably the largest source of information in existance.
No smoking sigs indoors.
"the rural spread of our population makes market penetration quite difficult, thus resulting in countries with higher population densities pulling ahead."
Well, since Canada has 1/10 the population and a larger land mass, they should be even more 'disadvantaged' and they should be using tin cans tied with bits of string.
As Mark Twain once said, "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics." He forgot to mention greed from the wireless phone services who feel threatened by anybody putting up an antenna for any reason.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
This is simply a question of brain(and I use the word loosely)washing. Most Americans have been indoctrinated into believing that economic freedom is un-American. That is to say, that private enterprise, noted for monopolistic, unethical, a-moral practices since the old railroading days, is the New Religion. In fact, it IS the new religion. If private economic interests in a quest for control of the world's oil can even justify a war against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, it is child's play to convince Americans that freedom in the form of Open Source, Free Software, and free or minimal cost for citizens' broadband access via witeless is un-American, un-patriotic, and against that old fart in the sky some refer to as "GOD".
It is not just laziness as one of the first posters suggested. It is pure stupidity, born of indoctrination and fear of "authority" in the form of be-suited, be-tied a$$holes, admired for their money and nothing else.
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
Munical broadband isn't any cheaper than broadband supplied by private parties -- you just pay for some or all of its cost indirectly, through taxes. TANSTAAFL.
It's the American way:
http://www.ustrek.org/odyssey/semester2/021701/021 701beckytransit.html
catalog and out-of-pring things they don't even stock on the shelf so that THEY can't even make money off of it.
Personally, I'm all for public libraries. I borrow and I buy and they aren't incompatible because what I borrow is stuff I'd pass on to a friend to read anyway.
Of course I buy all of my reference material and school books (I could tell you horror stories about revision X being identical to revision X-1 except for a few minor editing changes which move the page #s around.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Yep, the names change, but the parties are the same as ever.
In my co-op, total votes for the director who won was just over 1000. If you don't like yours representative gather the facts and start knocking on doors. You just have to talk to your neighbors, so it isn't like this is hard. 2000 doors in a month is less than 10 a day, you should be able to do that. A lot of work I will grant, nothing compared to trying to change a presidential election.
Honestly, I'll bet most of your neighbors know very little of the subject. The fact that you are interested and have a position (and presumably a candidate who you think is better) could be enough to change their vote.
This presumes that there are any private sector alternatives.
In which case, the private company would have to offer something more than the publicly offered service: static IP, or higher bandwidth, or some other services in order to compete. The availability of advertiser-supported free television has not stopped the growth of cable TV and satellite dishes.
That would be a reasonable argument except that in many cases those who could be providing the service will not - because it's too expensive to offer it - and want to prevent local agencies from offering it when they will not. Also, the phone companies are not innocent here; they have used various methods to prevent competition, including making it virtually impossible for anyone else to provide service, creating excuses and delays to prevent competition, and artificially inflating rates and costs necessary for interconnection, in an effort to cripple competitors.
Companies that are public utilities hate competition and will do anything they can think of to stop it, including rigging the laws to do so when they can.
Let's try a rephrasing of your argument:
I think most of us would argue that having free local roads paid for by property taxes is better than constantly paying tolls for every use of the public roads. Now, maybe a private company would do a better job for less, but I think collecting a flat fee from every property takes less overhead to collect the amounts needed than collecting tolls on a per-use basis. I think we all benefit from free local roads over imposing tolls for every road we use. Sure, those that used roads less would pay less, but I think the overhead would kill us and might make traveling to see others prohibitively expensive.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Telco's by name alone are enemies of innovation.
They fight every other company (usually by legal means) that tries to provide more upto date service for better prices via terrestrial lines. We have had to wait extra years for broadband because they took their sweet time retrofitting broadband technologies to work on their existing infrastructure. Fax machines were utterly outdated from their conception. Heck even the telephone their flagship product is underpowered and buggy in practice. All this to protect their profit margins. Thats real innovation there.
It's reserved for the Japanese, South Koreans, and others who live in countries that see the value of it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You are using the internet thanks to hippy government. The government started the internet since no company would take the risk to see if it would be succesful.
Actually it was a Defense Department research project. Yep, you hippies can only bitch on moveon.org because of the military-industrial complex.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
What is UnAmerican is attempts by corporations to take away the ability of US citizens to make democratic choices about public services.
Free WiFi service is no more UnAmerican than free roads, free police, public education, government subsidized nuclear waste disposal, government subsidized airports or air traffic control, etc.
In fact, these companies love government handouts (like the money that went into building the Internet in the first place), they just like to charge consumers for it twice: once in taxes, and a second time in fees. Well, that really is UnAmerican, not to mention reminiscent of what corporations would do in some other UnAmerican, unsavory, unmentionable political systems.
You really have to have an anti-governance frame to believe that. And that has to come from some essentially religious assumptions. Of the David Koresh caliber. Wrecking the governments' finances is not a rational approach to limiting government. It's irresponsible, and cowardly. Cut what you think should be cut, and honestly take the heat at the ballot box. Tax and spend beats borrow and spend.
Clinton/Gore reversed the growth of the Federal govt., provided the military that rolled over Afghanistan and Iraq, and balanced the budget. Remember Gulf War 1 when Cheney said you win with the previous regime's military? He was right, for once.
Bush has increased the Federal payroll by hiring a vast swarm of freedom/privacy violating goons - all the reasonable suspicions a principled conservative should have of the power of government are confirmed in this administration. Hint: no more habeous corpus. I don't recall him campaigning on a promise to get medeival on MY ass. Government has grown in exactly the wrong direction.
Bush et al have chewed up the military by invading the WRONG FUCKING COUNTRY without a plan to handle it after the end of major fighting. Wolfowitz recently tried to score some debate points with a reporter. He said, essentially, that they DID have a post-conflict plan, but the conflict has been ongoing. Hint: if things were going well the war would be over. Another hint: if things were going well, politically connected contractors wouldn't be scrambling to account for BILLIONS OF FUCKING DOLLARS.
In every case he's privatized security for the chicken house and cut a sweetheart deal with GOP contributing foxes.
Republicans never run on what they do. It's all themes and spin. "Save social security!" s/save/wreck Don't even use the word "privatize" for the plan to privatize it. Agh. Lying weasels. Hint: if you are focus-grouping your every word, you are going to hell.
Bush is responsible for a $40,000 birth tax on my son (his share of the Bush deficit so far) but Paris Hilton gets a free pass. I look forward to the emergence of a hereditary aristocracy.
I'm canadian, so i'm un-american Does this make me a communist!? --something to think about--
The only thing that IS "un-American" is...
You guys need to stop using "American" as praise and "un-American" as criticism. It's cognitive dissonance that prevents you from seeing problems with obviously American people and things. It prevents productive debate and allows overly-patriotic zealots to derail arguments by taking valid criticism as an insult to their nationality.
Of course, I am assuming that when you are talking about "America", you are actually talking about the USA and not America. Your neighbours to the north seem far saner.
First off, the libertarian in me says they are right.. local municipalities shouldn't be spending money on public wifi access. If community groups want to do it without spending my tax dollars, I say go for it.
That being said, what the telcoms need to do is provide a better service. Make it value-add. Oh, and here's a kicker, make it affordable yet reliable. Some telcoms have gotten that message already, and offer reduced speed (but fast enough to count) access that matches dialup.
And oh yeah, they should fight tooth and nail to stop paying the school access tax (whatever the hell its called) for municipalities that are offering access to their citizens.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
Exactly ! I love you.
Do any of you really believe the telephone companies wanted the internet to catch fire in the early days ?
It would have eaten into profits.
Anyways the phone companies could have created a commercial internet but didn't . They wanted a high profits on longdistance calls and wanted nothing to do with flat fees.
Why can't these large corporations use their money, not on lawsuits, but on actually running broadband to my house!
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
It's time we stop pretending a little socialism is a bad thing. Bring on the free wi-fi.
// This is not a sig.
nt
MOD PARENT UP! very true.
If the MPAA/RIAA/FBI/CIA/whichever interest with enough influence to press a button any make website inaccessable, don't you think they would?
dude.... MPAA and RIAA aren't government.
dolt.
Way back when, the telcos, when laying out cable, were forced, FORCED, to install cables into areas that made them lose money. This was to ensure equal access for everyone.
:)
Now they're being told "go away, we don't need you"
They were forced to do something and now they're being told they can't benefit from it?
I don't agree that the Telcos are evil because they're fighting for the rights they were given when they were mandated to install cables everywhere. Sorry, either the states were wrong then when they forced the telcos to do things a certain way, or they're wrong now for forcing the telcos out of business.
I like this method instead:
I set up a public access system on my router. Anyone can use my net connection, for free, no charge. Legal, justifiable, and (using QoS) not hurting me at all.
And COMPLETELY unamerican (HA! I'M CANADIAN!
Umm, good point. I thought that the poster was referring to its recent use from the last election, when it became fashionable to use it again.
Well, can you give me a citation with a Rumsfeld quote? If it's his favorite phrase there must be dozens of quotes.
If what the article is asserting is true - that the big carriers have politicians in their pocket due to big campaign contributions - then where are all the big corporations that have a vested interest in SEEING muni networks?
Companies like HP, Dell, Apple, Microsoft, Google. If my town instantly had low-cost broadband, more people would need computers to hook up to it. And those computers need OSes and software. And those users would go to Google to search and have mail. And all that adds up to a lot of cash for providers of these things. Isn't it logical that they be actively lobbying FOR the networks. Perhaps they are lobbying as well and these type of laws won't steamroll across the country like the article seems to indicate.
I just don't see how it can be as one-sided as the article portrays it.
This is simply a question of whether you want to pay a company for broadband support or be taxed by the government for it. America supports free markets, and government broadband would be poorly funded and poorly run. Just look at social security, medicare, welfare, etc.
Cheap Broadband IS UnAmerican!
In Sweden, Broadband pays you to use it! (almost atleast! :)
In the Soviet Union, signatures writes you!
Where I live (Alberta, Canada 255,000 square miles or 96% of the size of Texas),it is ALL hardwired. They put in a project called SuperNet. Any town over 5000 people gets a minimum 500baseT connection as a point-of-presence (4,200 connections in 429 communities) --13,000 kilometres (8077.8 miles) of fibre optic and wireless connections, including government offices, hospitals, libraries and schools, as well as home broadband--. Since the entire thing is operated as these 'municipal nets' except over a very very large area, prices for rural broadband got very cheap, very fast. There is nothing wrong with providing reasonable, publicly accessable internet service. 95 years ago, it was called an 'electrification project'. All rural communities had electric power and telephone service. Now it's broadband internet. I see nothing wrong with it. It's still run as a business by private businesses. The long term agreements make it clear that since they did not put up most of the money, private companies cannot charge 'last mile' prices for their service.
Someone should tell that hypocrit that outsourcing is unAmerican. Also, invading a country under knowingly false pretenses and setting up a puppet government is unAmerican. Also, using soldiers to torture prisioners of war and piling them in gay pyramids is unAmerican. Also, everything in the USA Patriot Act is unAmerican.
It's absolutely amazing what they don't teach to kids these days. It's that same FUD they want to cause now as then.
And I can't move to Canada or France, and I'm not even convinced that they are much better.
Americans are lazy in a different way.
My brother is in 8th grade. He doesn't like to think. I'm not making fun of him; he'd admit that it's true. He's lazy about chores and work, sure, but he does them all anyway because he wants to be able to buy games and computers.
Left to himself, the only other thing he'd do than work is play games. The games that he chooses to play are all reasonably active, yet mentally deadening -- he doesn't play GTA or Zelda, he plays Counter-Strike and The Matrix Online.
When I ask him to solve a simple math problem (50*20, for example), he refuses to think about it, and instead goes and looks for a calculator.
He's not stupid -- he's scored higher on some tests than I did -- but he refuses to think about anything if he can help it, which means he only thinks about things that are absolutely required for him to play video games.
He would rather spend twice as much money on a new computer than do a little comparison shopping, even though that would mean he could buy more games.
I've seen this pattern in others, too. My brother works for less than minimum wage, I'm sure (he's a paperboy), but he would rather spend far more time rolling papers than he would have to spend doing a little thinking.
That is why Americans re-elected the worst president that this country has ever seen, and that is why Americans are willing to pay more for broadband when they could get it for free, and that is why Americans vote with their dollars for the worst software the world has ever seen...
It's not because we're stupid, or physically lazy. We are intellectually lazy, and far too specialized -- even people who like thinking only like thinking in their field.
And because of that, we are a laughable failure of democracy and the free market. And my generation, raised on video games, gets to inherit it.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Some of your friends at least like hacking. My brother only likes gaming, and only the games that don't make him think.
I'm trying to get him to see Forrest Gump. "Stupid is as stupid does," indeed.
I have tons of things that I love to think about, and just as many things that I don't like to think about.
But politics, personal economics, and at least a basic understanding of various fields is a social responsibility for everyone. As it is, I'd actually rather have a well-educated king and set of arbitrary judges than a "jury of my peers" that understands nothing about the actual facts of a case, only which lawyer argues most passionately.
I understand this makes me part of the "intellectually arrogant" left, but I prefer that to the stupidly aristocratic right.
Hint: If you're ever a prosecutor in a technical case, just argue that the defendant kills/molests/cons babies/parents/seniors in some way or other. The jury will eat it up, because they won't understand anything else that's said.
If you want to make a difference in the world, become an educator, and be good at it. Try to train another generation of good citizens who like to think, and try to get them to be educators. If you can make it work, you might just start something which in 20 generations or so will be able to create a functional democracy, replacing our current disfunctional aristocracy.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
The left has a right to be intellectually arrogant. They are smarter. Or, they don't "do stupid", as in "stupid is as stupid does".
Here's a rough statistic I remember from somewhere:
80% of registered Republican voters agree with the following statement: "Saddam Hussein personally ordered the September 11th attacks."
30% of registered Democrat voters agreed with that same statement.
Since the statement is obviously false, and anyone with two minutes and an Internet connection can prove that, Republicans are statistically either dumber or lazier than Democrats.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
So municipal projects are an affront to free enterprise, while government-sanctioned monopolies aren't?
There are electrical, sewer, and heating co-ops and they are perfectly legal. Seems its just a problem when they are Government owned.
Party at O'zorgnax's Pub! Buy me a Slurmtini aye?
The first problem I have with publicly-provided anything is that it quickly becomes an "entitlement". How long before the public is expected to provide computers to those who cannot afford them in order to access the broadband services they cannot afford, and pizza and pepsi to the people sitting in front of those computers, (if not free, then at least at reduced rates, so the big bad pizzerias and soda companies aren't taking advantage of the users)?
(To those who argue for the economic benefits of such access -- any entity who can realize an economic benefit/advantage from broadband access will find, and probably has already found, a way to do so. For all the people who will not and have not, cheap broadband, publicly provided, is just a faster delivery mechanism for their IM and porn.)
I look at this from a libertarian-leaning perspective: I want the government to do as little as necessary, and otherwise stay the hell out of my life. Their authority for public safety, military defense, and the like, I will accept. All other activities are beyond the scope of what they should be doing.
As an example, the officials on the city council in my town have condemned and purchased property and wish to develop an industrial park for the city's "economic benefit". this purchase was made 15 years ago, and the land is still undeveloped marsh bottom, unsuitable for anything but mosquitos. By contrast, a private developer (a successful businessman from a neighboring community) purchased another large parcel a year ago, and his development of the industrial/business park is proceeding quickly and by all observations, successfully -- something the city has not been able to do in a 15-year period, with public funding available to it. The city project has become a money pit, and the council is a laughingstock. Bottom line -- public agencies' projects rarely, if ever, succeed in any equivalent manner to those of private entities with a business incentive to do so.
In the interest of full disclosure, I own and operate a small ISP in this community. We have, at our own expense, built a successful wireless broadband network, serving a couple hundred customers. We charge rates in the neighborhood of $35/$50 residential/business per month, a rate in keeping with DSL and Cable in neighboring communities. We could charge significantly more, as we have no local competition offering Cable Internet or DSL, but we live and work here, and believe in treating our customers as fairly as possible (quaint concept, huh?)
As a frame of reference, our rates are equal to or less than those of broadband providers in neighboring communities. Our community, being a little distant from those more urban centers, endures other, far more significant, price differentials, due mostly to what are claimed as "transport costs" from those areas. For example, we pay $.20 more per gallon of gas, approx 15% more for groceries, 20% more for prescriptions, and 10% more for trash pickup. All in all, I believe our customers are getting a real bargain from us.
Actually, considering the success we've had, if we were to procure startup funding, we'd be more than happy to do the same in any number of small, and even midsize, cities and towns. The payback in terms of gratitude and customer loyalty is immense, and we can make a system profitable with as few as 150 or so subscribers. In a market with far greater subscriber numbers, it's very possible to reduce rates even further, while maintaining profitability.
I agree that the large telco and cable effort to retain their stranglehold needs to be broken, but the communities would be better served if the public bodies were to offer the opportunities to businesses like ours, rather than take it on themselves, otherwise, where is the incentive to run an efficient, cost-effective operation? Who among you has ever known a public project that came in on-time and under-budget? (Don't even get me started on the perks and public retirement benefits for the people empl
"Is Cheap Broadband UnAmerican?"
Unfortunately hitting up taxpayers to pay for stuff you think is your right to have has become the American way since the days of FDR. Nothing is free as in beer. If your getting something free, ask yourself at whose expense, and did they give this to you freely, or did the govt. force them to give it to you. The article talks about draconian laws, not bothering to ask whether it is right to force tax payers to pay for non-essential items for others.
Vote for Pedro
Yeah, it's the density of our voters that's the problem.
Here's a story just nine Slashdot posts later titled "Comcast sued for disclosing customer info". Dunno what planet you're from but it seems to me that it's the private companies such as ChoicePoint that have been playing fast and loose with sensitive data.
Think about it. .
State sanctioned, state protected monopolies allowed to bleed the public with over-priced, shoddy products? There's nothing competitive about a handful of giant psychopathic corporate entities holding all the cards. --Though, also in practice, this is a very American trend and has been for the last hundred years or so.
Big utilities which do zero investment in maintaining the infrastructure while the fat cats at the top bleed the wealth into personal holdings? Yep, that reeks of the essence of Foul Communism as well! (Only the powerful at the top of the structures get to eat something other than boiled cabbage.) Except in the West, we call it the American Way!
Though, to keep the illusion up and running, there's this sort of slush fund. About 20% of the wealth is allowed to trickle down into the middle class, and everybody is allowed to buy fun toys, like CD players, televisions, video games and toxic food and expensive drugs for a bunch of made-up diseases (which are often the result of toxic foods). --That way, things sparkle in the West and consumerism becomes a numbing way of life which appears to be a form of freedom, but which in reality sucks the spirit, brains and life out of people so that they don't realize that they are just a bunch of glorified boiled-cabbage eating worker drones. With CD players and funky running shoes.
Communism with a twist of lime!
If you want real freedom, you gotta define it yourself. That part is actually quite easy. Seeing the box you're in is the hard part. Most people are happy watching their televisions and eating their Taco Hell foodstuffs.
If you manage to break away from that, then you begin to grow in amazing ways which are barely even conceivable until you start the actual process of growing. Awareness is funny that way. Until you have awareness, you cannot understand awareness; awareness needs awareness to be understood. This is where the much-abused concept of faith comes in.
Take the leap. Unplug from the American Way of life, start to direct your own mind, and just watch what happens! It's better than Star Trek, Quake, McDonnald's, Gap clothes, Disney and a New Car all rolled into one!
(Oooh. I've never done that before. That's stunning. I think I just defined the Meaning of Life for a hundred million people in six corporations or less.)
-FL
I did not understand a single word in this article, except America and American. Was this article even written in English? I have a college degree, and have never even heard some of the words used in this article. Must be that Brittish English I hear so much about rather than good ol American English!
I would think that whatever Americans do is, by definition, well...American.
You got it right. Socialist is like Sweden, France, Spain, which all seem to be great places to live in.
Google "rumsfeld says un-american" and "rumsfeld says un-american. I think the first page is enough but there are dozens there if you want to read them all.
Communism = Government screws you
Capitalism = Companies screw you
But you mentioned he uses it often, and you implied that he often uses it innacurately. but now you point me to a single instance where he used it accurately. Doesn't do much to prove your assertion does it?
But you mentioned he uses it often and you implied that he often uses it innacurately. Now you point me to a single instance where he used it accurately. Doesn't do much to prove your assertion does it?
What exactly does it mean to be un-American anyway? As opposed to being un-Norwegian or something?
The whole theory behind privatisation is that it is supposed to take care of problems better than the government can. However, when it comes to technical innovation such as the Internet, local communities should step in and take care of the problem when private companies fail to innovate. Obviously, they must do it in a way that allows private business to compete.
It isn't good for the government to prop up business such as Qwest by granting them monopoly rights to offering phone or internet service.
Call it what you want, it was subsidized by the govt.
YSL,C (your side lost, Cletus)
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
Having corporations writing laws and having their puppet politicians pass them is in a way part what Thomas Jefferson was talking about when he warned people against the corporate aristocracy:
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
Thomas Jefferson, 1814
Alexis de Tocqueville later warned of much the same.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Communism and Marxism already have failed. There is not one purely communist or Marxist nation left. As for capitalism, it isn't failing us. What is failing is corporatism, the corporate version of capitalism, which is a poor image of Adam Smith's capitalism. Socialism isn't doing much better.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Corporatism is a better word. Even better is the phrase "Corporate Aristocracy", which is what Thomas Jefferson warned against in 1814.
Telecos are required to allow other ISPs access, and though cable companies may not be required to lease access to other ISP, at least some do. That's how I get my cable access, my ISP is Earthlink who gets their access from Time Warner in my case but they get it from other companies in different places, Charter Cable in some places for instance.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You typed: American's.
Putting a apostrophy there isn't a spelling or a grammer err. It is a singular possesive.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Homes do perform, they perform as a means of shelter. While some cities may have a glut of housing, some of those units are in either undesirable condition and/or in undesirable locations. Homes, er housing can create wealth. Though it may be slow most homes the owner lives in appreciate in value. Meanwhile unless the morgage is an ARM, adustable rate morgage, the cost of the shelter provided doesn't increase year after year whereas rent normally does. Then the interest paid on said morgage is tax deductable. Then there's rental property, unless it was a bad deal or you have the money to wait for better market conditions, the rent collected should cover the morgage. Of course the borrower has to make sure they don't get over extended in borrowing.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It all comes down to the philosophy of capitalism. I'm not an expert, but capitalism supposed to give benefits when everyone competes with everyone else thus pushing everyone to give a better technology at better prices. The flaw in that is if everyone pretends to compete and instead creates an invisible cartel thus creating a monopoly by many firms. As you can see, this is already happening in cell phones and broadband market.
Though maybe not first world, Korea is a capitalist country. One reason they have done such a good job at broadband and cellphone access is because they didn't have much infracture to begin with. Way back when, it was more expensive to put in stuff like phonelines than it is to now put in cellphone towers. But even here in the US some are getting rid of their landline phones and using strickly cellphones, as will I, fact is it's cheaper. My cellphone plan is $10 cheaper than the landline is. This maybe best seen with college students. Depending of the service they get, they may pay less for their cellphone plan than what a landline may cost, then with most plans there's no long distance charges as with mine.
This isn't to say nothing will happen in the financial markets, I have a feeling and in a way a slight hope that something will happen. What is going on now isn't sustainable! But what most call a capital market or economy isn't one, it is a corporate market controlled by a Corporate Aristocracy.
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
FalconThomas Jefferson, 1814
Should there be a Law?
the two biggest asian countries are building markets with each other and in autralia/new zealand, eastern europe, south america...maybe soon they won't care if the U.S. flops or not
Others may not care, but China and India both care what happens in the US. China exports more goods to the US than to anyone else, and with that money they buy US notes. China is currently the biggest holder of US Treasury paper in the world. And though I don't know for fact, I believe India holds more than most of the rest as well. Further much of India's booming economy is in services which US businesses are using.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Being stubborn can also mean being alive. Several years ago I had an accident and while in a coma the docs told my family it'd be a miracle if I lived. NOT!!! But that's another story. Though I don't recall if they all said it some of the therapists I had said I survived only because of stubborness. Even with stubborness though, a person can get burned out.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Are you a Randian? How about an Objectivist? I started to read one of her books, is it "Atlas Shrugged" with the architect? But I didn't finish it, I may later. My sister used to be a Randian, read and loved almost all of her books, but them she found out about Objectivism and that turn her off as she's Christian. As for myself the books I read and loved were Adam Sith's "On Wealth of Nations" and Thomas Paine's or TomPaine.com, "Common Sense" and others in a collection of his. A new one I loved is "Natural Capitalism.
FalconShould there be a Law?
the owners attempt to continue the fiction of $200K worth.
See, I'd say that was a bad deal, the buyer trying to buy and ending up paying more than s/he can afford. Well not really a bad deal so much as a bad decision. As far as I'm concerned, that's a big problem in the US, people loading up on credit thus living beyond their means. The rat race, the Jones trying to have more than the Smiths. Too many people simply don't live fiscally responsibly.
neighborhoods with rafts of unemployed people
Yeap, that's outsourcing for yea. Corporations outsource their labor to save money, but then unemployed and underemployed people can't afford to buy which hurts those businesses. Have to admit though I don't think that it's all negative, as far as I'm concerned people in the US are too consumer oriented and buy things they think will make them happier, which it really doesn't so they buy even more. Instead people should save and invest more and cut down on consuming. That's more sustainable than what's going on now.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Right. We also have to realize that the strict definition of capitalism is not about making the most money. It's about making a good product. It's about making a good product that is better than the competitor's product and then letting the consumer decide who wins. This is not how a lot of corporations work these days, twisting the legal system into a bundle of knots in order to force decisions on consumers and causing them to choose inferior / cheap products that they have to replace within an essentially short period of time.
This is corporatism, and is what the Corporate Aristocracy wants.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Well, unfortunately your anecdote of failing personal investments has been duplicated millions of times across America. This is how the stock market now works ... for each new stock millionaire, you have to have 1000 people take a loss of $1000 each. I wish you luck with your investments, but I equally wish that you don't add to the housing bubble.
I won't be getting into the real estate business anytyme soon what with not working and my credit rating not being good as some healthcare providers claim some bills haven't been paid. The trust might buy the building I live in now, I live in a quadraplex, from my sister. It should provide more than enough income to pay my expenses. Obviously I live in one unit so I won't have rent to pay, and two of the other 3 units have been rented to the same people over a long term. Eventually though, within a few years, I want to be able to buy my own multiplex. I'd like to within about 3 years because within 4 years I plan to go to Brazil with a study abroad program for year and would like to have the income to afford it.
FalconShould there be a Law?