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Net Neutrality: Lobbyist McCurry Raises Ire
BBCWatcher writes "Mike McCurry, former Clinton Administration Press Secretary turned telecommunications industry lobbyist, reacts to his many new critics in the battle over Net Neutrality: "There are millions and millions of good Democrats who get paid by corporations," he said, "and I think every time we bash corporations, we just turn off people who are in the middle of the political spectrum." Among others, top political blogger Markos Moulitsas Zúniga responded swiftly to McCurry's latest assertions: "What a dishonest piece of sh[..] McCurry has become. This is an anti-corporatist jihad, is it? Is that why we are aligned with Microsoft, Google, and eBay? And when did the Christian Coalition and the Gun Owners of America join the 'left'? What a pathetic attempt to marginalize those of us working for net neutrality....McCurry is now a sad, sad, pathetic man.""
#1. Yes, DailyKos is a Democratic site. But at the same time, the DKos community is pretty much committed to lessening the influence of a whole wide variety of interest groups from the political process and increasing the power that the individual citizen has, on both sides of the aisle. From Unions straight through to Corporations.
#2. Generally speaking, wider "left" political blogsophere supports net neutrality very strongly. And the reason for that, is actually a traditionally centrist viewpoint, namely in order to maximize the effect and forces of a free and open market. Eliminating net neutrality is a great threat to putting a full stop to innovation in business and technology on the internet. It stops new players and technologies from taking those first baby steps out.
You have one area of business with high barriers to entry and a few companies, and you have another area of business with much lower barriers to entry and new companies forming every day?
Which is the important one to protect here?
What a dishonest piece of shit McCurry has become....McCurry is now a sad, sad, pathetic man. Completely stripped of all goodwill he had built over the years....McCurry, lying sack of shit that he has become....
Don't hold back on the character assassination there Markos. However, if you read through his blog post it seems to be pretty well deserved. McCurry does seem to have run out of arguments on the issue in question and is now resorting to "Well, these people must just be anti-corporation lefties", somewhat ignorant of the fact that many corporations are seriously against all this. It would be hugely detrimental to Google
"The internet has always had rules. One of those rules is that even if you own a pipe, you're not allowed to tell people what they can put through that pipe. You can't block web sites, you can't say 'don't stream video', and you can't dictate what people and can't say. You do have to pay for the pipe you use; Google pays millions a month on one end, and millions of consumers pay smaller amounts ($20-$60) a month on the other. But no one can tell you what you can do with those pipes. It's very much the opposite of cable TV. There are no gatekeepers, and that's by design. This has created a highly competitive marketplace."
This is the way the internet works, and even if the Telcos get what they want the internet will definitely not work like this. There is simply no other way. It will simply collapse and people will bypass the telcos and go their own way, or the internet in the US certainly would be non-existant for most ordinary citizens while other countries surge ahead. Anyway, one can see why the telcos are reacting badly because in the long-run they are simply on a hiding to nothing, but it really doesn't matter one bit how much they spend. The only certainty in life and in business is change.