Slashdot Mirror
Nancy Pelosi vs. the Internet
selil writes "A story popped up on the ChicagoBoyz Blog. It says 'Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who would like very much to reimpose the old, so-called, "Fairness Doctrine" that once censored conservative opinion on television and radio broadcasting, is scheming to impose rules barring any member of Congress from posting opinions on any internet site without first obtaining prior approval from the Democratic leadership of Congress. No blogs, twitter, online forums — nothing.'"
Does politics bring in the idiots from the streets, or does politics create idiots from sane stock? Discuss!
Belief is the currency of delusion.
I'm a dedicated political centrist. This sounds so fanciful that it smells of bull-shit spin and politicking to me.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Now that the largest group on my.barackobama.com is protesting his FISA flip flopping...
Recently Slashdot has posted a few articles from blogs as if they were somehow authoritative. I know that Slashdot "editorship" is a frequent source of ridicule, but this is poor form that just isn't necessary. A blog should never be a "source" -- do just a few minutes of research, find the actual sources, and post an article about that... if it actually crosses any kind of threshold.
Forgot to mention - any IT guys looking for work in the Washington, DC area should write to Mr. Capuano and tell him you know how to set up a video server. Seems this all started because the House has lousy IT.
I guess to some people, anything left of Reagan is left wing. I've never had the impression Slashdot was in any way left wing. Slashdot is and always has been centrist/libertarian. Try mentioning that the government should raise taxes to cover more social programs and see how fast you get modded into oblivion. Or try saying we should seize the property of the rich and nationalize it. Left wing/communist my ass.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Liberal, Democrat, Republican, Conservative it doesn't matter who tells you what the corporate agenda is. The corporations are still in charge.
They are the "elite" the "haves" that like to make your decisions for you..or rather make your decisions for their profit.
Anyone that supports the current system of corporate rule are the enemy no matter what party they support. Most people won't believe this and that is why they are winning the class war. Unfortunately the bulk of people like to have someone else think for them which is why democracy won't solve this problem.
This actually looks like an attempt to loosen the restrictions on representatives. http://techdirt.com/articles/20080708/1602521624.shtml
It's the fable from the bible.
When all of the trees were picking a king, they asked a fruit tree, but he said "I'm too busy making fruit"
They asked a shade tree, but he said "I'm too busy providing shelter for animals"
Then they asked the thorn bush and he said "Sure thing, jerks. I got nothing better to do" and with his newfound royalty, he promptly burned the other trees to cinders.
The efficient, productive members of society are too busy doing their jobs to devote their time to sit in endless, pointless council meetings, knock elbows with the fat stock, and climb a social-political ladder of vipers. We barely have time for our friends, much less coddling those who would so quickly turn on us as enemies. On a much smaller scale, take a look at typical office management. The man who [might know something but] can't do anything himself is the one in charge over everything.
Are there exceptions? Of course. It's hardly a rule if there are no exceptions.
tl;dr version:
Those who can't do, teach.
Those who can't teach? Politics!
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
The market did decide and Air America is going out of business. The liberals didn't like this and are trying to use the "Fairness Doctrine" to force liberal ideas on NPR where they are not listened to.
I'm not not licking toads.
Fraud Alert: The Slashdot story seems to be without support elsewhere. It may be a paid Slashvertisement.
Also, if you read the PDF of the letter mentioned, it is about technical limitations of U.S. government support for internet access. The rules proposed seem very sensible. The letter says NOTHING about Nancy Pelosi.
I was genuinely interested in seeing if anyone could reference actions attributable to the fairness doctrine that effectively suppressed any point of view. According to the wikipedia entry, the Fairness Doctrine:
merely prevented a station from day after day presenting a single view without airing opposing views. The Fairness Doctrine had two basic elements: It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters. Stations were given wide latitude as to how to provide contrasting views: It could be done through news segments, public affairs shows or editorials.
It seems likely to allow broadcasters freedom to espouse any point of view they wish while simultaneously giving some access to minority or marginalized points of view, and I'm having trouble imagining how this would play out in such a way as to bury any point of view, conservative or otherwise.
But I'm aware the law of unintended consequences has an amazing reach, and it does say the Supreme court found it had a "chilling effect" on speech. I just don't understand the mechanism and am unfamiliar with any specific case, so I figured I'd *ask* for incidences where the Fairness Doctrine was abused to the suppression of conservative views.
Tweet, tweet.
It seems to me that the growing consensus is that neither party serves the interests of the average American, possibly due to the variety of information available on the internet, along with the more blatant corporatist leaning from the democrats we've seen over the last decade.
Seems that the time is right for a 3rd party to step up to the plate, but it would require a really charismatic candidate to pull it off.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
many of their supporters aren't exactly the most critical thinkers you could hope to meet. They aren't preaching to the choir - their audience is you. Don't look at me; I voted Libertarian ...
/LabMonkey09
Oooh, I know: Mr. Unelectable#1, Mr. Unelectable#2, and Mr. Unelectable#3!
Has it ever occurred to anyone else, that the "third" parties are a ploy by the two big parties to siphon-off people who demand change, into irrelevancy, so that the big-two aren't forced to change at all to accommodate these 'extremists'?
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
Someone named Kim Strassel posted her opinion on WSJ?
The East Valley Tribune?
They seem to re-cycle the same nonsense. Certainly Nancy Pelosi, who seems to have no technical knowledge whatsoever, may have said something she shouldn't. But there is no reason to believe that anyone is planning a sweeping change of the rules, and there is no reason to believe that anyone wants that.
The PDF of the letter mentioned in the Slashdot story talks about rules that seem reasonable, and seem to be close to the rules corporate America follows.
I don't know. I think both political parties in power are terrified of the internet. There has been an explosion of ideas and debate. Eventually the best ideas will be competing directly against mainstream television bias. The rise of Ron Paul, even to the extent he didn't win, is a *phenomenon*.
I think we will start seeing more and more people voting out of principle for third parties. Congressional approval ratings are at 9%. It's just a matter of time of working better choices onto the ballots. People vote for their guy only because they hate the other guy more.
I don't see any reason why the Libertarian Party can't get 25% of the vote without dismantling either the Democrats or the Republicans, just siphoning off from a compromise of civil and economic liberty. Every district is becoming more and more politically polarized through time. All you need is a couple Greens and a couple Libertarians to squeak into office to start a big tide toward voting in more of the sames. I think there is enough dissatisfaction that people like Kucinich and Paul can even attract votes from people on different political ends given run of the mill bad quality politicians.
If the mainstream parties weren't terrified of people like Ron Paul they wouldn't spend so much effort trying to marginalize and discredit them, but address their positions head on.
The internet is a New Age. There is no longer a two party funneling of two view points on mainstream media. More and more people are getting their news and opinion from the internet. And this is still just the wee beginning.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
Fixed your assertion for you.
Oh come on, we all know the liberal media claim is pure politics. It's part of a game of playing the victim so you don't have to be responsible. I expect you know this, and it'd be nice if you could be honest with yourself about it.
No, but he certainly got far more votes (approximately 20%) than any Green party candidate has. Give that much money to someone that doesn't look and sound like a cartoon character, and they might get elected.
Oh yea, the "liberal media" idiocy. Look, let me point out to you this rather easily verifiable fact: nearly all media in the USA is owned by hard-core right-winger billionaires, run by hard-core right-winger CEOs and hard-core right-winger board of directors and then somehow (probably by magic, due to all that Communist pixie dust spread by Rupert Murdoch) it scores "left of center"?! What "center"?!! By our standards here in Canada the Democrats are Center-right, the Republicans far-right. I am sure the "center" is even further right from the view of people in some European countries.
That "study" is a load of politically-motivated brain-washing psychological warfare donkey-dung, sponsored by people who believe Adolf Hitler was a "liberal", nothing more.