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F.C.C., In Net Neutrality Turnaround, Plans To Allow Fast Lane
Dega704 (1454673) writes in with news of the latest FCC plan which seems to put another dagger in the heart of net neutrality. "The Federal Communications Commission will propose new rules that allow Internet service providers to offer a faster lane through which to send video and other content to consumers, as long as a content company is willing to pay for it, according to people briefed on the proposals. The proposed rules are a complete turnaround for the F.C.C. on the subject of so-called net neutrality, the principle that Internet users should have equal ability to see any content they choose, and that no content providers should be discriminated against in providing their offerings to consumers."
we are sold.
The rich get more privileges. Nothing to see here my fellow Americans. We love this shit. Fast lanes for the job creators. After all, we wouldn't have all of these jobs if we started impeding them. /s
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
...shame if something where to happen to it...
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
I hate to say it, but I told you so. I said it then, and I'll say it now. The moment Obama appointed yet... another... lobbyist to head the FCC, one who spent years as a cable company and telecom lobbyist:
Net... Neutrality... Was DEAD... PERIOD.
Need I remind all of you Obama-lovers of this little tid bit from no other website but ethics.change.gov:
http://change.gov/agenda/ethic...
"I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists â" and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president."
-- Barack Obama, Speech in Des Moines, IA
November 10, 2007
I informed you thusly...
From his Wikipedia page: "Prior to working at the FCC, Wheeler worked as a venture capitalist and lobbyist for the cable and wireless industry, with prior positions including President of the National Cable Television Association (NCTA) and CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA)."
When the FCC chairman used to be a lobbyist for the companies he's now regulating... well, what did we expect would happen? It shouldn't be surprising that he'd be in favor of pushing through regulations that are more favorable to his cronies.
My userid is prime!
The problem here isn't differentiated services - which can be valuable to a lot of us. The problem is that here in the US we have effective ISP monopolies or duopolies in nearly every region. Whenever your choice is so severely constrained you're going to get screwed at least a hundred different ways. Net neutrality isn't the worst of them - the crappy bandwidth levels are first in my personal book. The battle should be couched in terms of "we'll trade away net neutrality in exchange for getting rid of telecommunications and cable franchises." If I can get 18 different providers competing for my business, then some of them will offer net neutrality, some will offer more bandwidth, etc. Until there is competition we're always in the position of having to beg the government to not cave into the desires of megacorporations, which is always a losing battle in the long run.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Though, some traffic is more equal than others.
I guess some checks cleared today
Ideally, net neutrality should be something that is passed into law by congress. Too bad that doesn't have a snowball's chance against a cash-fueled, industry sponsored flame thrower in hell.
I guess they finally hit the government's price point.
getting to pay more for the same shit I have already accessing. I look forward to paying double for netflix, triple for hulu and out the ass for porn. YAY!
It truly just became pay to play for actual content producers and hosts. Goodbye little guys. Right now, I get content from the internet pretty much as fast as I'm willing to pay for. Now, for the same amount of my money, does this mean the content I'm delivered is at the mercy of how much the companies serving it are willing to pay ISPs backbone peers?
How long until consumers are offered tiered internet to these sites, pay X to get the FB + GOOG + AAPL package, etc etc, pay Y for gaming, pay Z for streaming, if you're caught in violation you'll be automatically charged at the overage level (like cell phone providers).
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
If you look at Comcast's income statement for 2013, you'll see rising profits. They made 6.816 billion dollars in 2013. I find it disingenuous (fucking bullshit) for them to claim these content providers are costing them money.
In reality it is likely the opposite, the content providers are increasing the demand for their product and allowing Comcast to charge more for service. Their relation to content providers is somewhat like Apple's relation to App providers. Except in the case of phone companies, their are alternatives to Apple.
The FCC has an open issue for this, 14-28 Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet
You can see existing comments here:
http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comme...
You can add your two cents here:
http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/uploa...
and it's a big huge giant if....
internet providers were prohibited by law from degrading connections between their customers and content providers (aka web sites and services) that do not pay the extra.
in other words, net neutrality would remain, but content providers could pay to BOOST the speed at which the internet provider customers received their content (example: subscriber with 5mbit connection could download from youtube at 20mbit IF youtube paid for the **extra** speed, but that customer would still get unmolested 5mbit throughput if google did not pay).
me: "i just created a new 'horoscope by phone' startup, and it's really popular! woohoo!"
at&t: "hey, we've noticed a lot of people are calling your new company. it would be a shame if 20% of your calls were to drop. would you like to pay us to not drop them?"
me: "WTF? your customers are calling me! THEY paid YOU already for their phone service! you can't just threaten me, that's extortion and a violation of the common carrier law!"
at&t: "oh yeah, nevermind. we'll wait until you start a website..."
http://kered.org
...a country gets a government it deserves.
What happens if a customer uses a service that he/she only can reach through 2 jumps of peering and the service-provider (ex. Netflix) only has a contract with the first ISP in the chain?
The customer will be SOL, the small ISP's too, that's what. The small ISP's will be forced out of the market or bought out by bigger ones. Essentially this paves the way for a few big companies OWNING everything related to content distribution and access to the internet for which the customers will have to pay an extreme premium to use.
And what hope do the customers have? Google laying down more fiber?
--- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
Only one reasonable response: Drop all your paid over-the-interent content subscriptions, and start pirating everything. Burn the media industry to the ground.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Last time I checked, consumers paid for their internet access.
This is the right for an ISP to throttle and establish even more monopolies and cartels where Googles and Netflixs and Facebooks of the world have more internet rights than others.
There needs to be some sort of internet bill of rights, some sort of privacy bill of rights in this country. As it is --- there are legitimate web sites that happen to be right-leaning sites that are censored by Google -- and while I am not personally very interested in those politics, we are at risk of a world where the Googles and Facebooks and Verizons and Time Warners are agents to enact the government's will and or censorship, while calling these companies "not the government" and denying that there is any free speech or privacy rights for the consumer and the citizen.
And Google and such advise the government, make campaign contributions, etc. --- are we sold down the river? Where is the silver lining or positive angle in all of this?
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
How is letting an ISP provide a "fast lane" if a content provider is willing to pay for it any different from letting an ISP provide a "slow lane" to any content provider NOT willing to pay additionally?
To ask more bluntly, it seems like these new rules might open the floodgate for extortion.
That's the rest of the world wishing the united states would implode on itself already, without fucking up the rest of the world.
The big internet companies managed to turn net neutrality from something they didn't want into something they do. All they had to do was use all their lobbyists to lobby congress to change laws in their favor.
SHOCKING!!!
Now we are going to have the worst of both worlds. We have exactly the internet we didn't want and some more laws for our economy to waste GDP on lawyers and litigation.
If we really want internet freedom, we should be lobbying for actual competition in the ISP game. It may not be possible to have 10 ISPs all competing at the same time, with their own fiber cables, but we could have a system where the lines are owned by the public (rather than the telecoms), and the telecoms just compete for contracts to administer the network. If we didn't like how a company was doing business, it would be much easier to ditch them for a new company if we owned the pipes.
Unfortunately politicians are generally shitty and it takes a lot of public engagement to get them to actually do something correctly rather than way that benefits them the most when no one is paying attention (i.e. cheaply in the short term).
in the tent. Very soon, we'll have the whole camel (freemium/premium websites, extra cost to access those sites not directly peering with or oin your ISPs network, no/degraded access to those sites who won't pay extra to ride your ISPs network, etc., etc., etc.), Sigh.
Posting AC to preserve my mods on this thread.
I've mostly given up mass media. If we can find something else to entertain ourselves without funneling money into the pockets of Greed then maybe something will change.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
Can you imagine if some company bought all the highways in your area and then started charging higher fees in order to go in the passing lane but then started really gouging all the food deliveries to certain grocery stores?
People might even try to defend this by saying that it was the free market but the reality would be just like the highways, the government gave these same companies nearly 100 years of subsidies to build these networks and the expertise to maintain them.
Quite simply this infrastructure is quite simply a public good, the companies that are allowed to run it should only be able to run it at our pleasure. The moment they start to get greedy they should be thrown out and a the public good handed to another company to run properly.
Net neutrality is a wonderfully level playing field which old zombie corporations hate and fast lanes are 100% anti consumer.
If rich people cruise by in a slick fast lane, that doesn't necessarily imply the slow lane became "bad" all of a sudden. If I can still get 1080p streaming services (even if highly compressed) from smaller content providers in the slow lane, with the same quality as before, then I will remain happy enough, even if Netflix is able to run 15 Mbps 4K streaming traffic as well.
Why are we using the government to salvage shitty business models?
The problem here isn't differentiated services - which can be valuable to a lot of us. The problem is that here in the US we have effective ISP monopolies or duopolies in nearly every region.
The other part of the problem is that the net neutrality advocates have been fighting on the wrong battleground.
As you point out: The prblem isn't some packets getting preferences over others: Sometimes that makes things BETTER for users. The problem is companies using their ability to configure this to give their own (and affiliates') carried-by-ISPs services an advantage, or artificially DISadvatntge packets of other providers unless an extra toll is paid, to the disadvantage of their customers.
The FCC is not the place to fight that battle. The correct venues are the Department of Justice's Antitrust division (is giving content the ISP's affiliate provides an advantage over that of others an illegal "tying"?), the FTC (is penalizing others' packets a consumer fraud, providing something less than what is understood to be "internet service"?) and perhaps congress.
I don't see how this can reasonably be resolved short of breaking up media conglomerates to separate information transport from providing "content" and other information service beyond information transport. Allowing them to be combined into a single company is a recipie for conflict-of-interest, at the cost of the consumer.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Why would you want the FCC to enforce some heavy-handed concept of fair play, when this government entity has no experience at doing so? Why not let the FTC, which has decades of experience at stopping antitrust abuses, and already has ALL the legal authority it needs to throw its weight around in this arena, do the work instead? And besides, narrower, more focused legal doctrines tend to be more enforceable anyways. Can you pick a scenario that Net Neutrality advocates worry over that can't already be tackled by the FTC?
Can you imagine if some company bought all the highways in your area and then started charging higher fees in order to go in the passing lane but then started really gouging all the food deliveries to certain grocery stores?
Kind of like the multiple occupancy lanes allow hybrids, which the poor generally can't afford?
Seems to me a lot of DNC policies like to take tax money from everyone and only give it back to people they agree with. This is just one more example.
Big money.
that's what I say. Vote for the most progressive candidate you can get your hands on, and keep doing that. It's better than nothing.
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The worst part of this is how they allow this nonsense in the name of protecting the free market. The Internet as it has existed up until now has been the purest free market in history, and now they are going to slowly flush all of that down the toilet just to further widen the telcos' already hilariously fat profit margins.
Where's that invisible hand, bitches? You sold us a false bill of goods and now we're all going to have to eat the fruits of Republican dickering.
Netflix isn't the bad guy here.
We put it up on We The People and The White House responded:
Absent net neutrality, the Internet could turn into a high-priced private toll road that would be inaccessible to the next generation of visionaries. The resulting decline in the development of advanced online apps and services would dampen demand for broadband and ultimately discourage investment in broadband infrastructure. An open Internet removes barriers to investment worldwide. ... It was also encouraging to see Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, whom the President appointed to that post last year, reaffirm his commitment to a free and open Internet and pledge to use the authority granted by Congress to maintain a free and open Internet. The White House strongly supports the FCC and Chairman Wheeler in this effort.
I think we're going to need another petition, or perhaps a series of petitions that cover the front page of We The People, asking for Tom Wheeler to be executed ... sorry, that should read "terminated" ... you know what? either way. -- and for common carrier to be restored.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
And toll booths should be allowed to charge the people you're visiting for the privilege of allowing you to visit. And trucking companies should be allowed to charge the receiver for the privilege of accepting delivery.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
it's set up in such a way as to be abused, or will be.
strategic voters will get bitten as easily as ignorant ones. People that make careful choices will reap gains in life..
You're ideas seem a little coarse grained. You can have half a cake and eat it.I think there may be some alien civilization out there that can make regulation work for example....
you mean our as in the serfs economy, you'd be right, and by our internet you mean the new low speed sub-par internet, that will decay to 56k modem.
The internet will never be the same if based on this approach - like Kim Jung Un's internet. . Just rich people exercising their luxury in technological way. At the top it will be a backwater intranet (who really cares..just, at the it will be back to 1995, only with negligible/zero room for expansion.
In all honesty, the only things I'd truly miss are:
cute cat videos;
slashdot;
youtube; (but you can do without that)
whatsapp;
bit torrent;
It's mainly crud really....
I remember when broadband came on the scene. I had no interest at the time. There was nothing pressing I needed it for. I stayed with a modem connection. I would hear people I know say things like. "my upload is xkbps/s and download is y/kbps, and I'd talk with them sometimes about it. I remember one conversation we had. Them: "It's much better to have high download than than upload (so they could consume more). Always the same unenlightened thinking... and I apparently got it back then because my response was always the same and has been vindicated. I said "eh, wouldn't it be better to have more upload so you're more in control of what you get or at least equal. This flew CoMpLeTeLy over their heads. lol You can't really reason with these people. They get what they deserve like the rest of us.
If neutrality is a lost cause, I hope at least for a baseline on neutral performance, say the high-end of what we can get today. This would drive investment towards gigabit+ speeds and new applications that come with it, what ever they may be. This would be a good time for a disruptive technology to come along and give the mega carriers some competition, but sadly, I don't think it will. The placement of a lobbyist into the FCC decision chair is disappointing.
You really held out against Comcast's demands.
There is no free market if the head of the FCC Tom Wheeler used to work for the National Cable Television Association (NCTA) and CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.
Only one reasonable response: Drop all your paid over-the-interent content subscriptions, and start pirating everything. Burn the media industry to the ground.
The geek has been telling anyone willing to listen that piracy isn't hurting big media --- and now he expects to use piracy to destroy the big media?
The licensed Netflix stream represented fully half of all prime time Internet traffic in the states before Netflix offered a streaming only service, before Netflix began offering high definition video, theater sound, closed captioning....
Tablets. Smart phones. The smart TV. The WiFi Internet radio.
Streaming media is available everywhere. In your home. In your car. No computer required. No P2P clients. I wasted endless hours in my own brief flirtation with P2P trying to find an uncorrupted file of reasonable quality. Never again.
Paying retail list would have been a better use of my time.
It's rulings like this that honestly have me agreeing with my lefty brothers: capitalism increasingly sucks and the chasing of the "almighty" dollar sucks. We are headed towards, if we are not already there, feaudalist capitalism/fascism -- that utterly repugnant and unholy alliance of government and corporations. We are up the creek without a paddle. I knew I should have attended culinary school instead of getting a degree in IT. This whole shift towards this kind of thing pisses me off. Why cannot it be by the people for the people with little regard for profit?
Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet - FCC Proceeding 14-28
Add your voice directly to the discussion: http://www.fcc.gov/comments
In radio this is called Payola where record companies pay to get their records played. It's illegal. There were congressional hearings about it in the 50's and 60's. It continues to this day.
Now the "business model" of paying for content delivery is legal. And there is no limit on campaign spending. Guess what will happen in the next election?
No major news outlet will report when news conglomerates up their rates for political programming so only big players will be able to afford airtime. Remember cable/broadcast/newspapers are now single corporate entities, and money talks.
How long will it take for differential pricing to drive Al Jazeera off the air? Remember they're just a bunch of terrorists! The same for RT (Russian Television) and any non-US centric new outlets as well. I expect NHK will be OK because they will self censor perceived criticism.
Expect the political programming on PBS to disappear as well. Remember that they criticize Corporate America, and it's Bad for Business. Don't worry, you'll get to keep Nature, NOVA and Antique Roadshow. Keep sucking on that pacifier.
Ever notice that PBS NOVA gets "major funding" from the Kock (pronounced COCK) brothers? When was the last time NOVA did a program on global climate change? Sound of crickets...
Welcome to Plutocratic America. No democracy, no free press, no capitalism. Nothing to see here, just move along.
Why is Snark Required?
I wouldn't even look to the court. The court merely read the law, which very plainly states that the FCC may not do what they tried to do. In essence, the law says:
The FCC must regulate common carriers according to a, b, and c.
The FCC may not regulate b or c in regard to anyone other than common carriers.
The FCC wanted to do B without C, so they claimed "ISPs are not common carriers, so we don't have to do C. ISPs are common carriers, so we're going to do B". That's ridiculous, you can't say they ARE common carriers and NOT common carriers at the same time. Therefore, the FCC can't make up net neutrality laws.
If and when we end up needing a net neutrality law, Congress will need to pass one. That should be pretty clear to anyone who has passed fourth grade civics, so I really don't see why the FCC tried to make up the law themselves in the first place. Any half-competent court would strike them down.
The left is the only side that would fight for Net Neutrality. The right only cares about Corporations.
your ability to predict the outright obvious is truly amazing.
I see... you think "smart" means bringing a knife to a gun fight. Good for you.
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
for use of a fast lane in delivery of their content?
That way, they still get unfettered choice of which content they can access. If some content (say, 3D 4K movie streams), requires better routes, the end-user's ISP can offer them a plan that allows them at times that the user chooses to be paying more for having their packets travel the autobahn lanes.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Knowing how to work within the system to change the system seems brilliant to me.
If your position is "super PACs are overly powerful, and have been made legal, we want to roll back the law allowing them," forming a super PAC is perfectly logical. Yes, if they win, they're disbanded - but they've accomplished their goal, so they're fine with being disbanded.
From the Wikipedia:
"Regulatory capture is a form of political corruption that occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or special concerns of interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture is a form of government failure; it creates an opening for firms to behave in ways injurious to the public (e.g., producing negative externalities). The agencies are called "captured agencies".
See also: "Exaggerated threat":
1) "If we don't invade Iraq, they're going to bake the yellow cakes and explode a nuke in New York City."
2) "If we don't bail out the financial sector, we're going to have a depression."
3) "If we don't allow companies to favor content, the US technology sector will grind to a halt."
not that this will change much, but at least it will let the Obama Administration and our supposed "representatives" in government that this isn't exactly without controversy: http://wh.gov/lwhr8
If and when we end up needing a net neutrality law, Congress will need to pass one.
Hahaha, surely you're joking.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
You dismiss the authority of the NTIA, White House pressure, Congressional pressure, and the FCC's own rules.
This will come up for comment. The FCC will put it to a vote after comment.
Oh, sorry, after all checks have cleared.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Some day there will be pay back for the shameless anti-consumer and pro-business steamrolling that has taken place in our country over the last 15 years. I hope none of you are sitting at the wrong end of the guillotine or rifle when that day finally comes.
Can we maybe make a new internet now? One with ISPs that are co-owned by the users?
Market forces should dictate which companies succeed or fail online, not how deep the pockets are of whoever is working on a new website that does something cool. Comcast/TWC get such a big say in which companies will make it, it's disgusting.
Pick the country you think has the best set of regulations. How's life there for the median citizen?
Thanks for the links.
"Anonymous Coward" is for whistleblowers, not unpopular opinions.
Does NTIA have Constitutional authority to pass laws? Did they pass a law giving the FCC the authority to pass laws? If not, the ruling of the court is (obviously) correct.
The question before the court was a fourth grade civics quiz question:
True or false: the executive branch is empowered the make new laws.
True
False
The correct answer is "false".
Note again, this has nothing to do with whether any particular law labeled "net neutrality" might be good or bad. The court just ruled what everyone already knows - Congress makes new laws, not the FCC.
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What makes it bad and undemocratic is when the democratic principle of one-man one-vote is breached because some can contribute vastly more to 'their' PAC than others can to an opposing PAC.
Using the means available is their lawful right.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
The NTIA are the winners that gave us ICANN.
They're under the department of *commerce*.
Need Mercedes parts ?
not sure if trolling...
Our system is corrupt from the inside out, and the only way to affect change is through large amounts of money (e.g., this very story). In order to change that system, one must necessarily put together a PAC, even if the change you're going for is to take money out of the system.
The Democrats were the last party to still have some reasonable positions against the plutocracy but they failed for too long. Now they have been captured on this issue too. Likely they were the last few times because a lot of times they make motions KNOWING it will totally fail big time - it's a political move so they can look honest and raise some money.... from people thinking they are legit and from corps afraid that they might be a legitimate risk.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Romney would have rolled over like a trained collie & done anything he was told. It's lunacy to assert otherwise. Obama is a legit President, not like Nixon, Ford, Regan, Bush I & II and Clinton...Obama isn't perfect but he's not illuminati.
Obama stretches decisions bad for the Oligarchary out over time...he doesn't fire Sebelius when all the media heat is on it happens after...the Keystone XL pipeline is another example...
Net Neutrality isn't decided yet. I've seen alot of long well-thought out comments on this story but the FCC has no teeth & Obama likes to avoid using executive privilidge in the FCC.
As for voting...there is never a time you're not "voting for the lesser of two evils" from a systems perspective. Is the glass half-full or half-empty? It's both...and you always are choosing a **representative** that could never possibly do exacty as you would want. It's always a best choice of many (usually two at the national scale...state/local is different at times)
I'm freaking about Net Neutrality, but I have been since 2006 (check my comments)...now more than ever people are aware of it & understand the implications
Net Neutrality will win at the end of the day.
Thank you Dave Raggett
It's almost sad the 'dialup' model of internet service died. Just imagine if dialup continued to evolve and achieve the speeds our broadband connections have now. Yes I know all about the physical limitations of dialup modems, but this is just a hypothetical.
Just imagine if all the lil mom'n'pop ISPs were still in business because dialup was the dominate internet service as it used to be. Net neutrality wouldn't even be a discussion right now, if that were still the way it worked.
I also imagine, the first person who comes up with a new 'dialup' like service that yanks the internet out of the grubby hands of big corporations, this issue will go away pretty quick, and that person is going to be very rich.
Race is on, folks, make dialup (though these days I imagine its going to be a wifi type solution) as fast as broadband, so everyone can compete and this problem simply disappears.
This no doubt puts the oversight of the internet out of the hands of Congress into the hands of intelligence agencies. This is a real concern because they will be filtering the information. It will also give the feds access to all our personal information wheras Google enjoyed the monopoly on this information.
This is a like act to the FCC backing off on putting monitors and censors into the newsrooms.
I want to know what Google and Facebook are going to give the Obama administration in return for this arrangement? Do they have a choice with this activist administration as we know they enjoy destroying their opponents or even queationers.
This is the beginning of the end of a free internet where all players are dragged into the fast lane and filters are put in place that will protect Hollywood and large corporations. Will it also protect them against auditing by governments around the world for evading paying taxes?
http://boingboing.net/2014/04/23/obama-official-responsible-for.html
Note this same FCC tried to put censors and monitors in all the newsrooms of America. This is the new left-wing facism where this I.T class in Silicon Valley and Hollywood is complicit in these secret meetings as was the media in these closed door meetings with Obama.
I have already proved by screenshots that Google acts politically in its search engine here in Australia.
Democracy and a free press and a free internet are all at risk here..
What if you would install a packet shaper in your own home. Then write Netflix and others that you will increase the bandwidth to usable levels, for money.
Do you know ANYTHING about the "Progressive" ideology, or do you simply go for it because it sounds like the word "Progress" and you've had over a decade of indoctrination by unionized "Progressive" school teachers? "Progressivism" as a political ideology got its first real try in the US in the early 20th century and it naturally led to some VERY dark, bad places. Study it.... using original documents where possible, rather than white-washed histories pushed by left-wingers. There are VERY good reasons why the American people turned against the movement and its adherents had to drop the label for nearly a century.
Progressivism, at its core, has ALWAYS advocated for big government (which has experts who know better) control over the lives (and deaths) of individuals (for the greater good of the society, of course) and using any means required to implement that control (the ends justify ANY means). Progressives, historically, began by selling "progress" and a future utopia in exchange for control.... and they ended-up advocating for eugenics, euthenasia for anybody deemed "not useful to society", a universal form of "emminent domain" (where government ought to sieze anything from anyone if it was in the name of progress) and most everything else average people generally think of as "EVIL". Many early 20th century progressive policies faded away, but some influenced a couple of mid 20th century continental European leaders who were selling "progress". One of those leaders, a guy in Germany with a funny little moustache, particularly liked the idea (originating in American "Progressive" circles) of "humanely" gassing to death large numbers of "undesireable" people. A few bits of the leagcy survive in the US, albeit with white-washed accounts of their origins and ideologies; Planned Parenthood, for example, was founded by the progressive Margaret Sanger who was an enthusiastic supporter of eugenics - it was her desire to eliminate all the "undesireable" dark skinned children in the country (READ some of the documents from the time instead of modern liberal "interpretations"). Again: READ original documents and news and commentary from those times, rather than the sanitized modern crap.
How, on Earth, do you lefties EVER get the idea that a massive all-intrusive government will give people more personal freedom?!?!? What makes you guys so delusional that you think that "big business" and "big government" (who are ALWAYS in bed with each-other) can run your lives better than you can? Just who do you think has more influence over government: little-old-you, or multi-billion-dollar companies with lobbyists lawyers and massive piles of campaign contributions? Who do you think has more influence on big businesses: little-old-you, or massive powerful government? I get that you've found big government useful in ramming some social policies you want onto other individuals ... but in echange you've given it the power to run all the other aspect of your lives. Why do you think that if you give government the power to control the internet, and then that government hands some of that authority to a nebulous collection of international bureaucrats (many of who represent dictators) you will end-up with an internet that is MORE free?????
Switch-off your smart phone. Exit your web browser. Shut off your PC/Mac. Go pick up some old dusty history books and READ them. Go to the National Archives and READ all the history your lefty teachers intentionally did not teach you. Find out how and why the country was setup and structured the way it was and what went so horribly wrong with the first round of "Progressive" politics in the USA. Stop being a propagandized cog in the machine of massive government - a meatp-puppet for "the man"...
"Net Neutrality" is a political "Wedge Issue" that politicians use to energise a portion of their base voters to send-in cash, and get to the polls; they NEVER actually intend to solve the associated problems; if they solved the problems, then they could no longer use the issue to raise cash and get elected.
1. Democrats had TOTAL control of the government from 2008-2010 with such huge margins that they could simply ignore Republicans; the Democrats actually locked the Republicans out of the rooms on Capitol Hill when they were writing the Affordable Care Act aka "ObamaCare". They used that power to pass the ACA and to pass the President's nearly $1 Trillion 2009 "Stimulus" bill .... but they did NOTHING on their "wedge issues" (like "immigration reform", "net neutrality", etc)
2. President Obama packed the FCC with telco people (so much for his "no lobbyists" pledge...) who had good "liberal" positions on other issues and would therefore easily get the support of Democrat senators; these people were carefully chosen and vetted and clearly "net neutrality" was not a primary criteria.
3. Even if you DID get the government into the driver's seat on this, it would then morph into a new "Wedge Issue": Republicans and Democrats would warn the concerned segments of their respective bases that HOW the "other guys" would implement the policies was vital (so "please send cash" and "go to the polls")
4. Big government Democrats and big government Republicans will NEVER give you the actual net neutrality you desire; they're both into big government for the sake of big government (more money and power, which means more powerful things for policicians to control and derive more personal power and wealth from). The big Wall St bankers gave more money to Obama in 2008 than they'd ever given to ANY Republican. Big telcos have given massive piles of cash to politicians in BOTH parties. The ONLY significant people in politics today who are opposed to the partnership between big government and big business are the TEA Partiers who hate crony capitalism (and who are detested by BOTH the Democrats and the "establishment" Republicans).
You DO realize that "net neutrality", while a good abstract ideal, is actually a canard for an entirely unrelated political policy, right? The internet is currently one of the least-regulated areas of American life. Under the guise of "net neutrality" netizens are being tricked into supporting the idea of giving the federal government all sorts of new controls over the internet. They're being told that if we give the government more power over the net, the government will only use that power for "good" - to force big companies to give stuff away (in various ways, like by not charging more for more infrastructure or faster service, etc). History teaches, however, that government RARELY uses power we give it in that manner; the likely outcome is that once given that power, government will take bribes from big business and then write new rules and regulations to keep any new upstarts from entering the marketplace. As a result, once you get your dreamy "Net Neutrality", you're likely to get an internet infrastructure that's like all the other government regulated infrastructure (government guaranteed monopolies that feel no need to serve their customers, no need to improve the service, no need to adequately manitain the systems, etc).
My gun shoots knives you insensitive clod!
Seriously?
Fictional simplified example: everyone can change the law by touching their nose and stating the new law, and all police officers must act accordingly. This is a bad thing, and as expected, chaos ensues. Now everyone can end this nonsense by simply using this very mechanism to abolish the nose-touching law. But doing this would require using this bad thing you're against, so the logical conclusion, according to you, is not to do it?
Ah, you're trolling.
I see... you think "smart" means bringing a knife to a gun fight. Good for you.
Bring a knife to a gun fight... ...stab them while they're laughing.
FCC: can't make a decision on net neutrality. Lobbyists (big telcos) make it for them.
FAA: can't make a decision on small done policy. Lobbyists (defense contractors) make it for them.
SEC/FDIC: no regs for HFT. Lobbyists (banks) make it for them.
DOT: stalling on self driving cards and electric infrastructure. Lobbyists (auto, oil&gas) make it for them.
FDA: pot regs.... Nuff said...
See the pattern here?
I posted this on facebook... The drawback to this is that it encourages providers to build up their "pay for play" networks while ignoring the massive overselling of their default tier and charging the content providers to ensure that their traffic doesn't get lost or delayed in the shuffle.
A solution for this would be for the Federal Communications Commission and/or the Federal Trade Commission to require Internet access providers to have a specific percentage of their sold bandwidth available on their public network. If you have sold 3 Terabytes per second of data connections, you must have 1.25 Terabytes per second of bandwidth connected to the internet available on your public network.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
"If you have sold 3 Terabytes per second of data connections, you must have 1.25 Terabytes per second of bandwidth connected to the internet available on your public network."
No, you should have 3. WTF?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
or more importantly stab them while your Close Air Support gets busy
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
The FCC should just fucking go ahead and do C (i.e., make ISPs common carriers)!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Not all of us are protagonists from a Final Fantasy game, you insensitive clod!
This is the equivalent of UPS charging an online retailer additional fees for delivering too many packages thereby placing an undue burden on UPS's existing their distribution network, even though all of their buyers already paid for shipping. Common sense should already deem this silly.
(as a foreigner) I am not fully aware of the possibilities of a PAC but I don't see it as a democratic problem when like-minded people band together to push a subject, compare it to starting a political party.
Nothing is wrong with it when you put it that way, but that's not the way it is. The problem is that PACs are about donations. i.e. the situation is becoming increasingly skewed towards the voter(s) needing to donate money in order to have influence. The supreme court is progressively lifting the restrictions on these sorts of campaign donations. It's basically legalised bribery. That is what is fucked up about it and it's getting worse. Furthermore, politicians are now wasting a lot of their time soliciting donations. They're in Washington to do a job, yet they're wasting loads of time not doing it because they need money to get re-elected. It's totally fucked up. The increasing influence of money in US politics is a nasty cancer, the spread of which needs to be reversed.
soylentnews.org
urine idjit
forget about WHO has ALL THE LUCRE, we 99% CAN'T 'outspend' the 1%: THEIR's is chump change out of the sofa cushions (THAT THEY GET A TAX DEDUCTION FOR), OUR's is the money we need to feed and clothe our kids...
gee, i wonder which side will win *that* scuffle...
like i said, urine idjit, the 'solution' isn't to out-bribe the bastards, the solution is to take away THEIR unfettered fee speech...
What makes it bad and undemocratic is when the democratic principle of one-man one-vote is breached because some can contribute vastly more to 'their' PAC than others can to an opposing PAC
Now extend your thinking to allow corporate executives to contribute not only their own money, but also money from corporate coffers, and you will truly have the American system. Such lobbying/spending decisions, made regardless of the politics of work-a-day employees, essentially forcing those employees to work to support political causes with which they may disagree. PACs are allowed to spend whatever they want, however they want, as long as they do not directly "coordinate with" nor donate to specific candidates. In practice, they primarily run 'attack' ads.
It's like asking somebody to step forward, but instead, everybody else steps backward.
This will only make these companies able to sell a fraud, without any oversight.
If everybody jumped off a cliff, this place would be a lot less crowded with idiots.
The stench from the pile of bodies would be horrific. I'm not cleaning up that mess...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Imagine that. The Obama appointed liberal shill running the FCC bows to the demands of big telco. If we can't even protect net neutrality why even have the FCC?
To work within the current system, you must first have enough money to publicly challenge those few who own most of it. The "system" has been slanted to favor the elite, and you will never get it back. Raise as much money as you can, and see how little it means to people with more resources than everyone else combined.
once more into the breach
If this isn't regulatory capture, I don't know what is.
on principle i refuse to take the "express" (aka the charge by volume lanes) no matter how horrific the traffic is. It's bad enough the toll road 270 has doubled its toll. So if you take express lanes and the toll road to work and home you could be spending 10 bucks a day just to drive on the frickin roads. The metro is also the most expensive in the country and has doubled in the last 5 years. I can't wait to leave here. My wife and I are making our money and GTFO of here.
Voting Strategically != Democracy
> Nothing is wrong with it when you put it that way, but that's not the way it is. The problem is that PACs are about donations
FYI, the #1 rule of PAC Club is that they can't donate to candidates. The #2 rule is that they can't coordinate with any candidate's campaign.
What they CAN do, and what the Citizen's United case sought to outlaw, is the kind of thing Michael Moore's organization did - make a political statement separate and apart from any candidate. I happen to think Michael Moore is disgusting, and he's admitted that his movies are full of lies, but I think it's pretty clear that he and his friends have the right to get together and make stupid movies. Citizen's United made movies too, with a political point just like Michael Moore's movies. The FEC sought to prevent them from making these movies. This is a plain violation of the first amendment. It has little or nothing to do with political donations - they were making movies. The FEC said that's illegal because they spent some money making the movies, and under their rules it was illegal to spend any money exercising your first amendment rights.
Europe is about done with dealing with corrupt USA/NSA on the internet.
Europe will have the UN create some new body to take over regulation of international communications infrastructure.
***********he's an obama appointee********
you should be ashamed of yourself. How can you be so fanatical about a political party that you can't see passed the end of your nose?
What's the prescription?
I mean, how many of us can honestly say that at one time or another he hasn't set fire to some great public building.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
That would at least be logically consistent - the FCC would, legally, gain vast new powers by treating ISPs as monopoly common carriers. I think at this time, at this point in the development of the internet, it would be a huge mistake. It would essentially outlaw any significant advancement. For example, Google fiber would be illegal in about six different ways under common carrier rules. Maybe in another 30 years there won't be any new innovations taking place and common carrier regulation will make sense for the internet.
Personally, I'd like to see competition. I'd like to be able to tell my ISP that I'll switch to their competitor if they do X. To me, the franchise laws that make competition illegal are a key part of the problem.
Obama has only ensured multi-party politics are dead certainty in the USA.
Every other democratic nation on the planet is multi-party except, like, the Bahamas.
Many nations WERE two-party. Were.
More != Better
Less != Better
Better == Progressive paradise.
... but they've accomplished their goal, so they're fine with being disbanded.
That worked so well with labor unions, didn't it? Now they're like parasites with a survival instinct of their own. What makes you think this instance will be any different?
Basically the FCC is allowing fraud. Customers are paying for bandwidth and then the company is secretly throttling that bandwidth only for certain content.
They don't really care so much about the details as long as they are in control of it. Gotta be able to move into those nice high-paying industry "jobs". Grab that power, guys.
That is what fire is for.
Say whatever else you want to about Romney, but at least he's rich enough that he can afford to be honest.
From Ars article http://arstechnica.com/tech-po... "The proposed rules would prevent the service providers from blocking or discriminating against specific websites, but would allow broadband providers to give some traffic preferential treatment, so long as such arrangements are available on 'commercially reasonable' terms for all interested content companies," the Journal reported. "Whether the terms are commercially reasonable would be decided by the FCC on a case-by-case basis." To me it sounds like you can pay for faster access but are not allowed to block or discriminate against competition. This sounds like a better deal than you have to pay for access and we will block all of our competitors.
Great description - between 1 and 4, the Obama administration appointed the former head of the Cable Industry lobbying group and also former head of the Wireless Industry Lobbying group to be in charge of the FCC (Wheeler) - he's excited about all the "innovation" that's happening here.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
I'm assuming, from your other post that you are talking about people opposed to Citizen's United
Where do you get that being against Citizen's United means that you think that banding together is a bad idea?
I am against CU because it seems to me to corrupt what democratic traditions and institutions we have remaining and moves us closer to rule by the wealthy.
I think speech is speech and the amount of money a person has should not enter into how much influence they have over the government.
All should have equal influence.
emt 377 emt 4
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg are all Jewish supporters of Obama who as C.S Lewis referred to as the classic do-gooders like we have come to expect from most left-wing liberals who want to rid the world of guns...upsized sodas and oil including the Keystone pipeline and a free internet. We also know that a very Jewish and post hippy Hollywood descriminated against Conservative Script writers for over 30 years. http://www.foxnews.com/opinion... What marks out the tyranny of the way these people operate is that which marks the left of politics and liberal donors. http://www.politico.com/story/... "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. C.S. Lewis" But essentialy these attacks on the freedom of the internet are about money and the operations of lobbyists, where....essentially Hollywood is behind the reforms to give away the last controls of the internet including the hire of the lobbyist Robert Holleyman. http://boingboing.net/2014/04/... After a public outcry this decision to give away the last controls of the internet looks to be on hold but now the FCC is stepping in and destroying a free internet after failing to take control of newsrooms. They now are talking about a censorship fast lane. http://act.boldprogressives.or... This after the FCC failed to put monitors and censors in every news room. http://foxnewsinsider.com/2014... Americans need to realise how militant the left is and how influential these Liberal donors are. If they supported the giving away of the internet so that they could attack piracy behind the scenes then they likewise support attacks on a free internet and create the tools to enliven political censorship with the Obama administration working behind the scenes to attack opponents. These FCC reforms are part of this...moving into this direction. We see how the Obama administration has used the federal beauracracy to attack opponents. Who is to say that this new FCC proposal for a fast lane will not use information supply with deals behind the scenes to do the same and attack political opponents. Obama is always meeting behind closed doors with the media or Silicon Valley giants. It will happen and it is a disgrace as Google has already proved itself to be left in politics. They are all do-gooder tyrants where we would be better off under robber barons. What is Google and Facebook getting out of this new FCC proposal? What we know for sure is that the left wing silicon valley giants cannot be trusted along with the FCC. They will use the do-gooder justifications to fight against piracy to take away a free internet and you can take that to the bank. Read the quote from C.S Lewis again. If Hollywood can have this much clout....discriminate against conservative scriptwriters for so long and work together with Obama to take away a free internet then all should be concerned. This is an activity of so called do-gooders that believe they have the authority to strip all of us of our internet freedoms. We all need to stand up to these secular liberals and secular Jewish do-gooders that have too much political clout in America.
This is all rooted in the notion that the internet is not like a phone, a decision made in the early 2000s. Of course, the internet actually is a phone, among other things. If the FCC had decided to treat the net like a phone, we would have massive competition, lower prices, and better service. What we have instead, is non-regulated monopoly cable providers.
This planet money episode gives a neat little history, and a comparison with how much better it is in Britain with respect to internet service:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money...
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Labour unions are parasites? Thanks for the update John Galt.
Where did I put that guillotine? I say we remove these assholes heads and place it where they think--up their ass.
OK. So the PAC can't donate to the candidate directly, but they can donate in a way that works towards a candidate's goals. I'm sure there are plenty of ways of skirting around the "can't coordinate with a candidate's campaign" restriction.
soylentnews.org
There's a thread of rather amusing ignorance about government and corporate interests happening all through here, I had to comment. Well rant really - There's more than a few people saying that corporate interests, either as just a natural outcome of superior innovation or whacking gobs of cash, won out here because that's Capitalism. Others lament that government, in this case the FCC, only exists to serve itself, not The People (which is their mandate), and thus like all government is naturally going to defer to it's nature.
What kind of social Darwinian claptrap is this?
Face it. The truth is the problem is money in government. It's way out of control and that's why the FCC has deferred to corporate interests. Essentially moving to turn the Internet into your cable TV box, or radio frequency spectrum sell offs. Which we here are ALL against. Why? It's the fact that the FCC and the lobbiests for those corporations are THE SAME FUCKING GUYS. The "revolving door" of people who have worked at the FCC then "moved on" to lobby positions at these corporations is wide open. That's the problem. That's why this, ultimately, happened. There has been legislation against this 'revolving door' in the past (I'm sure someone will point that out) but it was just fucking ignored. Lobbiests like this are supposed to refrain for something like a year. Didn't happen. They showed up in Washington the next day. Literally! No one was fined, arrested, or even saw a raised eyebrow.
So please, let's speak of the reality of what's happening at the FCC instead of vomiting bullshit theories about the "nature" of shit. M'k?
Haha! Ff8 sucked so much.
We all need to go on strike! Lets see here internets work without us!
It's so surprising that big business owners subscribe to a philosophy that can be succinctly summarized as, "Fuck everyone else; I got mine!", isn't it?
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Yeah, I gotta agree with you. Our congress can't pass a law to pay our own bills, you think they're likely to make a law enforcing net neutrality? HA! That's a laugh.
I see... you think "smart" means bringing a knife to a gun fight. Good for you.
If the gun fight is to take place with 15' of space, then yes - good for you; you'll walk away.
Legal scholars have pointed to the possibility that federal agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had been captured by media conglomerates. Peter Schuck of Yale Law School has argued that the FCC is subject to capture by the media industries' leaders and therefore reinforce the operation of corporate cartels in a form of "corporate socialism" that serves to "regressively tax consumers, impoverish small firms, inhibit new entry, stifle innovation, and diminish consumer choice".[39] The FCC selectively granted communications licenses to some radio and television stations in a process that excludes other citizens and little stations from having access to the public.[40]
Michael K. Powell, who served on the FCC for eight years and was chairman for four, was appointed president and chief executive officer of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, a lobby group. As of April 25, 2011, he will be the chief lobbyist and the industry's liaison with Congress, the White House, the FCC and other federal agencies.[41]
Meredith Attwell Baker was one of the FCC commissioners who approved a controversial merger between NBC Universal and Comcast. Four months later, she announced her resignation from the FCC to join Comcast's Washington, D.C. lobbying office.[42] Legally, she is prevented from lobbying anyone at the FCC for two years and an agreement made by Comcast with the FCC as a condition of approving the merger will ban her from lobbying any executive branch agency for life.[42] Nonetheless, Craig Aaron, of Free Press, who opposed the merger, complained that "the complete capture of government by industry barely raises any eyebrows" and said public policy would continue to suffer from the "continuously revolving door at the FCC".[42]
The end of net neutrality will turn in the Internet into just another broadcast medium. Just like today there's crappy "public access" for TV, most of the Internet will have poor bandwidth and low reliability for all the sites that don't pay to get on the toll road. The "cloud" too will be affected. Amazon, Google, Microsoft and the rest will have to pay more (and therefore pass those costs to their customers) to stay on the toll road. Apps that require an always on, reliable, and unthrottled Internet connection will either pay up or die. Apps will become expensive to launch and maintain, thus leading to a consolidation of just a few app development houses. The only place left for new ideas and innovation will be desktop development, with the Internet only used for research and consuming content.
Since the last mile is a natural monopoly, we need some sort of legal basis to force competition. A separate, regulated, last-mile company is one possibility.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Sure, they can support a position that a candidate supports. Alternatively, they can oppose a policy that a candidate supports. For example, under the Citizens United ruling, Dice can run stories supporting net neutrality. Had the ruling gone the other way, the FEC (via Mcain-Feingold) or FCC (through the fairness doctrine) could prevent publication of these stories because it's Dice spending money in support of a political position.
Could Dice also say "Obama sucks", and do it shortly before the election? Sure, and maybe that's imperfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than the alternative. The alternative, argued in Citizen's, was to say that because Dice and the ACLU are both incorporated, neither may talk about political issues.
It is the proliferation of people who dislike the candidates and therefore don't vote that is ruining the system. As fewer people vote those that do vote have correspondingly more influence, and as we've seen over multiple election cycles now, the primaries and increasingly the candidate are more extremely right/left because *that's who's still voting*. Worse -- this logic of yours creates a spiral where dislike of candidate implies you just shouldn't vote leads to worse candidate which leads fewer people voting which leads to worse candidates, etc. That pattern has no chance of fixing things -- it's the very idea that you either get perfect candidates or you take your ball and go home that is undermining our democracy.
By giving up your vote you are simply electing to not be involved in our democracy -- but that certainly doesn't absolve you from the result.
The FEC's position in CU was that because the people of Dice and the ACLU work together as a corporation, they can't talk about political issues. Had the FEC won, Dice couldn't run this story without FEC approval because Dice is corporation, they spend money running the site, and it touches on a political issue.
It IS unfortunate that with free speech, some people and organizations can get a bigger megaphone than others. Is silencing everyone really the solution? The CU ruling is what allows the ACLU and the FSF to continue to comment on political issues. Do you really want to silence them, in order to silence those who disagree with them?
I propose an alternative. I propose that ACLU Inc be allowed to make their case publicly, the BSA can make theirs, and the FSF can say what they want to say. Then, you and I, the voters, can decide who we agree with after hearing them.
> If the FCC had decided to treat the net like a phone, we would have massive competition, lower prices, and better service.
Yep, common carrier phone systems (landlines) have so much competition, and service has improved so much in the last 100 years. I want some of what you're smoking.
Yep. Just like the last mile for cell phones is a natural monopoly - why have duplicate towers serving the same area?
I'm glad I get unlimited everything for $30 from Boost Mobile, with no contract, because Washington bureaucrats decreed that was the proper monthly rate. Oh, that wasn't decreed by government? You say that government decreed that my 64k landline, running on copper that's been there for 30 years, must cost MORE than my 4G wireless service? Well that's kinda stupid.
no but he should have his people call me...they could use a guy like me i think
Thank you Dave Raggett
I'm not sure that Dice and the ACLU work together. But that is not the substance here.
Personally, I don't think any corporation should be able to talk politics. Dice, ACLU, GE, BSA, FSF, Labor union, trade union, etc.
A, Corporations will side with whatever makes them money. They will vote their bank accounts, by and large.
B, Corporations are composed of individuals. Let them have political speech. Then it is up to them to represent whatever balance of interests they have.
So, me, I want that whole group to go stone cold silent. People, no. But I would want the effects of money on the process to be minimized. Anything else leads ( as it is leading, as I see it ) to defacto rule by the wealthy.
Failing that, no, "side" of the argument should never enter into it.
The Voltarian ideal of "I disagree, but say what you believe" should be in effect, for all.
emt 377 emt 4
The NSDAP Was the National SOCIALIST German WORKERS PARTY.... hardly the stuff of Eisenhower or Reagan etc. In The U.S. our political spectrum is VERY broad from the TINY federal government of our founding to the "red diaper babies" of the hard-core true-believeing communists - with most voters and elected politicians bunched together nowhere near those extremes. Most Americans today are somewhere between Reagan and Obama (FAR more govt than the founders would have tolerated but still a lot less than in many other countries). The European political spectrum, on the other hand is severely stunted with most cosieties having gone from some form of monarchy running everything to big government running everything, without ever having had the lots-of-freedom and tiny government state.... so their entire spectrum is way over on the left between National Socialism (which is their "right" boundary) to International Socialism (which is their "left" boundary). They balance on a political knife-edge of "social democrats" fearing a tip right into NAZI or left into Commie... but that entire political range is very far to the left of American politics. NOBODY in the US who is a "conservative" or "libertarian" (our "right") wants to go way far over to their left to hit NAZIsm - they want to go to their right towards what our founders gave us. NOBODY in the US who is a "liberal" or "progressive" wants to go left only as far a NAZI - they want to blow past that to get to "social democrat" at least or closer to communist (depending on just how "liberal" or "left" they are).
The only people in the US who embrace the NAZI thing are disaffected ignorant young white people who see no path to success in life and choose to blame their problems on race, embracing the swastika precisely for its evil and shock value just as many of them also embrace the KKK. These people are not serious about their politics, they're just lashing-out.
> I'm not sure that Dice and the ACLU work together.
I guess was was unclear. I was saying the ACLU (inc.) is people working together toward common goals, the FSF is people working together, Dice is a group of people working together.
> Personally, I don't think any corporation should be able to talk politics. Dice, ACLU, GE, BSA, FSF, Labor union, trade union, etc.
> . . .
> So, me, I want that whole group to go stone cold silent.
That's very interesting, refreshingly clear and intellectually honest. The old analogy is that it's unfair that some people can see and some people are blind, and the left's solution is to remove everyone's eyes. You're unusual in how clear and honest you are that you do in fact want to do essentially that. Thanks.
> People, no.
Just no GROUP protests, right? YOU can express your opinion and I can express mine, but if you and I get together and make video, that should be illegal. Interesting, truly.
I really appreciate your viewpoint, and how you state it clearly, boldly, without pretending that the implications are anything but what they are. That takes courage.
Glenn Beck has nothing to do with this, unless he has stumbled onto this since getting axed at Fox.
As for citations, I did specifically tell you to shut off the electronics and go to the proper research libraries (like the National Archives) to look at actual documents (books, newspapers, etc). I've done this (many years ago) and I'm simply not going to include a bunch of (impossible AFAIK) internet links to hardcopy stuff gathering dust on shelves, most of which is not on the internet, nor am I going to waste hours trying to reconstruct a list of paper documents I have seen over a decade ago just so some young Progressive can sneer and ignore it anyway on an anonymous internet posting. People used to know how to find information without Google but I guess that's just too much effort now.
It's often been said that "The past is prologue", and those of you who are young enough to care really ought to spend a little bit of your lives studying the past to learn what to avoid... it is important and it does matter even if it currently seems less interesting than the newest X-Box game
I used "lefty" to avoid a paragraph where we all know the left/liberal/progressive people I referred to. In a similar sort of post I might have used "righty" to refer to the right/conservative/TeaParty people we all know while not consuming a paragraph for details.
The left in America has not always been in bed with the "Progressive" movement, and perfectly honorable and comitted liberals need not be today.... but since they are the bulk of the ones playing footsie with this nasty ideology (many of them, I have little doubt, do not know the fire they are playing with having not been taught the history of it) I aimed my warning at young people on left who fancy themselves "progressives". The "early 20th century progressives" Hillary Clinton has referred to (and which I referenced) which gave the ideology its first big try were actually led by Republican President Teddy Roosevelt whose progressivism had some good results the public liked (like national parks, anti-trust activity, etc) before it spiralled off onto the darkness splitting the Republican Party and spraying toxic political shrapnel; it took a long time for the GOP to fully recover. My message to young decent lefties/liberals is: if you want to be "liberal", so be it.... embrace FDR, JFK, etc.... but educate yourselves and then RUN away from "progressivism" before it's too late... you can be FOR a social safety net etc without making a pact with the devil.
Please don't confuse legality and morality. Law makers can be bought. The problem is that people with a socio-economic advantage seek to subvert the democratic process by turning their economic advantage into a political one, thus showing a disregard for what is best for society. The super wealthy have been waging class warfare for a long time. It's just becoming more obvious.
The internet is expensive in infrastructure, management, security and power requirements.
We must accept that sending a video across the globe costs real money and carbon pollution.
Why should little old ladies sending a couple of emails subsidise an idiot constantly streaming HD video.
Go well
Yes, common carriers do have competition. I don't know how old you are, but I remember when the choice in long distance providers came. Then sometime in the early 90s, more companies sprang up where you would enter a numeric code first, and then they would bill even less for long distance. Back in the 80s and 90s, a long distance call for an hour could easily cost you $6 on top of your monthly fees for basic service and long distance service. So going from 10c a minute to 4c a minute by entering a code or switching providers was a big deal.
Today, who even thinks of long distance? Back before competition, making a call from the county into town a mere ten miles would cost a dime a minute. How much do you pay for a long distance call now? Do you even think about long distance or instead do you think about the flat monthly rate for unlimited calling? I suspect it is the latter. So instead of paying $30 for basic service, another charge for a long distance plan, and then 10c a minute on top of that, you pay a $20 to $30 flat rate and never even think about how long you talk and how far away the endpoint of your call is.
That's what happens when there is competition.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
In a way, I see that point. On the other hand, pick one:
A) Banding together to exercise your free speech rights through an organization is something you should do.
B) Banding together to exercise your free speech rights through an organization is so bad that it should be illegal.
You can't believe both A and B. If you believe it's bad thing, in fact so bad that it's worth violating other people's first amendment rights over, yet you do it anyway, you've chosen to do evil. So they've either chosen to do evil, or they simply haven't thought things through. Their thinking process ends at their own four-word slogan.
When you're trying to understand what somebody else is doing, and none of the possibilities you come up with seem to make sense to you...
Maybe you should ask them what Option C is.
C) Allowing a non-profit to bypass all donation limits that are put on any single individual; thus allowing any single individual to call themselves a super-pac and then bypass all donation limits that are put on any single individual; means that single individuals with lots of money have more power than those with less money.
Banding together is not the problem. Giving rich individuals the ability to influence politics by themselves that no poor individual, or even a large group of poor individuals have any chance of matching, is the problem.
..Joe "How High Are You Willing to Jump for My Vote?" Lieberman and a number of pro-business, anti-regulation blue dogs. Passing net-neutrality would not have been a walk in the part, and Obama needed all his political capital to get a watered-down Affordable Care Act passed.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
You don't think labor unions exploit their membership to enrich those in control of them, thus giving them a reason to survive even when there's no actual labor abuses to be solved? The enrichment of labor bosses is old news, and their frequent manufacture of problems to then "solve" is also not a shocker. Unions should be event-driven, not continuously polling. The fact that they're the latter at all is because the people controlling them saw selfish opportunities.
I'm a badge-carrying socialist, but abusive labor union hierarchies are just as sickening as abusive corporate hierarchies. They're one and the same, both controlled by sociopathic scum risen to the top of the pond.
Personally, I don't think any corporation should be able to talk politics
Do you realize that the RNC and DNC are both corporations?
Not really, but I'd be OK with them both shutting up.
emt 377 emt 4
> If I belonged to a union, why should they? Should my Church speak /influence for me? And, frankly, it is the influence part that always comes into play.
That's an interesting point. Thanks. For me, I'm glad I and others can join together and support the EFF in speaking on our behalf on specific issues. You asked why. They can research the details of issues and write more effective, specific proposals, etc far better than each of us can do alone. I happen to think we're better off having subject matter experts negotiating these things, while we support the experts who represent our views. So that's one reason why. The major reason why is because the first amendment says so. It doesn't say "freedom of speech and of the press, unless two people write together. "
The drop in rates was a lot more than 10 to 4. Just a few years before it was 10, it was 43. That's about $2.12 / minute in today's money. That 43 ($2) rate was of course set by regulators. Immediately upon deregulation, the rates dropped to 10, a 75% decrease in rates. As you pointed out, it didn't take long to hit 4. That's a price cut of over 90%.
What's strange is that you point to the huge win for consumers when long distance was DEregulated, and hold that up as a reason to REGULATE isps. You're saying "removing regulation worked great, so let's add new regulation of a similar industry". You've shown why regulation of long distance was a huge mistake - it caused consumers to pay ten times as much as the unregulated rate. So why repeat the mistake with ISPs? You want to pay $500 / month for your internet service?
C> ) Allowing a non-profit to bypass all donation limits that are put on any single individual;
That's doubly false. First, individuals have GREATER freedom to donate. Individuals can donate as much as they want to a super PAC Corporations cannot donate to super PACS. They can _form_ a super PAC, but they can't donate any corporate money to it.
There's only space for one wire to come to your house? Weird. I have quite a few wires connecting to my house.
It's "inefficient" to have two wires to the same house - in EXACTLY the same way that it's inefficient to have two towers covering the same area. Yet, with that inefficiency comes choice and competition. I can, and have, told one cell company to screw off when they didn't provide the best service.
not sure if trolling...
Our system is corrupt from the inside out, and the only way to affect change is through large amounts of money (e.g., this very story). In order to change that system, one must necessarily put together a PAC, even if the change you're going for is to take money out of the system.
Unfortunately, that's not likely to work either. If you look a the
wealth distribution in the US (I'm using 2007 Wikipedia numbers, after
the economy crash, it is should be more unbalanced now), it is too
disparate for this to really work. The top 1% have 34.6% of the
wealth. If you convince the bottom 80% of the population to combat
the top 1%, you'd still lose. That 80% only has 27.1% of the wealth.
As an aside, if you consider that part of the reason wealth works is
advertising, there is also no way you'd be able to convince the bottom
80% to act in unison either. And lets not even consider how much
disposable money the top 1% has compared to the bottom 80%, yikes.
But ignoring all that, lets assume the bottom 90% gets together. They
have 39.1% of the wealth. Sweet, they might actually be able to
compete. Together they have more wealth than the top 1%. Hmm, but
what if we make it the top 5% of the wealthy in the US. They have
61.9% of the wealth. They have more than half the wealth of the
country. The other 95% put together can't compete with money.
Trying to change the Plutocracy with money is almost certainly doomed
to failure. Although, I do hope that can work, because the
alternatives are likely worse.
For the GP, if the Government can be completely controlled by 5% of
its population, it is no longer a Democracy. In this case, it's a
Plutocracy. But pretty much by definiton, that's why Government
controlled by the wealthy is undemocratic.
Its quite ironic that the content providers and Hollywood are soon to make more from online content than selling $20.00 DVD's. By the time you pay your ISP and content provider you might as well have paid top price for movies that you can rewatch for free. Then end of tge free internet his here with the Democrats. This outing of this private comment by Sterling courtesy of TMZ and the so called liberals in Hollywood in concert with the Democrats is as political as to what is hidden. Then there are the lies, "You can keep your health plan." Next comes the end of the free internet with Obama and Hollywood and Silicon Valleys FCC reforms. . Here is another thing that is hidden as Americans will be hit with a carbon tax directly or indirectly after the mid-terms with this activist administration. http://www.foxnews.com/politic...
What makes it bad and undemocratic is when the democratic principle of one-man one-vote is breached because some can contribute vastly more to 'their' PAC than others can to an opposing PAC.
The real issue is that money spent on political speech needs to be heavily regulated. A billionaire should not be able to blanket the TV with misleading advertisements for a month before an election (we also need stronger libel and slander laws). And campaigns should run on public funding alone, with perhaps a small political contribution allowed per person, of say... 100 dollars.