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FCC Warned Not To Take Actions a Republican-Led FCC Would Dislike
tlhIngan writes Municipal broadband is in the news again — this time Chief of Staff Matthew Berry, speaking at the National Conference of State Legislatures, has endorsed states' right to ban municipal broadband networks and warned the (Democrat-led) FCC to not do anything that a future Republican led FCC would dislike. The argument is that municipal broadband discourages private investment in broadband communications, that taxpayer-funded projects are barriers to future infrastructure investment.
"Don't you dare serve the people, you shall only serve the corporations!"
J
While they're at it state and federal funded roads compete unfairly with privately funded toll roads. Better do something about that.
So according to this guy, we should never make laws or decisions that don't have complete bi-partisan support because the other side will try to repeal it. How would anything get done? At that, we wouldn't have any laws at all. Did he even listen to what he said?
I swear, man. Congresscritters sound more like whiny children every day. This is the epitome of politicians' refusal to compromise on anything. The general intelligence of people in politics must steadily be dropping. They better stay where they are because they sure can't do anything else.
Do you get to vote in or out the Comcast ceo like you get to do with the city mayor ?
Why do they play and say talk about a "Republican led FCC" instead of just saying they don't want the FCC to do anything that might mean the least inconvenience for Comcast and AT&T's complete takeover of the Internet?
I mean, for chrissake, Barack Obama, the marxest marxist who ever marxed, appointed goddamn Tom Wheeler, a former cable executive to be chairman of the FCC. Are they disappointed that the chairman of the FCC isn't just Brian Roberts, the CEO of Comcast?
Fucking corporatists. They're not even trying to hide their evil agenda any more. We need another president like Taft or Teddy Roosevelt to just scare the living shit out of big corporations. It's the only way to make them behave. The Clayton Act and other anti-trust legislation ushered in the most productive and prosperous era in US history, and now these sleazy fucks want to take us all the way back to the age of robber barons where young women got burned up in shirt factory fires. Now we've got pussy-ass Barack Obama and Eric Holder who shake with fear every time a CEO so much as looks cross at them. Now, a company breaks the law and the justice department fines them with one hand and passes them the money to pay the fine with the other hand (Citicorp, Goldman Sachs, et al). Two parties, one is completely terrified of the corporatists and the other's got their nose up the corporatists ass. No, they're not the same, but the outcome is the same.
Seriously, there needs to be a goddamn revolution in this country. I'll get behind it 100% as long as it's finished by the start of football season because I'm totally gonna take my fantasy league this year. Or maybe we can just not have the revolution on Sundays or Monday nights. Didn't they used to do that in wars? Take Sunday morning off so everyone could go to church and pray that God help them butcher the other side? Something's got to be done, I tell you. Start the revolution right now while it's still pre-season.
At least, thank god, we get another chance in 2016. Yeah, I know, anybody who gets the nomination from either party is going to be a corporatist, but if I don't hold out some faint hope that something will change, I'll just go shoot myself, and I can't do that because, like I said, I'm going to own fantasy football this year. But, (and thank God for small favors) I won't be enriching Comcast while I do it.
You are welcome on my lawn.
By framing the narrative this way the public can be polarized around trivial issues; divide and conquer.
Implying that a a left-wing or democrat controlled FCC would behave differently is misleading -- they are all beholden to the same powerful business interests who play both sides so that they are certain to have the winner in their pocket.
Warning the FCC to not do anything 'anti-republican' is just re-enforcing the imaginary division between left and right in our minds. It doesn't exist. There are only global supra-national corporations and people. Everything else is an intentional distraction.
Besides the corrupt global monetary system, the single most important issue that has allowed us to be reduced to abject serfdom is that corporations are considered persons under the law, which is a development of the last 125 years in the US. This allows management and ownership to escape personal liability for any actions of the organization under his or her control.
Because corps are able to vote with their huge dollars your small dollars are irrelevant -- as are your wants and needs.
Focus on that. Thinking Left/Right is just wasting your time.
In other words, he's being a Republican.
No you jackass. He's being a politician.
Republican, Democrat, WHATEVER, they're all saying the same thing to you (whatever they think will make you vote for them) now, and doing whatever the fuck they can to maximize benefit to their personal pocket book later.
If you think this is somehow mitigated by party affiliation, you REALLY need to stop abusing your prescriptions and hike your way out of fantasy land.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Jesus - the hyperbolic circle jerking.. sigh.. Could we get any more f#cking stupid here?
His point is that this should be viewed as beyond the authority of the FCC by both sides; that a bureaucratic panel doesn't have the power to tell individual states how to regulate themselves; and doing so will open a Pandora's box. He illustrates his point by citing SCOTUS precedence, and hypothesizes what sort of dramatic swings would be possible with that power.
Everyone loves HHS - but they forget (let me make his point in a different way) the HHS could effectively slash Abortion coverage at will by simply saying Insurance can't cover it. That's what it's dangerous to give so much power to one position; especially a politically appointed one.
Christ - His biggest mistake, apparently, is forgetting to dumb down his point and talk like everyone is 12.
IMHO, the FCC should just declare ISPs common carriers as a start; then recommend to Congress a law that says the individual citizens have a right to assembly, even in the form of a municipality, and establish publicly held utility services.
Then, it could go back to SCOTUS or whatever.
/me sips his coffee and ponders a new sig...
This has nothing to do with "free marketism", unless you're in the market for strawmen. This is the opposite.
Do you think most towns can just stand up a muni broadband network on their own? No - they're going to hire some company to build and run their MAN, just the way that many utilities work.
This is existing corporate giants, which have government granted monopolies in many areas (the polar opposite of free marketism), using their political muscle to block competition from new "utility" companies who would be stealing their business.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
This has nothing to do with "free marketism", unless you're in the market for strawmen. This is the opposite.
The problem is that the term "free market" is used to mean two completely different things. It is used by economists to mean a market free of barriers to competition. But the same term is often used by others to mean a market free of regulation, which is often the opposite. In this case, the Republicans are opposed to regulations that would make the market more competitive, so they are using free market rhetoric to oppose free market competition. This is a shameful stance for them to take, and goes against the very principles they claim to stand for.