Slashdot Mirror
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.
this time Chief of Staff Matthew Berry, speaking at the National Conference of State Legislatures, has endorsed states' right to ban municipal broadband networks
He's endorsed the right of the people in each state to get bent over by massively-corrupt telcos with their monopolistic behaviors - by reinforcing their monopolies - all in the name of a free market (despite the fact that it's anything but).
FTFY.
"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.
A republican FCC shouldn't do anything a democratic one won't like either. Unless they enjoy being hypocrites.
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.
"It’s not hard, then, to imagine a future FCC concluding that taxpayer-funded, municipal broadband projects themselves are barriers to infrastructure investment.
Right, because we've all done so well under the monopoly of Comcast et al. If the private sector can't compete (*cough*strong arm a monopoly*cough*) versus a municipal project then golly-gee maybe there's a lesson to be learned. Not that I expect an evidently corrupt bureaucrat to fathom said lesson.
"The argument is that municipal broadband discourages private investment in broadband communications, that taxpayer-funded projects are barriers to future infrastructure investment."
"Private investment", notably the quite-intentional lack of it, was the barrier to future infrastructure investment, hence the entire raison d'être of municipal broadband in the first place.
Bitch and moan about the stifling of private business opportunities when you actually have a business plan concerning that locale beyond "avoid until February 31st".
Cable companies: begging for cake, (not) choosing it, having it, and eating it all at once.
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.
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...
chutzpah and hypocrisy, go together like a horse
*) Federal government regulating over the desires of State legislatures: Evil! Evil! Evil!
*) State government regulating over the desires of municipal legislatures: Motherhood, Apple Pie and the American Way!
You seem to have completely missed his point, so let me break that long sentence into four short sentences for you:
The is FCC deciding if it has the (unconstitutional) power to decide whether or not municipal broadband is built, disregarding state law.
If the FCC assumes that power, a future FCC chairman would therefore have the power to ban municipal broadband.
That would be bad.
Therefore, don't assume new powers that you wouldn't want your successor to have.
I'm not sure if I agree in this case. I do agree with the general principle- if you acquiesce to Obama assuming new powers, president Jeb Bush will inherit those new powers in a couple years.
Because a city in Utah had already started a system and had it in place, they were able to lease it to Google, which Google did.
If anything, that shows that gov. helping its citizens, and then working businesses, goes MUCH FURTHER, than allowing large business monopolies.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
No, he didn't say everything needs to have bipartisan support. He said that if the FCC assumes a NEW power, the power to override state law and ban or require municipal broadband, the FCC will still have that power when Jeb Bush is president. If you decide that the FCC can choose whether or not muni is built, a different FCC chairman would inherit that power and could ban municipal broadband. Don't assume new powers for yourself if you don't want your successor to have the same power.
That's something I keep in mind. If Palin were president, would I want her administration running the health care industry? If not, I should oppose government run healthcare because we WILL have a president as bad as Palin at some point. Maybe in 2016, maybe in teo years, maybe in six years, maybe in ten years. We will have a horrible president. How much control do I want that crappy president to have over my life?
And simply say "For us to be concerned about a Republican FCC, we would need to believe that it is possible for a Republican to win a presidential election. Given the current climate, that won't happen in your lifetime, Senator"
Don't know if I'm willing to say that yet. The current election cycle seems to be sliding towards the R side taking over the Senate, and there is little chance of them loosing seats in the house. Of course this is the out year of a lame duck president, which generally slides away from the white house's party, but the complexion of what happens totally changes if the Republicans take control in the senate.
How that plays out in 2016 is anybodies guess, except I can tell you that the president and his party will be out of control of more of the optics in Washington, which means that the republicans will control what gets discussed and what issues they deal with. Remember the Democrats invoked the "Nuclear option" and changed the long standing senate rules so the republicans will be able to get bills on the presidents desk, any bill they choose, and strong arm him into making a very public veto or striking concessions. He will either play ball and alienate the Democratic base, or mess things up so badly signing that veto line over and over that the middle will abandon droves. Either way, the next two years won't go well for the democrats. My guess is he will just play golf for the next three years, which will be really bad for his party and alienate the majority the 20 somethings that voted for him. But all this is if the republicans take the senate which is not a foregone conclusion, yet..
You only hope for 2016, is that the Senate doesn't slip away, or that the republicans mess it up so badly nominating their candidate in 2 years that even I won't vote for them. Your only real chance is slipping away so you better hold onto that senate.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
When it comes to granting new powers to the government , that's exactly right. Republicans have been saying tat for decades and Bysh Jr was criticized for taking on new powers, because any new power he assumed would be inherited by Obama or whoever came next.
Looking at poll numbers, Jeb Bush us likely to be elected president in two years. How much power do you want Jeb Bush to have? Any powers you grant Obama will be inherited by J Bush.
Free marketism. It's a fundamentalist religion.
In other news Matthew Berry announced that he was looking forward to taking a highly paid position as VP for Media Obfuscation with a nationwide cable company in the near future.
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.
In a speech in front of the National Conference of State Legislatures, Berry endorsed states' rights
Inflammatory headline aside, that's pretty much the way Republicans think the country should be run. Let States govern themselves, Fed should stay out unless the issue crosses state lines.
the basic concept is this: city governments are appendages of state government, but state governments most definitely are not appendages of the national government.
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.
Government granted monopolies. How does this differ in practice to the current industry created cartels?
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
If the GOP is intent on stopping that, then I guess we should say that the GOP is a barrier to future infrastructure investment. And the solution is to prevent a Republican led anything.
Have gnu, will travel.
But the same term is often used by others to mean a market free of regulation, which is often the opposite.
Not quite. Regulations currently forbid a free market in this case. What they're proposing is regulation to remove regulation, which is a good thing in my opinion (and yes, I'm one of those evil free market libertarians.)
In my opinion, regulation is perhaps the biggest barrier to faster internet connectivity. Not regulation by the federal government, but regulation by the smaller governments. To include but not limited to regulation that forbids community broadband, regulation that says they have to pay absurdly high lease rates to run cabling through conduit, etc.
Don't ever allow the Republicans to say they are opposed to regulation. Quite the opposite; they love regulation.
This has nothing to do with "banning municipal broadband" today, and everything to do with not granting a power at the Fed level that would let a future FCC in 1-2 election cycles do exactly that.
FTFA:
"If the history of American politics teaches us anything, it is that one political party will not remain in power for perpetuity. At some point, to quote Sam Cooke, 'a change is gonna come,'" Berry said. "And that change could come a little more than two years from now. So those who are potential supporters of the current FCC interpreting Section 706 [of the Telecommunications Act] to give the Commission the authority to preempt state laws about municipal broadband should think long and hard about what a future FCC might do with that power."
Arguing that municipal broadband networks could discourage investment by private companies, Berry said, "Itâ(TM)s not hard, then, to imagine a future FCC concluding that taxpayer-funded, municipal broadband projects themselves are barriers to infrastructure investment. So if the current FCC were successful in preempting state and local laws under Section 706, what would stop a future FCC from using Section 706 to forbid states and localities from constructing any future broadband projects? Nothing that I can see."
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
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.
I and a friend, ie. 2 people have built 4 municipal broadband networks on our own for 4 separate townships in New Zealand.
So, no, building broadband networks is not difficult and it's not particularly expensive. The hardest part, in New Zealand, at least, is arranging suitable backhaul connections for the networks. Everything else is just leg work and gumboots.
It's about "state's rights". We used to think it was about local control, the small state versus the big federal government. Now we learn it's about removing all control from things smaller than the state as well. State's rights means they don't want a government with power higher up on the food chain than they are, and no government with power lower on the food chain either.
Your argument can be read as both in favor of the ban on municipal broadband as well as opposed to the ban on municipal broadband. It depends on who you think the "government granted monopolies" are, the ones dominating most of the state where no free market exists or the one at the municipal level brought in as a balance of power.
Municipalities should absolutely have the right to do this. This is the local citizen standing up to the status quo of monopolies. The republicans should be the ones backing this since they often are the ones claiming to support individual freedoms and local control rather than a distant out of touch government.
There are municipal run power and water utilities which very often are cheaper than the big boy competitors and much more reponsive to local needs. The same should be true of municipal cable and broadband. It's either that or a country with no choice but Comcast.
I'm one of those stupid free market libertarians.
FIFY
Whole history of corporate abuse without regulation and you ignore it.
"In my opinion, regulation is perhaps the biggest barrier to faster internet connectivity"
Your opinion is based on what facts? Every high speed internet service in every other country has as much or more regulation then the US.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
These fanatics would make the same arguments for public roads, public right of way, water, power, sewer, heating gas and highway system. They do in fact and have made great headway into those areas, it is to the point where serious discussions happen on the privatization of the air happen without laughter at how ridiculous it is.
It's like pyromaniacs have been given influence over fire safety... not all fire is good, they don't realize it because they are mentally ill. One has to wonder about these fanatic capitalists...
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
"We're not in charge, but we want you to behave as if we were cos' we might well be someday."
The sheer brass balls of his arrogance astounds me.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
I live in the heavily regulated UK and I have a choice of cable from one provider at 152Mbps, FTTC at 78Mbps from about 6 others or normal ADSL2 at around 17Mbps from about 40 others. The infrastructure (with the exception of cable) is run by the former government monopoly which is required by law to sell access to its network to other providers. The barrier to entry is the expense of creating the infrastructure in the first place which would exist even if there was no regulation.
Even worse, this is often corporate giants, which have government granted monopolies in some areas, using their political muscle to block new "utility" companies from serving areas where the corporate giants have refused to serve but want to keep their options open to decide to serve (sans competition) at some unspecified point in the future.
In other words, how dare Random Township try to set up a municipal broadband network to serve their citizens! They should sit back and wait with dial-up only until Comcast, Charter, etc decides they are worthy (read: profitable) enough to get broadband service!
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Free marketism. It's a fundamentalist religion.
He's not advocating for a free market. A free market would allow municipal broadband.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Talk about straw men, a market "free" of regulation is a Wild West Free-For-All in which the biggest conglomerate eventually wins by leveraging control and being able to charge according to how much he controls it and what he has to charge to recover his investment. It makes no difference if a corporation seeking access to a market with limited resources, that must be regulated so that the competitors don't stomp on one another's bandwidth, goes to a duopoly-run Congress and seeks favors to cover up-front risk and then passes his costs to consumers. The result is exactly the same, a cartel, which isn't broken until there is creative destruction. Business people will hold on to even an outmoded infrastructure for as long as they can to recover the capital investment and garner profits. They have to be forced by competition to reinvest in newer technology. Places starting out have the luxury of not having to pay off the sunk cost of managing an existing infrastructure. It doesn't matter if companies seek help from the government to defray their costs or if they arrive at their costs through market maturity, the effect is the same and the players end up behaving in the same way. The political rhetoric hides the universal tendency of human behavior to resist change especially if it devalues an investment, It doesn't matter if the price was set by government or by investors. The result is the same. Someone has to pay.
do you prefer to deal with locals, or the county or the state........ or do you REALLY want to go contact your congressman and hassle with the federal government?
I want the federal government to step in and protect my city or county's ability to build the infrastructure that the people want. That means (in this case) the FCC stepping in and throwing out state regulations prohibiting municipal broadband.
What we want in Seattle should not be dictated by a New York corporation.
Have gnu, will travel.