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Net Neutrality Is 'Marxist,' According To a Koch-Backed Astroturf Group
Jason Koebler (3528235) writes American Commitment, a conservative group with strong ties to the Koch brothers has been bombarding inboxes with emails filled with disinformation and fearmongering in an attempt to start a "grassroots" campaign to kill net neutrality — at one point suggesting that "Marxists" think that preserving net neutrality is a good idea. American Commitment president Phil Kerpen suggests that reclassifying the internet as a public utility is the "first step in the fight to destroy American capitalism altogether" and says that the FCC is plotting a "federal Internet takeover," a move that "sounds more like a story coming out of China or Russia."
About paying for open, unfettered access, and having some bean counter with an agenda decide what you can ACTUALLY see?
And Marxism fails because it view labor as something nobody really wants to do, and ignores transportation, distribution and associated concerns as necessary evils.
Here, the last-mile providers are acting like Marxists. They see only this big customer base of theirs as having any intrinsic worth.
Never mind that if they don't provide unfettered access, and don't manage to stifle all competition, they won't continue to HAVE that kind of customer base.
Net neutrality is about being able to use the internet connection you pay for, for any purpose that suits you (with nods towards the concept of "legal activity" of course) without having your traffic interfered with.
Net neutrality is about preventing illegal censorship.
Net neutrality is about protecting you from unscrupulous business practices by major (and minor) providers of both the transport and last-mile variety.
So screw the Koch Brothers and their idiot shilling.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Have you Americans *still* not gotten over this whole Marxist/Communist/Socialist = EVIL thing yet? Your government really did a good job with the propaganda during the Cold War it seems.
Net Neutrality Is 'Marxist,' According To a Koch-Backed Astroturf Group
No, net neutrality is not Marxist. Net neutrality is very much a capitalist policy, as distinct from being a corporatist policy.
Marxists think net neutrality is good, therefore net neutrality is bad.
You know what... Marxists think breathing is good, therefore breathing is bad also?
Such arguments are never valid.
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Kochs aren't worried about capitalism which is a system of exchange. They are worried about not being able to their own profits in the short term. As extractive industries they want to buy protection from other advocates with environmental views by starving them out of the discussion! Here's the problem. Capitalism (market economies) only works if there is a fair balance of power among the buyers and the sellers. That other thing that the Kochs are protecting is oligarchy--rule by the wealthy.
Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
You know nothing about Marxism. First learn what it ACTUALLY says, THEN you can try to critique it.
Net Neutrality bears no RESEMBLENCE to what you are describing in your post: it is simply an injunction that customers should get what they are PAYING for - which is unfettered access to the ENTIRE internet. Painting it as anything else is a lie.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Calling something "Marxist" seems like an attempt to make further discussion unnecessary, comparable when in more civilised countries something is called "fascist". And calling someone who pleads for unbrideled capitalism as |leading to American situations" is also supposed to cut off further discussion, as no sane person wants that to happen.
The Koch brothers, what a couple of douche bags.
How stupid do you have to be to read this sort of thing and say "oh yeah, good point". I mean, if you see "public utility" and "Marxist" being joined together, do you think "hmm... yes, I see what you mean", or do you think "hang on, but aren't the electrical grid, water, gas, roads and other things public utilities? We're not in a marxist state, so what's one more utility to worry about?".
They certainly are — thanks to the monopoly-power once given to them by the government.
The solution to this, however, is not creating more rules for them to follow (with more boards and commissions to — ineffectively — ensure compliance) — these only make it harder for a would-be newcomers to appear — but to make this market properly competitive.
While the public anger is (somewhat clumsily, but still effectively) once again redirected against the Koch Brothers, "Big Cable" donates to the ruling party en masse, CEOs play golf with the President and otherwise do the ruling party's bidding. Is it likely, that further monopolization will be blocked?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Rather than say Net Neutrality, which is ambiguous and a bit high high minded, call it what it really is. It is protecting from ISP double dipping. As an industry (in the USA and Canada), it is already a bloated spider feasting parasitically on society, as seen by the overwhelming consumer hatred of those companies, which somehow manage to stay in business... (I am saying rhetorically, I know how).
What they want to do, is have the ability to not only charge the consumer of media, but also the producer. It is like a perfect fucking storm of profit! As the middle man just skimming money off everyone involved. The problem is, I as the consumer have already paid for my damn service. If I plan on using it to only access simple webpages or if I plan on streaming Netflix all day everyday, that is my right, and I pay for the privilege of doing so. We have all moved to the damn CAP system already, so if I consume more than Granny Twinkles, I PAY for it. However now they want to take my service, which I already pay for, and say well since so much is going to Netflix, we want to change them more money, and if they refuse, slow the connection.... to the consumer, who has already damn well paid for the service in the first place. Or conversely if the company pays the extortion, they will simply pass the cost onto the consumer, so either way, the consumer is going to pay or get less service no matter what happens.
Anyway it is rapacious greed pure and simple, it is double dipping, it is wrong. These companies already have too many advantages, and constantly abuse both the system and their customers every chance they get for more profits. The reason the folks like Koch and the rest like it is they have money to gain, and the vast population has money to lose. This is not ideological (all this crap about Marxism etc...), but some idiots will think it is, and support idea, even though it is by far not in their best interests to do so. The republicans/conservatives have been playing the same shell game for years, where a large chunk of their support comes from these uninformed ideological idiots who are voting against themselves over and over again based on some fictional ideal, that doesn't even apply or even make sense given a situation. However using whatever media (and if your name is Koch, and in the USA) you have plenty of media to abuse, to convince the people to accept whatever snake oil you are selling...
After reading this, please let me know what would be so awful about 100% toll roads.
All roads are already toll roads, in that their maintenance is paid for by gas taxes. What would be so awful about that money going to an efficient enterprise, as opposed to an inefficient bureaucracy?
Toll and tax are distinct. Also, not all enterprises are efficient and not all governments are bureaucratic.