If Republicans win Congress, then all messaging will no longer be treated equal. Ever again.
If Democrats want to turn out the 18-30 year-old voters, my message to Organizing for America is to text the mobile phone numbers you have from 2008 with a simple message about what is literally about to happen to net neutrality if they stay at home at let Republicans take Congress. For one thing, such a text message will no longer be possible--or, at least, not without paying a high price to do it.
Here's what's cookin':
In January, 2011, the Koch Boys and their rightwing ultra-rich comrades will gather for a secret meeting to discuss what to do with the Congress they just purchased.
First on the agenda: kill and bury net neutrality, the principle that all messages are treated equal, that there are no "fast speed" and "slow speed" lanes based upon one's ability to pay.
Once destroyed, net neutrality can never return. Messaging to return to net neutrality will be routed to the bridge to nowhere. With the news media under corporate control already, you do not even see this issue covered, even by good people like Ed Schultz.
Otherwise, voters, especially those 30 and under who were raised on and expect a neutral internet, would be flocking to the polls.
This is no joke. Invitations to the "Kochs and comrades" meeting have already been sent. [If you didn't get yours yet, let me know. Justices Scalia and Thomas may have a few left over].
A brief note to so-called 'pundits': if the electorate had really soured on progressive policies, just why did Kochs and comrades have to pour one-quarter billion of their inherited money to win? It is not as if the Democrats are adept at political strategy.
The 'pundits' don't get it, but the Kochs and their comrades get it very well. Their self-interests and the interests of 350 million Americans are different. They cannot sustain support for what they want -- no taxes, no regulations, the globalization of labor markets to pressure wages even lower, and unfettered pollution. It's a simple set of goals, but many Americans cannot square that with their own modest savings and jobs and social safety net being demolished by policies the Kochs and comrades want pursued.
They did not make their billions by wasteful spending. Purchasing the Supreme Court was far less expensive than buying Congress (nine lifetime appointees vs 435 two-year stints). And so, carefully grooming a legion of faux-Constitutionalists through the benign-sounding 'Federalist Society' cost chicken feed. (Harriet Myers was hounded by the rightwing when "the smartest man she ever met", George W. Bush, appointed her; the Kochs and their comrades could not be certain of her votes as she was not a card-carrying member of the Federalist Society despite George W's curious 'guarantee' that she would never change).
The reason the rightwing hates war-hero John McCain, and never credited him with his obsession with fiscal conservatism and militarism, is he committed the cardinal sin: he restricted how they spent their money in elections. They went after the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law -- and failed. Finances of the electoral playing field were not leveled, but brought into some balance.
Leveling, balancing--the big-moneyed interests lose. They then must spend all their money on buying individual votes on specific issues(which they did with reasonable success), but were always subject to popular opinion overcoming their largesse and their lies being exposed.
So, first they purchased the Supreme Court.
Step 1: Citizens United, in which the Supreme Court found that the original intent of the Founders was to define Corporations as Persons for purposes of the Free Speech protections of the First Amendment, they just forgot to insert the word. [I had American history in the 5th, 8th, and 11th grades, and never learned that the Founders intended that, but then we did not use history textbooks written for schools in Texas].
Without limitations on corporate spending, and without disclosure of the source (so that those who objected could vote with their feet by not purchasing a company's products), paid advertising overwhelms unpaid speech.
But, a funny thing happened on the way to plutocracy. The internet.
So long as we are still able, we can organize, debunk lies and slanderous claims, and disseminate widely and -- here is what sticks in their craw -- equally. All messaging is treated equal.
Hence, with the first step achieved, the number one item on the "Kochs and comrades" January agenda must be to destroy the last bastion of equality and democracy, the last threat to their power.
Step 2: End Net Neutrality.
With newspapers and magazines in inexorable decline, with one major TV network that has declared itself to be the communications arm of the rightwing, and the others under corporate control, and with the population under 30 getting most of their "news" online anyhow, ending net neutrality will not end the principle of free speech, but it will certainly diminish its value and rig the "market place of ideas".
Couldn't happen in America, you say?
Give Republicans control of Congress, and it is guaranteed.
Young voters, 18-30--the group who will suffer most under such a regime -- can stop them.
But, only if they vote. In large numbers. Like they did in 2008. It didn't really interrupt their lives then. It won't now.
The end of net neutrality -- that will interrupt their lives.
Permanently.
Congress should write a bill that says that faster service can be sold to customers as long as it doesn't interfere with anyone elses use of the internet.
Liberal-Democrats are as miserably anti-American as the RINO's are.
If the majority of Democrat voters would join the anti-RINO, anti-big-cÂorporationÂ, anti-foreiÂgn-governmÂent-citizeÂns,
Tea Party, Conservatives, Republicans, Independents we could rid the US Congress, Whitehouse, and Statehouses, of the traitorousÂ-treasonouÂs-tyrannicÂal; anti-American; leftist-liÂberal-DemoÂcrats and RINO's !!!
The only hope for this country can be found amongst the Conservatives who follow the USC and despise the RINO's as much as they despise the foreign-national, illegal-alÂien-invasiÂon-crime-fÂraud-menacÂe, sanctuary-cities, promoting-ÂsupportingÂ-enablibliÂng-advocatÂe, anti-American, leftist-liÂberals-DemÂocrats !!!
Conservative; RepublicanÂs-IndependÂents-DemocÂrats who are for the USC-States-Rights and the best interests of the people, and who will not serve the self-interests of the big; US, foreign, multi-national corporations and foreign-goÂvernments-Âcitizens, are who we should be voting for !!!
RINO's not ok
Okay, the HuffPo is left leaning. I get it. But that's no reason to abandon quality control.
Or how about the View ?
They already won.
birth control/ reproductive rights
unemployment (higher for 18-34 year-olds than most others)
reform of the university system/student fees
higher minimum wage
public transportation
the environment
gay rights/gender equality
So we are to believe that ISP's won't care about the money they get from consumers anymore? That they would make decisions that their customers didn't like forcing them to pay higher costs or getting slower service? Wouldn't their customers just go elsewhere? Consumers aren't really helpless. So the author believes that we can't trust the market that brought us all the gadgets and stuff that we enjoy today for some nefarious reason so we have to give control over the internet to government that we can trust instead? Good luck selling that steaming pile.
No one is saying give control over to the government, yet somehow you are ready and willing to give total control over to corporations with no regulation.
Net Neutrality is not some "liberal myth". ISP providers have been lobbying congress and the FCC hard for the past 2 years to prevent congress from giving the FCC authority to regulate wireless internet transmissions. This is not some boggieman liberals thought up in San Fran, this is actually happening right now.
This is so they can develop a profit stream of charging OTHER COMPANIES higher premiums to have their content provided to consumers faster than other companies. This will be the end of the Internet as we know it, but you're happy to wallow in your own ignorance.
A key goal of Net Neutrality is the non-discrimination of packets across the backbone.
It's best to use an example; Comcast v BitTorrent. To me that's the best example of a violation of Net Neutrality. Here are some facts. Comcast blocked BitTorrent (the reasons are in dispute, but the reason doesn't matter at this point). The marketplace noticed the blockage. The courts looked at it and found that the FCC could not force Comcast to stop blocking Comcast stopped blocking BitTorrent on its own. No new examples of transport blockage have been identified. Those are the facts.
The marketplace identified the problem and the marketplace fixed the problem. I could go into more detail, but I want to make another point before I run out of space.
Today companies pay higher premiums to have their content provided faster by buying bigger pipes. Isn't that what your are afraid of? Are you suggesting we make every company by the same size pipe? (Pipes here are defined as T1, DS3, OC45, so on).
The key technical point is who's going to do network management, some central planner in D.C. or the marketplace? A central planner is a good idea.
The people must rise and vote to keep net neutrality - for the good of the people. Especially the young, for as it was said many years ago, by Huey Newton, I believe, the young always inherit the revolution.
But Net Neutrality is not one of them. First, both the Dems and the GOP are owned by the same corporate interests and, as we have seen the last couple of years, Dems do not have the ability to do the right thing for the people.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, it is not clear that a non market solution to network management will actually work. If someone comes up with a good suggestion I would be willing to listen. But until that time, if you want to scare young people into voted against the GOP tell them that unless they are careful, Sharon Angle will be making the laws that affect them. Don't scare them with Net Neutrality, because most people have not clue how it would be achieved.
He said not reforming Social Security was his greatest failure from the eight years he served in the White House, the Chicago Tribune reports. In 2005, the president unsuccessfully tried to partially privatize Social Security. NEVER did he try to FORCE people to put their retirement into Wall Street. He would have ALLOWED us to put our retirement into Wall Street or any of a variety of investment vehicles. You ^&$#ing liar.
Maybe if you had a Texas textbook yours would have had a copy of the Constitution, including the First Amendment:
"CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
I capitalized the part that you really need to understand. You see, Citizens United is not about who is and isn't a person, it's about speech, plain and simple. Congress cannot abridge ANY SPEECH, be it from a corporation, union, or person. Can you understand that? It protects even your pointless tripe.
You should not lob such stones as your glass house will crumble. You suggest that conservatives are ethically illiterate (whatever the heck that means) and impugn me as someone who needs to feel superior? Physician, heal thyself.
Imagine that--people resenting a restriction on their First Amendment rights. So simple you don't have to be a physician to understand it.