McCain and Limbaugh's Murky Crystal Ball

Should it be a surprise that a guy who doesn't know how to send e-mail can't grasp why the Internet is important?

Sen. John McCain -- known to have never gone online -- led the charge on Capitol Hill this week to strip the Internet from President Obama's economic stimulus package.

McCain joins media blowhards Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs, who in their latest crusade against reality think that connecting Americans to the information superhighway has nothing to do with getting our economy back on track.

Before anyone else jumps on board to trash the Internet, let's set the record straight.

Getting more people connected to broadband is the kind of stimulus that expands education and opportunity, promotes innovation and makes the United States more globally competitive. Among other things expanding broadband could reduce health care costs, help our kids in school, create hundreds of thousands of new jobs and make it easier for citizens take part in our democracy.

Why connecting matters

Building broadband means putting immediately back to work engineers, technicians, equipment manufactures, vendors and construction workers to lay fiber optic cables, raise wireless towers and connect American homes.

And that's just the start. No one who initially developed the Internet ever imagined it would become such a tremendous engine for growth across every sector of the economy. The challenge Americans face in the 21st century is to extend this new prosperity to the tens of millions of Americans who can't get connected.

Real Progress

That's why Candidate Obama made promoting open and affordable high-speed Internet a part of his 2008 campaign. It's why President Obama has made it a cornerstone of his recovery plan.

It's the sort of vision for change that got him elected. And it's vital to our long-term survival that we continue to embrace this idea of real American progress.

Obama's stimulus bill has had a bumpy ride through Senate. While it's on track to be signed by the president next week, the Internet piece of the stimulus has come under assault by a series of broadband bozos.

McCain told Fox News Channel that broadband "had nothing to do" with stimulating the economy. Rush Limbaugh told his listeners he hoped Obama's recovery plan would fail calling such infrastructure spending "far-left collectivism."

And CNN's Lou Dobbs said there was not a lot of "real exacting thinking" about the plan. That's certainly true in regard to Dobbs reporting but not in regard to Obama's vision of a better Internet.

Leaving the Dinosaurs Behind

The Stimulus bill is just a first step - a piece of a much larger puzzle to bring the benefits of broadband to everyone -- which is why we need to work overtime to make sure that this attack on reality doesn't go unanswered.

At Free Press, we're fighting to ensure affordable Internet access is a basic right of every American, and that the Internet fosters free speech and openness at a time when information gatekeepers seek total control.

High-speed Internet is the infrastructure of our time. Passing the stimulus bill is only the beginning of the effort to make the Internet as ubiquitous as electricity, water and highways.

But don't tell that to the old guard of Washington politics and media. Outliers like McCain, Dobbs and Limbaugh can only see their own backwards reflections when they peer into their crystal balls.

We have a choice to make. We can remain stuck in the past while these dinosaurs stand in the way of real progress. Or we can put good ideas ahead of old ideologies and get started on building a new era of American opportunity.

Comments

[BoulderSue]

I am 62 Yoa and learned to use a computer about ten years ago-first for business, then later for personal usage. So, hey you, who wants age limits of 621/2: you must be very young to think that everyone becomes a doddering idiot at that age. I'm of the age that remembers " don't trust anyone over thirty". Foolish! The resistance to entering a new paradigm in society I ascribe to ideology more than age. McCain and people like Sen.Mitch McConnell are, indeed, dinosaurs. Conservatism means, among other things, keeping things as they are, even cowardice in some instances, for fear of an uncertain future and unwillingness to deal with the future (or even the present) in new, inventive and forward looking ways. It's the most frustrating thing about the disagreements between supporters of Obama's visions and those who oppose him. They want "sexy" quick fixes, near term political advantage without considering the fact that we are way down on the list of developed countries in so many areas: health care, infrastructure, the subject at hand. Limbaugh wants the President to fail for good reason: fear of obsolescence if the President succeeds.Some conservatism is desirable: it prevents us from acting recklessly, thoughtlessly, but the kind of conservatism that cannot see the obvious advantages of expanding the Internet, making it available to all, are equivalent to someone unwilling to make telephones, TV and radio available to all. Maybe they are afraid of "too much" democracy!.

[liviapeacock]

I agree with most of your commentary except about needing some conservatism to avoid becomming "reckless:. I would like to remind you that the most reckless administrations in my lifetime were the Bush and Reagan administrations, who spent money like drinken sailers, deregulated the banks and fed big business a steady diet of tax breaks!

If that's not reckless, I don't know what is.

[zest]

HuffPost's Pick

OK we got off McCain's lawn; why's he still yelling at us?

[ThePeacemakers]

Didn't MSNBC play a tape April 23, 2008, McCain on the campaign trail talking about broadband infrascture being a good idea and his proposed "plan"?
Seems like now they're afraid of the internet, because it takes steam out of (but does not totally destroy) the big money lobbyists.

[Rimser]

Isn't it time for a mandatory retirement age for Congress? Say, 65 1/2? Might be time to put these dinosaurs out to pasture.

[BoulderSue]

Rimser: sorry. I meant to say 651/2. But I have an 89 year old father and 84 year old father-in-law who are pretty damn sharp at new things. My Dad learned to x-country ski at age 64 and my father-in-law is as adept at using the Internet as his grandchildren.

[hchriste]

If a man is lying down wounded from a gunshot, one does not pick up the same gun and shoot him again to cure him. Most of the nay sayers are part of the problem and not the solution. The same old tatics, tax breaks to the rich, hasn't worked for eight years probably will not work now.

[kps888]

According to Ray Kurtweil, we have reached the phase where our technology is increasing at an exponential rate, especially our information storage and manipulation capacities.

McCain and the rest of the old white men running the GOP these days are lagging behind at such an alarming rate that they will never catch up, or even understand they are relics of another age.

It is very much like the people at the turn of the last century who believed the "automobile fad" would be over soon, and decided to stick with their horses and buggies, thank you very much.

It is blunt to state, but unfortunately, we are at a phase where we just to to wait them out...you all know what I mean.

[GardenerNorCal]

Why should this surprise any of us? Wasn't it the republican's that sold the analog tv airwaves to private interests, leaving millions of poor and underprivileged without tv reception?

[fedupinfla]

Isn't this the same old goat that had Verizon put a cell tower on his AZ. ranch so he could have better reception?!?

I guess only rich people are entitled to stuff like that huh??

I really wish that old buzzard would shut up. He gives me a migraine.

[IllinoisTexan43]

If it has anything to do with educating people, the republicans will obstruct without fail.

[blood1]

Yeah, okay, we know that these guys are not internet savey...

So who else are afraid of this revelation you ask? Main Stream Media...if everyone had access to ALL the news, instead of that which MSM provides, the American public may actually have sufficient information to make an intelligent decision about what WE need.

How much does anyone learn in a 15sec...or to be generous 2 minute soundbite. Take the Recovery and Reinvestment bill.....there is the soundbite of some attacking the bill with only the soundbite of "Oh My God", no explanation, no anything...how does that help someone who depends on MSM to get their news and "education" about government regulation.

One can only hope that this item will be added back into the legislation. Otherwise, we could interpret this as all of Washington is complicit in maintaining the status quo and ongoing pursuit of the "dumbing down of America".

[DeanSB]

Republicans are the REAL "obstructionists"!!

They're trying to do EVERYTHING they can to DE-RAIL Obama's agenda before anyone has a REAL chance to take part in it.

Now they're trying to ONCE AGAIN exclude the Internet from economic stimulus, based on the word of people like Rush Limbaugh and John McCain, who think that THEY know what's "best" for the country. That is BS if there ever was one!!

I say it's HIGH TIME that the Democrats in Congress should work with Obama, and do what the Republicans (when THEY were the majority in Congress) did...RAM ROD Obama's stimulus bill, INTERNET INCLUDED, through Congress and put it on President Obama's desk in a week or less.

That is what will be REALLY GOOD for our country, for our economy, and for our future!!

[LannyNorth]

Republicans can go to hell, their stale, elite class, tax cut for the rich, borrowing on the credit card and their Chicken Hawk, (Draft Dodging, pimple on the butt 4-F bailout of real fighting) pursuit of war fought by everyone else is disgusting. I shall contribute as much as I have left to defeat them whereever they exist. Let them live on their tax haven carribean island with the ultra rich rip off artists they so fondly love. Leave America to the those that work, know real morality, and do not wear suit coats.

[terramartom]

McCain, we fired you once already?
Ignorance, arrogance, stupidity, intolerance hate, bigotry, racism and fear. Just some of the Republican family values coming to a church near you!

[GMC360]

We don't want the base out there in rural America looking at pr0n ... or, worst yet, getting opposing views that would make them have to think things through for themselves.

[FessorFrink]

Old Man KEEPS yelling at cloud!

[jsgaetano]

"Getting more people connected to broadband is the kind of stimulus that expands education and opportunity, promotes innovation and makes the United States more globally competitive."

Well, duh. Why do you think the Treason Right is trying so hard to stop it?

The right wingers are so close to their dream of a Theofascist police state, they can almost taste it. Had Palin been selected president, we'd be goosestepping already.