Posted on 07/11/2011 8:25:08 AM PDT by Halfmanhalfamazing
But I’ve learned, by participating in over a decade of specific media struggles, that when you are in the short-term and you are fighting to win, sometimes you make tactical alliances. You don’t sacrifice your principles and embrace someone else’s lame political agenda. If you want to win public credibility and advance a progressive media agenda that actually has a broad impact, this is what you do. That is how politics works. Most progressives understand this. But there is always going to be those who say: “here is a checklist of seven-hundred points that we think reflect the ideological foundations of the Left today. And everyone we work with is going to have to agree to all seven-hundred points or they are our enemies.” This old approach to politics is paralyzing. You will never ever, in any circumstance, win any struggle at any time. That being said, we have a long way to go. At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.
(Excerpt) Read more at socialistproject.ca ...
Not hardly. That is a link to an article in The Nation two years ago that was penned by Robert McChesney, who is the Keeper of the Flame for the Marxists regarding government control of all information distribution. You have to read his stuff to find out what their ultimate plan is. He's not at all shy about his goals, like most all Marxists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._McChesney
——————Here is how I understand the concept of Net Neutrality:——————
Yeah. That’s how they sell it. The problem is everything underneath the hood points in a completely different direction.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2736502/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2735662/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2733953/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2713730/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2729438/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2711488/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2699462/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2699677/posts
Sorry if this seems overwhelming, but they are making it complex on purpose. You’ll see what I mean as you read.
These people do not understand freedom. There’s no logic in thinking they can defend it.
Thanks for the in depth information. (I know that for me)It’s sometimes easy to forget that there are more people reading than who actually post.
Allocation of scarce bandwidth is what government is about in the ‘net neutrality’ scam. Think allocation of broadcast spectrum since radio was invented.
The antidote to that is more bandwidth to alleviate the scarcity. To do that private capital must be employed to build more capacity. And for capital to flow toward its best use, the market must not be government controlled.
LOL! Okay, didn’t think so. I saw the link to The Nation, and said to myself “I can’t soil my browser there...”
You are correct. The committed Marxists are not at all shy about their goals.
The ones running for office have to be more coy, but it only means you really need to just LISTEN to them. They say what they mean in moments of weakness or when they think nobody is listening. You just have to listen.
Interesting: I don’t watch television, but I walk by one as my wife has it on, and on the evening news that last few times I have walked by, they have been discussing the “crisis” of the debt limit.
Without fail, they are all saying the crisis is if the debt limit is not raised. Not a single, solitary one I saw even mentioned the problems with raising it. They are trying to whip people up into a frenzy of anxiety.
I understand the nature of obfuscation by people who want to deprive you of liberty is to make the legislation so impossible to understand that you throw your hands up in frustration and begin to analyze it on an emotional level.
Hello, Obamacare?
I was one of the only people I know of who of (except for a few freepers) who actually delved into the heart of the bill to see exactly what it meant to do at a nuts and bolts level. I felt somewhat qualified to at least do that, because part of my job involves billing for radiological studes. But I only focused in on those parts I had any expertise on. This looks like the same type of thing.
But thanks for the links...
By the way, I apologize that I didn’t click on the link before I asked you that...but I couldn’t do it. I know of this guy McChesney. I cannot stomach any of it. My apologies...
McChesney is the go-to guy for the Marxists when it comes to telecommunications/information distribution theory and practice.
He is one of the most dangerous characters of the left now alive. Much as Patton studied Rommel to learn his tactics, we should study McChesney.
I know. I forced myself to read “Rules for Radicals” for the same reason.
Ugh.
This destroys the historical nature of the Internet, the very thing that led to the astronomical growth of the Internet and the commerce conducted using it. Think of the next Skype or Netflix trying to succeed in an Internet that requires payment to an ISP in order to access that ISP's customers. They wouldn't exist. The small startups could never grow as they once did because they wouldn't have the money to pay a dozen ISPs. Think Free Republic starting up 13 years ago, having to use their non-existent budget to pay all the ISPs instead of just their own.
The payment structure of the Internet is that content providers pay their ISPs and customers pay their ISPs. The consumer ISPs want to double-collect, make the content providers pay them too. Net neutrality doesn't mean asking for something for free, it means you pay for full Internet access, not hindered, not cabelized. It's free as in speech, not as in beer.
Like the phone system, they're a common carrier (in principle, if not in legal status). But like the phone system, common carrier is a protection as well as a restriction. Since they have no control over who people talk to, they take no responsibility for crimes arranged or committed on the Internet either.
The Internet belongs to everyone, not Company A and not Company X. They should not be allowed to prioritize traffic to maximize their profit or product effectiveness, they should grant equal traffic (packet) priority to all uses.
Generally right except for this. The Internet has extremely diverse ownership of its parts, neutrality does not mean nationalization. Some of this is actually a fight between the Tier 1 network providers and the ISPs, other parts are a fight between all of the content providers (including the Christian Coalition) and the ISPs. When you look at who is on who's side, note that it's almost all businesses against those few telcos that provide consumer ISP service. I think Cisco is on their side, since they would be selling the Deep Packet Inspection routers that allow the ISPs to control who you communicate with and how. You will find some other groups opposing net neutrality though, most of which have been paid off by the telcos in their astroturf campaign.
Some people call for absolute neutrality of traffic flow; however, the proposals that have gotten anywhere always included language recognizing the need for prioritizing in the normal course of network management. Email has no need for low latency, so an email packet can be put on hold for a second to make sure the VOIP packets get through so a conversation isn't broken, or so gaming packets get through so somebody's online game response isn't jerky. This provides better service overall and improves the effectiveness of the network hardware. The problem is that the same exact equipment that does this also can be used to kill net neutrality, a change in the settings being the difference.
It would help if you didn't misrepresent net neutrality. The need exists regardless of bandwidth. The attempt to destroy it only uses "scarce bandwidth" as an excuse to throw up tollbooths on the Internet and cabelize it even when bandwidth isn't scarce. ISPs already get paid a lot of money by their subscribers to build out their networks, and they receive tax breaks, subsidies and grants to do it too.
Here's the difference: If you actually read the FCC rules and the proposed bills on net neutrality as I have, you will see none of the conspiracy for an Internet takeover you're hearing about. There will be no fairness doctrine, no equal time, no universal service or free Internet service (note the two are different), no censorship, no nationalization. Those issues are being championed by their proponents separately.
It's like the "Internet kill switch" bill everybody was screaming about a while back. I read it and saw no kill switch. I have asked people here several times to point out the kill switch provision, thinking maybe it does exist and I just didn't catch it, but nobody has pointed it out yet. I'm assuming it doesn't exist and all of this is just conspiracy theory hype.
We really are in conspiracy theory territory on this. The only people who aren't are the telcos, who just want to kill net neutrality so they can hold their customers captive and squeeze more profit out of them ("You wanna do business with my customers, you gotta pay up!"). The others are the corporate loyalists, nothing they do can ever be bad for this country, all hail our corporate overlords.
ping for after work
Actually, I was talking about the Obamacare bill. I don’t doubt that this bill was written in similar fashion, to completely confuse the issue so that the high priests of the issue (at the government level) can work through non-knowledge channels to pass or block legislation while the rest of us tear our hair and gnash our teeth in frustration trying to figure out the arcane bureaucratese found in those bills.
I don’t doubt it, but haven’t looked...
The bills were much shorter and simpler than the rules the FCC came out with. No confusion, short and sweet, preserve the basic fundamentals of net neutrality. The FCC rules added a lot of administrative fluff around the basics, and added exemptions. Even in the latest order most of it is explanation and history, only a little bit of the whole thing is the actual order part.
I stipulate instantly that this is self-conscious leftism., it is, however, in a real sense naive self-conscious leftism.We can seize the policy-making process to democratize and develop a vibrant journalism. We need quality journalism if we want to govern our own lives.There is a great deal to agree with in the above. But what FReeper is ready to concede that a level free-speech playing field would favor "a marked shift to the political Left?" There he is, with an ideology which is centered on notions which make great "the sky is falling!" copy which inherently makes money for monopoly Associated Press journalism - and he actually believes that the press monopoly is skewed against leftism!!The last thing we want to do, however, is rebuild the old media system. We are moving ahead toward a new kind of journalism. We are struggling for a journalism that incorporates the new media technologies so as to greatly democratize, open up, and make more accountable, the public information system. We want to democratize the media system so that people without property can play a much larger role in the media and in political life. The result of such democratization will, in my view, be a marked shift to the political Left. I might be wrong. Maybe the great majority of the people will decide they want 1% or 2% of the population to own everything. But in a fair debate, I don’t think that would happen.
TM: Me neither. But the proposal for new democratic media policies is attacked by neoliberal pundits, who often argue: “if you allow the state to save journalism, you will have totalitarianism!,” “State interventionism in the media is undemocratic!”, “Press freedom will be threatened.” What is your response to these kinds of statements, echoed by the mainstream media?
RM: If you look at the actual history of the relationship between the U.S. state and the U.S. media, you are faced with the question: was Thomas Jefferson the first Stalin? Was James Madison a Hitler? No, the “founding fathers” self-consciously established enlightened media subsidies to develop the media system, not to censor freedom of speech. These guys’ subsidies were content neutral. Postal subsidies were implemented to make mailing a newspaper virtually free. This applied to every newspaper, regardless of the political content. This is the kind of subsidy we are talking about. We are not intent on giving some elite in government the power to go into a newsroom and tell the publisher what to do and what not to do.
. . . I want a thousand I.F. Stones, combing Washington and Wall Street, investigating power.
TM: Can a blogger do this?
RM: To do this well, they would need a decent salary, professional training, and a newsroom to protect them from the powerful. They would need much more time. If I work at an office or a factory all day, go home, feed my kids and make their lunch for the next day, clean the house and do the laundry, and then sit down to blog at 11pm, it is going to suck. What people can do, though, let’s say if they’ve studied some economics and become really interested in economic issues, is this. They can actively search for, collect and read numerous pieces by journalists on the economy. They can compare different points of view, fact-check, and scrutinize sources. Then they can blog on all of this. They can actively participate in the media debate. But this does not mean trained journalists are no longer important. I view the blogosphere (the part-time or volunteer citizen-journalist) as a number of musicians improvising on a melody written by journalists. Bloggers may contribute to the melody in interesting ways. But without journalism, there is just a lot of noise. Journalism should be there to make sure that blogging is not just a lot of noise, but a beautiful song.
He is exactly correct in saying that we do have a press monopoly - but it is one which inherently promotes Big Government because that is the planted axiom of its preference for talk over action and the critic over the actor. Leftism is pure second guessing of the people who actually do things and, carried to the extreme, promotes the rule of the perfectly ignorant (B. Obama, poster boy) over those who have actual expertise and experience in their own field. And there are actually socialists who believe that socialism will work as advertised the next time it's tried!!
Who wants those toll booths?
FCC Wants to Regulate Internet's 'On/Off Ramps,' Commissioner Says
There is a descriptor for a regulation at an on/off ramp. It's called a toll booth.
——————I stipulate instantly that this is self-conscious leftism., it is, however, in a real sense naive self-conscious leftism.———
With as long as McChesney has been at this, I contend that he knows exactly what he’s doing. But accidental, idealistic, or malicious, the end result is the same. We must oppose everybody who is taking him at face value and implementing his goals.
——————There is a great deal to agree with in the above. But what FReeper is ready to concede that a level free-speech playing field would favor “a marked shift to the political Left?”————————
There are a handful.
-————There he is, with an ideology which is centered on notions which make great “the sky is falling!” copy which inherently makes money for monopoly Associated Press journalism - and he actually believes that the press monopoly is skewed against leftism!!-———
RM does the exact same thing with the internet. The argument is a ‘sky is falling’ copy that the ISPs are out to get everybody. And in a handful of instances, the ISPs have certainly gone overboard. There’s no defending the indefensible: ISPs.
But everything about McChesney and everybody around him. Including the FCC, *ESPECIALLY* the FCC, because they are the ones who give it legs, are the greater threat. Way greater of a threat than any ISP could ever be.
-————He is exactly correct in saying that we do have a press monopoly - but it is one which inherently promotes Big Government because that is the planted axiom of its preference for talk over action and the critic over the actor.-——————
And in typical radicalist fashion, it’s not left enough. But the real dangerous part is that he seeks to solidify it beyond the reach of all of us by using the police power of government.
I’m glad people are reading this. When these leftists speak in behind closed doors settings, or when they think they’re in a crowd/setting that won’t be heard outside a specific crowd, that’s when they become much more honest.
You tried this lie before. Didn't work then, won't work now.
I can't remember, was this their statements that I'm supposed to believe, or that I'm supposed to think is misdirection from the conspiracy? It's so hard to keep track these days.
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